Berakhot 085

1:
The Gemara notes [Berakhot 28b] that in fact there are Nineteen berakhot, not eighteen. The Amora of Eretz-Israel, Rabbi Levi, identifies the added berakhah as being that which starts with the Hebrew word ve-la-malshinim and which is catalogued as Birkat ha-Minim [the berakhah against sectarians].

2:
The sectarians referred to here are, in fact, the Jewish Christians who were gradually emerging during the first century. We know from several sources that Rabban Gamli'el was determined that Jews who accepted Jesus of Nazareth as Mashiaĥ [Messiah] should have no place among the Jewish people. This was no small problem, since these Jews frequented the synagogues and the Bet Midrash and their ritual behaviour was entirely Jewish: it was only in this one matter of belief that they differed from all the other Jews; there was nothing to stop them being cantors in the synagogues and even teachers. Rabban Gamli'el, you will recall, was President of the Sanhedrin in Yavneh during the last quarter of the first century (thus the emergent Christianity was only about fifty years old); and he decided that the best – possibly the only – way to get these sectarians out of the Jewish people was to institute a berakhah in the Amidah that they could not possibly bring themselves to utter. The Gemara [Berakhot 28b] states that "Rabban Gamli'el had asked the sages, 'Is there someone who can formulate a blessing against the sectarians?' Shemuel ha-Katan arose and formulated it."

3:
The text of Birkat ha-Minim as it now stands in our prayer-books is not exactly that formulated by Shemuel ha-Katan, dozens of generations since having remolded it, each to its own unpleasant experiences. It will perhaps be easier for us to understand how this innovation was intended to work if I quote a version of this berakhah that was current in Eretz-Israel and was discovered at the end of the Nineteenth century in the Cairo Genizah:-

4:
Before we move on I think that it might be appropriate to bring just one story about the unceasing efforts of Rabban Gamli'el to ostracize the Nazarenes – and also to illustrate their methods. This particular story also happens to contain a direct (and accurate) quotation from the New Testament. This translation is based on the text in the Munich manuscript – in other words a text of the Gemara uncensored by the Medieval Church. This story also contains a wickedly witty play on words: that which I have rendered Evangelion is in the Gemara [Shabbat 116b] quoted as Avon Gilayon – an obvious play on words; the Hebrew means "Document of Sin" whereas the Greek word "Evangelion" actually means Gospel:-

Thus far the story of the fight of Rabban Gamli'el against the Nazarenes.

To be continued.