In the middle of a complex discussion of potential perforations in the abomasum (a ruminant’s fourth stomach compartment) that could render an animal a treifa, and therefore unkosher, today’s daf offers us a rich theological aside.
As it is taught in a beraita: “So you shall bless the children of Israel” (Numbers 6:23). Rabbi Yishmael says: We learn from this that there is a blessing for Israel from the mouth of the priests, but we have not learned of a blessing for the priests themselves. When it says: “And they shall put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them” (Numbers 6:27), you must say: The priests bless Israel, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, blesses the priests.
Numbers 6:22–27 introduces Birkat Kohanim, the special priestly blessing that is still recited in synagogues (most commonly on holidays during the Musaf service) and in Jewish homes when parents bless their children on Friday night. Rabbi Yishmael notes that the Torah explicitly commands Aaron and his sons to bless Israel. And while it’s true that the members of the priestly caste were Israelites, at least as Rabbi Yishmael reads the verse, they are excluded from the blessing themselves — which seems unfair. He understands their job to be blessing the rest of Israel. To compensate, Rabbi Yishmael reads the word them a few verses later in 6:27 as referring not to the Israelites (who are mentioned explicitly in Numbers 6:23) but as the priests themselves. In this way, the blessing extends to all Israel.
Rabbi Akiva challenges this interpretation of Numbers 6:27:
We learned from the verse about a blessing for Israel from the mouth of the priests, but we have not learned from the mouth of the Almighty. When it says afterward: “And they shall put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them,” you must say: The priests bless Israel, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, affirms it.
Rabbi Akiva identifies two weaknesses in Rabbi Yishmael’s position. First, given the rules of biblical Hebrew, the “them” in Numbers 6:27 is more likely to be the original subjects of the verse — Israel themselves. Second, it’s great that the priests bless Israel, but how about God, the true source of all blessings? Rabbi Yishmael’s interpretation puts intermediaries between God and Israel. Rabbi Akiva insists that God blesses Israel directly. Rabbi Akiva’s interpretation maintains the profound importance of the priests to the process. After all, God follows the priests’ liturgical lead here. But for him, everyone gets to have an unmediated relationship with the divine. All of Israel experiences direct blessings from God.
Rabbi Akiva’s interpretation might resonate more strongly with our modern, more individualistic culture. No one is entirely reliant on an institutional hierarchy for religious experience. But for the rabbis of the Talmud, it causes another problem because the Talmud thinks Rabbi Akiva actually agrees with Rabbi Yishmael that Numbers 6:22 excludes the priests from receiving this blessing themselves.
But then from where does Rabbi Akiva get a blessing for the priests? Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak said: From “And I will bless them that bless you” (Genesis 12:3).
When God commands Abraham to leave his homeland and to go to the place that God will show him, God promises Abraham that “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse the one who curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you” (Genesis 12:2–3). When we read Numbers 6 in light of Genesis 12, Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak says, because the priests invoke God’s blessing on Israel, they too will be blessed directly by God.
There are important differences in how Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva understand the relationship between God and the different parts of the Jewish people. Whether the blessings flow directly from God or through the priests as intermediaries remains a subject of debate. But they both agree that everyone — both Israel and the priests — ends up experiencing divine blessing through Birkat Kohanim.
Read all of Chullin 49 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 17, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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