Berakhot 134

1:
In the Talmud the first two mishnayot of chapter seven are treated as one, which format we also followed. That is why the mishnah quoted above is referred to as the third mishnah of this chapter.

2:
Most of the halakhah in this long and involved mishnah is now obsolete. It seems to me that even in mishnaic times it was not actually put into practice, but that we have here an exercise in pious "oneupmanship". For surely at no conceivable gathering where – for instance – ten thousand people had dined together would a count be made to see whether there were ten thousand present or ten thousand and one! The Shulĥan Arukh [Oraĥ Ĥayyim 192:1] sets the halakhah as now followed: three to nine people use the first formula and ten or more use the formula that adds the Divine name.

To be continued.

Rémy Landau writes:

On occasion I participate in a study session during the 3rd Shabbat meal in which the leader of the birkat will first ask "How many have washed?" (ie their hands before the meal). Apparently the number of affirmative responses influences the particular form of the opening 3 or 4 responses to the invitation to "bentsch". I've never quite understood this need to count when there are obviously more than the 3 males present. Would you be able to suggest a reason?

I respond:

Washing one's hands before eating bread is a halakhic requirement that is rigorously applied. The berakhah ha-motzi should not be recited by someone who has not washed their hands, and even if they respond to the berakhah of someone else who has washed their hands this will not avail them from the halakhic point of view. Thus, someone who has not washed their hands cannot be counted in the quorum for zimmun. In view of what we have learned in today's mishnah, it is possible that the leader you are speaking of wants to ascertain either that there are three people present who did wash or whether or not there are ten people present who washed – in which case the word Eloheynu is added to the zimmun formula.

In Berakhot 133 I explained that amounts of food in rabbinic parlance are measured in terms of other items: olive's bulk [ke-zayit] egg's bulk [ke-beytzah] and so forth. Modern poskim have tried to give these terms modern equivalents, but there is considerable disagreement. Let's say that a "ke-zayit" is something in the region of 25 to 30 cc [about one ounce].

Reuven Boxman writes:

I have heard and marveled at these modern equivalents for some time, as they seemed grossly exaggerated to me. Your shiur today prompted me to actually measure. I used the water displacement method for #1 and #2 eggs, and measured 61 and 46 cc respectively. The only olives I had on hand were Beit HaShita pitted green olives. Because they were pitted I couldn't use the displacement method, but the olive only reached the 5 cc marker on a Kupat Holim medicine measurement cup, thus this is an upper limit to its volume. My estimate is that its more likely 3-4 cc. Thus the rabbinic model of an olive (>25 cc) must have been a super-olive! If an olive was a perfect sphere, its radius would need to be 1.8 cm, and thus an olive shaped olive would need to be longer than 3.6 cm. If an egg and an olive had the same profile, than a rabbinic olive would need to be 74% of the length of a #1 Israeli egg (6 cm), or 4.5 cm long. So now my question is, on what basis did the modern poskim arrive at their figures? Did they figure that ancient agriculture was more successful than modern? Perhaps the poskim lived in a land of super-olives, i.e. olives almost the size of eggs? Or did they not know geometry? Or are they using a safety factor to build a fence around the torah?

I respond:

Many have noticed the problem that Reuven has described so clearly. My response is my own and not based on the explanations given by others – which seem to me to be rather forced (such as the "super-olive" posited by Reuven. Since my response is my own it is to be seen as purely academic with no halakhic implications whatsoever.

Despite the fact that biblical and rabbinic measurements seem to be based on the human body, there was a definite system of correlation between them all – length, area, volume, weight. The basic unit of measurement is the "finger", which indicates the breadth of the thumb at its knuckle. Then there is the "span" which indicates the distance between the thumb and the little finger when the hand is spread to its greatest capacity. The "cubit" measures the distance from the elbow to the furthest extremity of the middle finger. As far as correlation is concerned: there are 24 "fingers" in a "cubit". (To me it is clear that there are two stages in development here, but we can accept this just as we accept today that there are 12 "inches" in a foot – a standard foot, not your own private foot.)

Thus the most basic unit of all measurement is the "finger", but let us refer to the "cubit" for the sake of our discussion. The minimum volume of water in a mikveh is set at 1 cubit by one cubit by three cubits high (three cubic cubits), and this is to enable a person to stand upright and be completely covered by the water. All other measurements of volume are derived from this capacity. Later on there was a discussion as to whether the height of three cubits included the head or not. This is a clear indication that the basic measurement – the expected height of an average human being – had gone awry. We are gradually getting taller. Even since the middle ages only we can see the difference: one can see in European museums (such as the Tower of London) suits of armour that even some healthy teenagers would not be able to get into nowadays that belonged in their time to fully developed men of battle!

Thus, if we maintain the cubit at its "standard" measurement (more or less the equivalent of 48 centimetres) we would find an expected height for the average human being at around 144 centimetres (four foot eight and one half inches)! We are gradually getting taller – but eggs and olives are not gradually getting bigger in proportion, and thus the whole system of intercorrelation breaks down – as Reuven has discovered.