I am not sure we understand an oral tradition today. Specifically, in the Jewish context, mass printing has allowed us to standardize texts and rituals across time. Today, a Jew can attend services (particularly Orthodox) in a place where he or she does not speak the native language and participate with no problem. The Hebrew text of prayers, the order, the rituals, the tunes have all standardized around the Ashkenazy or Sephardic tradition, regardless of where you may find yourself. Widescale printing has allowed this convergence of practice, but in the times of the Talmud, there was no printing. Books had to be hand produced one-by-one at great expense and over a long period of time. Parchment, itself was expensive and not mass produced. Instead of printed prayer books, the text of prayers, their order, their timing was all transmitted orally. The Talmud, itself, is a record of oral debates. Oral transmission leads to variance. Remember playing the telephone game when you were a kid. Now think of transmitting content over thousands of miles through thousands of people. In fact, one method of learning in the Talmud is to relate how revered Rabbis did or said things. Today’s Daf focuses on the text of the Bircas HaMazon, which in the tine of the Talmud had not been standardized.

The requirement to say the Bircas HaMazon is a biblical requirement stemming from Deuteronomy 8:10 (“When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which God has given you.”) From this passage, the Rabbis derived that we are commanded to offer three blessings after the meal: (i) a blessing for sustenance because we have eaten our fill, (ii) a blessing for Israel, because that is the land which God gave us, and (iii) a blessing for Jerusalem because Jerusalem makes Israel good. The Rabbis also derive the requirement for Zimun by reference to the fact that the verse says we will give thanks to the Lord, our God. Although the verse alludes to these requirements, nowhere does the Torah state what the actual text of the blessings to be recited are. Today we talk about the actual content of those blessings by hearing stories of how ancient Rabbis recited Bircas HaMazon.

We also investigate whether women and men recite the same text. The text of the Bircas HaMazon references circumcision, studying Torah and the Kingdom of David. Women cannot participate in the commandment of circumcision. They were not obligated to study Torah (and in truth were probably actively prohibited from studying Torah). Further, women were not required to pray three times daily and therefore praise the Kingdom of Heaven daily, Given that they did not praise the Kingdom of Heaven daily, some Rabbis thought women blessing the Kingdom of David daily was disrespectful. Nevertheless, today’s tradition is for women and men to say the same text of the Bircas HaMazon, including the references to circumcision, Torah study and the Kingdom of David.

For the Rabbis of the Talmud, practice was everything. Today’s Daf describes how we are to correct ourselves if we inadvertently skip a portion of the Bircas HaMazon. Of course, this depends a lot on what we skip and when we remember that we skipped it. Importantly, the emphasis is on saying the words, not understanding the words, not the intention of the words, but the actual recitation of the endorsed words in the endorsed order. The focus on the act, not the meaning, is a hallmark of traditional Judaism. We also debate how much one must eat before being obligated to recite Bircas HaMazon. If we eat an olive’s volume do we have to recite Bircas HaMazon or must we eat an egg’s volume. The dispute is not conclusively resolved, but I think today if we eat an olive’s volume, we say Bircas HaMazon.

We finish today’s Daf by introducing a new Mishnah – our first since the start of Chapter 7 in Berakhot 45. Our Mishnah is a debate about the text of the Zimun depending on the number of people present. There are formulations for three people, four people, ten people, eleven people, one hundred people, one hundred and one people, one thousand people, one thousand and one people, ten thousand people and ten thousand and one people. Rabbi Akiva disagrees. Rabbi Akiva believes there is only the text for three people and ten people. Rabbi Akiva notes in a synagogue, once we reach ten people, we recite the same blessings whether we have ten, a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand people. We will have to wait until tomorrow to see how the Rabbis resolve this conflict.