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Casuism and Rules in the Gemara

שו”תCategory: Talmudic studyCasuism and Rules in the Gemara
asked 9 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
In the Gemara in Berakhot, page 12, it is written as follows: Tab Shema: Shacharit, start with Yotzer Or and end with Maariv Arabim – it did not come out, start with Maariv Arabim and end with Yotzer Or – it came out; Aravi, start with Maariv Arabim and end with Yotzer Or – it did not come out, start with Yotzer Or and end with Maariv Arabim – it came out; the general rule of the matter is: everything follows the sign… The general rule of the matter is for the Atui May – not for the Atui Ha Damran? – no, for the Atui Nehma and Tamari.
This means that if it were not written “in general,” we could not have understood Nehemiah and Tamar, and then in fact the Mishnah would only refer to the particular case of an error in the blessings of Kash and not in the other blessings. On the face of it, this contradicts your perception that the Mishnah came to convey a general principle through examples. Because, if this were the case, even without the phrase “in general,” we could learn that there is a hidden rule here that also applies to Nehemiah and Tamar. How can the contradiction be resolved, in your opinion?


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מיכי Staff answered 9 years ago
Hello Oren. Excellent question. In the Gemara itself, immediately afterwards, several possibilities of Nehma and Tamar appear (the question of whether he knew what he ate and was mistaken in the blessing or whether he was mistaken and did not know what he ate). In fact, the Gemara states that the first way should not be included (and we would have the problem with Nehma and Shekra), but rather should include the second way (he was mistaken in what he ate), and only with respect to it is the plural used. If so, according to the Gemara’s conclusion, even without the signature, we would multiply the case of someone who made a mistake at the beginning of the blessing but knew what he ate. The rule includes something else that would not multiply without it. What they learned from the rule is that “everything” follows the signature, and not in the sense that the blessing follows the signature. We would not know this without the concluding rule.  

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