Study Berakhot folio 47A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
nor with regard to dirty hands, i.e., with regard to washing hands at the end of a meal.
The Talmud recounts: Ravin and Abaye were traveling along the road on donkeys. Ravin’s donkey preceded Abaye’s and Ravin did not say to Abaye: Let the Master go first. Abaye said to himself: Ever since this one of the rabbis, Ravin, ascended from the West, Eretz Yisrael, he has become arrogant. Wh
The Talmud challenges: A doorway that has a mezuza, yes, one defers; a doorway that does not have a mezuza, no, one does not defer? If so, a synagogue or study hall that has no mezuza, there too, does one not defer at their doorways? Rather, say that this is the principle: One only shows deferenc
The Talmud continues with the subject of deferring to one’s superior during a meal: Rav Yehuda, son of Rav Shmuel bar Sheilat, said in the name of Rav: Those reclining at a meal may not eat anything until the one breaking bread has tasted the bread. Rav Safra sat and said: May not taste, was stated
The Talmud asks: What difference does it make whether Rav said taste or eat? The Talmud explains that there is no difference and that Rav Safra’s insistence teaches that one must say what he was taught in the precise language employed by his teacher without altering a single detail.