In Jewish prayer practice, certain prayers require a Minyan (historically ten adult males). Today’s Daf will find the biblical proof for this practice. There is an emotional side as well. When we pray together as a community the same way, at the same time, with a common text, we reaffirm ties that bind us. We develop affinity, even for some we do not personally like. This is the flip side of my question earlier about prayer as ritual becoming rote and meaningless. The ritual nature conducted in public creates its own meaning. I once asked a Rabbi who was far more learned and observant than I if he thought we would continue to pray in our synagogue communities when the Messiah came and reestablished the Temple practice. I have to say, I view the warmth of communal prayer much more favorably than continual animal sacrifice.
A little background to start. Jewish prayer services have two main sections, the Shema and the Shemoneh Esrei. The Shema consists of the three biblical paragraphs and their preceding and following blessings. The Shemnoneh Esrei is a group of eighteen rabbinically decreed blessings. Not all the blessings are said all the time and we will read later about when we say which blessings. The important point for today is that the recitation of the Shema is a biblical obligation, while the Shemoneh Esrei blessings are a rabbinical obligation.
Our Daf begins with what a man should do if he remembers in the middle of the Shemoneh Esrei prayers that he is a baal keri. Because the Shemoneh Esrei is rabinically decreed, the Rabbis decide that a Baal Keri should continue his recitation. Similarly, with the grace after meals (Berkhos Hamazon), a man who remembers he is a baal keri should continue, even though the Berkhos Hamazon is biblically mandated. However, the Berkhos Hamazon does not recognize God’s kingship the same way the Shema does.
The bible requires us to say blessings before we study Torah and after we eat. The Talmud derives a rabbinical obligation to recite a blessing after we study Torah and before we eat. We then have a debate about which parts of the Shema and its blessings are biblically required and which are rabbinical requirements. This debate seemed a little obvious to me, so I am certain that I am missing some nuances.
The Daf then moves to questioning what to do if we are uncertain if we have said the daily Shemoneh Esrei prayer. We eventually conclude that in general we should not repeat the Shemoneh Esrei, but if we are uncertain if we said it, we should just go ahead and say it again. We also discuss what to do if we arrive late to synagogue and we have to catch up to the communal recitation of the Shemoneh Esrei.
At this point the requirement of prayers that require a Minyan are discussed. We will encounter this proof later in the Talmud in more detail. For now, just know that the Talmud relies on a gezeirah shavah, which is a principle of interpretation that if two verses use a similar word, they must intend the same meaning in both places.
Finally, if you remember yesterday, our Mishnah held that a baal keri was impure and could not study Torah. However, in the Mishnah, Rabbi Yehudah held a contrary opinion, at least with regard to the blessings that precede and follow the Shema and a meal. The Talmud goes through a lot of mental gymnastics to reconciling Rabbi Yehudah’s opinion with the majority opinion, primarily by finding Rabbi Yehudah’s opinion applies only in very limited circumstances.