More Discussions for this daf
1. The Obligation Of Berachah Rishonah 2. Basis for berachos 3. Neta Revai
4. Chutz Min ha'Yayin 5. A Sevara for Berachos 6. First Tosfos DH Keitzad
7. wine and olive oil 8. Kal VaChomer - Min HaTorah or Not? 9. "Em" - Mother is Klal Yisrael
10. Is logic as strong as a Biblical edict? 11. Rebbi Yehudah's opinion, and ha'Gagen/ha'Gefen 12. Kavanah For Tefilah
13. Tosfos DH Keitzad 14. Derech Eretz 15. The ideal in Torah learning
16. Fasting for a bad dream 17. The source for reciting Berachos 18. Special blessings for wine and bread
19. harmful effects of olive oil 20. The blessing for olive oil 21. Shirah of the Levi'im
22. ברכת על הגפן
DAF DISCUSSIONS - BERACHOS 35

mendy asked:

1.According to R'Yehuda's shita that we try to say more specific brachot, each for its min [ie boreh mineh deshaim] why not go all the way and just make a bracha for each food separatly ie boreh minei habanana etc ?

2. I know there is a machloket how to pronounce hagefen/gafen - since this bracha is so old, how could it have been lost so that sefaradim say hagefen and ashkenazim hagafen ? is either more 'correct' than the other?

mendy, ny,usa

Rav Joseph Pearlman replies:

1. Clearly it would be absurd to make a different Berachah on each individual item. There have to be categories, otherwise we would lose the concept of Matbe'a Chachamim b'Berachos. Prior to the Anshei Knesses ha'Gedolah, one made up one's own Berachah, but they standardized the whole prayer system (as they saw individual Ru'ach ha'Kodesh disappearing and the Shechinah had departed) at the end of the period of the first Beis ha'Mikdash (Yoma 21b). They decided to allocate Birchos ha'Nehenin to defined categories. The Tana Kama holds that broad, general categories suffice. Indeed, Yad David Basra asks that according to this, why did they institute separate Berachos for fruits and vegetables? He answers that "Bore Pri ha'Adamah" would not naturally be taken as referring to fruit and consequently even the Tana Kama is constrained to provide a separate Berachah for fruit for the sake of clarity.

Rebbi Yehudah, however, based on the verse in Tehilim (68:20) requires a more detailed categorization, but still only fairly broad categories. He says (Berachos 40a), "Every type of food -- give to it a form of its own blessing," which requires one to be rather more specific (and even in his view there is argument as to how wide are his categories; see Sha'agas Aryeh 23, that he does not hold of Borei Pri ha'Adamah at all, but see the Netziv in Meromei Sadeh to Berachos 35a who divides vegetables into three categories: Borei Pri ha'Adamah, Borei Minei Zera'im, and Borei Minei Desha'im. The Me'iri and Ramban there seem to support this latter view), but the Berachah still has to relate to a general group.

2. The Ashkenaz custom is to say ha'Gafen, which is pausal and thus grammatically correct at the end of a sentence. This is the case throughout our Berachos, as in Shemoneh Esreh ("Chonen ha' Do 'as" (using the phonetic "O" to represent the Kamatz, in contrast to the Patach), "Bonei Yerusha lo yim") and in Birchos ha'Shachar ("l'Havchin Bein Yom u'Vein Lo ylah", "she'Lo Asani O ved", "Roka ha'Oretz Al ha' Mo yim", "Mitz'adei Go ver").

The Sefardi custom is explained by Rav Ovadia Yosef shlit'a in Chazon Ovadia Hagadah Shel Pesach (pp. 193-194 -- copy attached as graphic file). It is very clear that one should always retain the Nusach ha'Mekubal me'Avosav, and it is obvious how different Nuscha'os have developed.

Coincidentally on this topic, you might care to refer back to what I wrote with regard to "Morid ha'Tal" and "Morid ha'Tol," and "Mashiv ha'Ru'ach u'Morid ha'Geshem" and "ha'Gashem," which is indirectly relevant to the above.

Kol Tuv,

Joseph Pearlman