Berakhot 127

Today's shiur is dedicated by Reuven Boxman
to the memory of his mother, Freda Anna Boxman z"l,
on the occasion of her Yahrzeit.

The reisha [first section] of our mishnah distinguishes between two situations, which in the original Hebrew is represented by two verbs. I have rendered these two verbs into English based on the explanation of the Gemara [Berakhot 42b]. The first verb is the simple verb "to sit" [down to eat]; the second verb represents the Roman custom of reclining on couches to dine formally. (This is the term which appears in Mah Nishtanah at the Seder service and which is usually mistranslated as "we all lean".) It was the regular rabbinic designation for a formal supper, as it is in our present context. The Gemara makes the distinction between the two verbs clear by recounting a most touching story. [Most of the biographical information which follows was first given in Berakhot 115. One of the giants of Babylonian Jewry in the Talmudic period was Rav. His real name was Rabbi Abba ben-Ayvo, but he is universally known by the sobriquet Rav. He had been a prize student of Rabbi Yehudah the President of the Sanhedrin in Eretz-Israel – who was the compiler of the Mishnah – but later returned to his native Babylon to establish the first yeshivah in the town of Sura. There he created a revolution in the study of the Oral Torah, that eventually led to the creation of the Talmuds. The "text book" that had been used in the Bet Midrash of Eretz-Israel was obviously the Written Torah which was the basis for the creation and transmission of midrashic expositions and amplifications of that basic text. Rav told his students that the "text book" in his yeshivah would not the the Torah, but the Mishnah of his teacher Rabbi Yehudah (who died in 217 CE). Rav in Sura and his "opposite number", Shemuel who founded a similar yeshivah in the town of Pumbedita, were the driving forces that set the tone and pace for the first generation of Talmudic development in Babylon (about 220-250 CE).] The Gemara now relates that when Rav died [mid third century CE] his students followed his cortége as mourners (and sat shiv'ah for him just as if he had been a close relative). Upon returning from the burial they said to each other, "Let's go and eat bread [the "meal of consolation] by the River Danak". After they had started eating they questioned whether their meal constituted the "sitting" or the "reclining" referred to in our mishnah. Does the mishnah mean "sitting" to be understood literally or does "reclining" mean any eating together that was pre-arranged? They had no answer to this simple question. One of their number, Rav Adda bar-Ahavah, stood up and made a tear of mourning in his clothes in addition to the one already made at the graveside. "Rav has only just died and we discover that we haven't even learned how to recite Grace after Meals properly!" (His criticism was not of the beloved teacher, but of his inept students.) Their problem was solved for them by an old man who told them as we have translated our mishnah above.

To be continued.

David Freidenreich writes:

I had been taught that if one has more than one item of food (without bread or wine), each of which requires a different berakhah, one should eat them and recite the blessings for them in the following order: Mezonot (grain products), Pri ha-Etz (fruit), Pri ha-Adamah (vegetables), She-ha-kol (everything else). Is this correct, and what is the support for this practice?

I respond:

Yes, this is the correct procedure. The order of "importance" of the berakhot is as follows (the you can find the source in the Shulĥan Arukh, Oraĥ Ĥayyim, 202 onwards):

1. Bread and bread products (Ha-motzi)
2. Other products which contain grains (Mezonot)
3. Wine (Gefen)
4. Fruit from trees (Etz)
5. Fruit from the ground (Adamah)
6. Other foodstuffs (She-ha-kol)

Please note that on Shabbat and Yom Tov we deviate from the above order of precedence and recite the berakhah over wine (Kiddush) before the berakhah over bread (Ĥallah). This is the reason why we cover the ĥallot with a cloth until after Kiddush over the wine.