These days, most of us purchase our bread already baked or, if we’re ambitious home bakers, buy flour and bake it ourselves. Most of us are not growing the grain and milling it ourselves. But in the premodern period, many people did all this — obviously without modern equipment — and were consequently more intimately familiar with these steps of the bread baking process. Then, as now, there were many methods of processing grain into flour. Today’s daf is concerned with how the grain and dough of a mincha offering should be processed. It’s clear that this requires a special procedure, as the Mishnah states:
All the meal offerings require rubbing 300 times and striking 500 times. Rubbing and striking are performed on the wheat kernels. And Rabbi Yosei says: On the dough.
The first clause of the mishnah prescribes a rather arduous process for the grain’s preparation: It’s rubbed back and forth between the palms 300 times, and struck with the palms or fists 500 times. Why? The anonymous voice of the mishnah states that this is being done with wheat kernels, in order to remove their external husks. Rubbing and striking is similar to the process of ketisha, or pounding, mentioned in Tractate Shabbat. There we learn that after the wheat kernels have been separated from their stalks via threshing, they’re then rubbed or pounded in order to remove the bran, leaving only the endosperm, from which white flour is made. In Tractate Shabbat, it’s noted that poor people generally do not do this when making their bread, as the process is unnecessarily laborious. But today’s mishnah suggests it was done for offerings in the Temple, presumably because they are meant to be of the highest possible quality, and that means processing the grain into white flour, which creates the tenderest loaf.
However, Rabbi Yosei disagrees with the anonymous voice of the mishnah. He suggests that this extensive process of rubbing and striking is done to the dough, not the kernels. It seems he is concerned about kneading the dough to the point of being as smooth and elastic as possible though, as home bakers know, it’s hard to imagine this is a good idea given dough that’s been overworked often produces tough, chewy baked goods.
The Gemara attempts to clarify the terms of the disagreement:
Rubbing and striking are performed on the wheat kernels, while Rabbi Yosei says they are performed on the dough. A dilemma was raised before the sages: Does he mean that these actions are performed on the dough and not on the wheat kernels? Or perhaps he means that they are performed also on the dough.
Come and hear a resolution, as it is taught in a beraita: Rubbing and striking are performed on the wheat kernels. Rabbi Yosei says: Rubbing and striking are performed on the dough.
The language of our mishnah leaves some room for ambiguity. The anonymous first authority states that rubbing and striking are performed on the wheat kernels, while Rabbi Yosei simply states “on the dough.” From the phrasing, it’s not clear if he means to add to the tanna kamma’s statement, or contradict it. Does he disagree about the stage at which these actions happen, or does he simply think that they are performed on the dough just like on the kernels?
The Gemara brings a beraita to clarify this ambiguity. In this source, Rabbi Yosei is again quoted but phrases his opinion slightly more explicitly, stating that “rubbing and striking are performed on the dough.” Because this statement now mirrors the first one, it strongly implies that he thinks these are done only on the dough, not the kernels.
Interestingly, this uncertainty exists even within different textual variations of our mishnah. The Tosafot note that there are versions in which Rabbi Yosei’s statement reads “even with dough,” in which case the simple read of our mishnah would be the opposite of what we just concluded: Rabbi Yosei thinks the process is indeed done with both the kernels and the dough. While textual variations are common throughout the Gemara, sometimes they only impact the phrasing, not the substance. But sometimes, as in this case, the variation produces an alternate halakhic rulings.
Read all of Menachot 76 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 28, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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