Berakhot 130

1:
Our mishnah is concerned with three discrete topics:

1. What is the Grace after the Seven Species?
2. When, apart from after eating bread, does one recite what we know call Grace after Meals?
3. What is the correct berakhah upon drinking water?

The terms used in our mishnah are not the same as those currant among us today, so let us first explain the terms used. "Three Blessings" refers to what we call "Grace After Meals" – though, now this Grace consists of four berakhot (the last one having been added – according to tradition – in mid 2nd century CE). "Three-in-One" refers to what we now know as Grace after the Seven Species.

2:
In Berakhot 124 we explained that the term "Seven Species" refers to "the seven agricultural products that are the glory of Eretz Israel" [shiv'at ha-minim she-nishtabĥah ba-hen Eretz Israel]. Deuteronomy 8:7-9 reads as follows:-

Rabban Gamli'el sees the reference to bread coming after the reference to wheat and barley in the previous verse as indicating that not only after bread but after all the species mentioned in these verses before the bread the same rule should apply. Just as we recite the "Three Blessings" after eating bread, according to Rabban Gamli'el we should also do so after eating anything made from the other species. His view is a minority view. The majority view is that only after eating bread does one recite the "Three Blessings" [Grace after Meals] and after eating any of the seven other species (or anything made from them) we recite "Three-in-One". (This berakhah may be accessed in Siddur Sim Shalom on page 783 and in the Artscroll Siddur on page 200.) Following the Gemara [Berakhot 44a], and in order to remove all doubt, we can clarify as follows:-

• Before eating bread the berakhah is Ha-motzi and afterwards it is Grace After Meals (the "Three Blessings");
• Before eating anything else made from grain the berakhah is Mezonot and afterwards it is "Three-in-One";
• Before drinking wine the berakhah is Gefen and afterwards it is "Three-in-One";
• Before eating figs, pomegranates, olives and dates the berakhah is Etz and afterwards it is "Three-in-One".

3:
The berakhah is called "Three-in-One" because it does, in fact, encapsulate in one berakhah the contents of the [first] three berakhot of Grace After Meals. The text of the end of this berakhah varies slightly depending on whether the foods eaten do or do not come from Eretz-Israel.

4:
Another berakhah discussed in our mishnah is she-ha-kol, which, you will recall, is the berakhah to be recited over all foodstuffs that do not otherwise have a berakhah of their own. Any foodstuff whose berakhah before eating is she-ha-kol requires another berakhah to be recited after eating. The text of this berakhah can be accessed in Siddur Sim Shalom at the foot of page 784 and in the Artscroll Siddur at the top of page 202.

5:
Rabbi Akiva, in our mishnah, is also in a minority. Whereas the sages reserve Grace After Meals only for a meal that includes bread, Rabbi Akiva does not forget his own origins. While he might now be very comfortably off, in his youth (both before and after he became a religious person) he was a poverty-stricken and very ignorant shepherd. But as such he knew that the poor of the land sometimes could not even afford bread and very often only had vegetables cooked in water for their one meal of the day. (After his clandestine marriage, we are told that Rachel, his wife, sometimes had to sell the very hair off her head in order to get what little food she could for her and her husband.) Later on in life Akiva bought Rachel as a gift a diadem called a "Jerusalem of Gold". When another sage's wife complained that he did not treat her as Akiva treated Rachel she was told that "if you had suffered for me what Rachel suffered for Rabbi Akiva, I too would buy you a "Jerusalem of Gold".