On Daf 32 amud bet near the bottom, we have Rami bar Rav saying in the name of Rav that Ad bli dai means "ad sheivlu siftoteichem milomar dai", which is a song which I have heard Chabad chassidim sing. My question is:
Dai is daled yud. You don't use your lips saying it. Even if one says it with a Yemenite haavara, the lips are not used. So why siftoteichem? If one says it's lav davka the word "dai", there's still the kushya remaining, because I have never seen a condition of lip erosion (and can't see it becoming something people would crave for), because lips are soft tissue that quickly regenerates.
So I cannot make head or tail of what is meant here...
Daniel Moskovich, Kyoto, Japan
I think that your questions are answered nicely by combining the explanation of the Anaf Yosef (in Ein Yakov) in Shabbos and Ta'anis 9a, along with that of the Maharsha in Makos (23b). The Eitz Yosef asks your first question. He answers that the Yerushalmi in the ninth Perek of Berachos says "Ad she'Yivlu Sifsoseichem mi'Lomar Dayeinu Berachos. " The Anaf Yosef suggests that our Gemara agrees with the Yerushalmi, and is just stating a shortened version ("Dai" instead of "Dayeinu Berachos"). Being that the Beis of Berachos is said with the lips, this would be what is referred to by the lips saying "Dai."
Your second point is answered nicely by the explanation of the Maharsha in Makos (23b). The Maharsha says that the explanation of this Gemara is not that there will be an outpouring of good until we are drowning in piles of grain and money. The Maharsha says that the Berachos Hash-m will give us will be hidden from the eye, as the Gemara in Ta'anis (8b) says that Berachah comes only to something hidden from the eye. The Berachah will be that, for example, when someone has a container with grain, it will not overflow, but rather it will never seem to empty of grain.
"Ad Sheyivlu Sifsoseichem mi'Lomar Dai," the Maharsha explains, means that our lips will never be used to say "Dai," as we will not see overflowing silos full of grain.
This is didactically learned from the Pasuk "v'Harikosi Lachem Berachah" -- "And I will empty for you Berachah." One will pour the grain he needs out of a container and the container will remain full. What is being emptied is the Berachah that Hash-m is giving us, without giving us piles and piles of Berachah all at once. And everyone's lips, like you said, will remain in perfect condition.
Keep the questions coming from Kyoto!
Kol Tuv,
Yaakov Montrose
The MAHARAM SHIF (there in Ta'anis, printed immediately following the Gemara) makes a similar suggestion to the Anaf Yosef, saying that people will be saying a "long list of Dayeinu's" -- like we do on Pesach, but much much longer, "If you had only given us this it would have been enough, and had you added only that it would have been enough...". This is what the Gemara means that their lips will wear out. This approach also answers your question (among others).
Best wishes,
M. KORNFELD
I wanted to explain as follows: The Gemara "ad sheyivlu" in, I believe, Taanis, says it in context of 'ein mispallelin al rov tova'.
Thus, peshat could be, we would LIKE to say dai, but since we are not allowed to be mispallel al rov tova, we shut our lips tightly MILOMAR dai-to not say what we want to say.
Gershon Dubin
Thank you very much for your interesting and prompt answer that is a great tirutz! It explains the issue of erosion here... and makes things fit together much more nicely... but I'm still unclear on why the reference is to lips. After all, saying "dai", one uses only the tongue and the top of the mouth. If somebody chas vesholom were to be born without lips or were to lose his lips in an accident lo aleinu, he could still say dai just as easily- so lich"ora the Gemara should say "tongue" here and not lips. As a sevara, I can conjecture that lips here refers to speech as in "siach sfateinu" and not necessarily to physical lips- does this sevara have any grounding? Is there a better sevara/ explanation?
Kol tuv and Shabbat Shalom, Daniel Moskovich
We were told two explanations of this Gemoro:
1) The Baal Shem Tov says that we will be saying Dai Dai, which does NOT use the lips (as you point out), and the lips will wear out from LACK of use (like muscles that are not used etc)
2) The Yerushalmi apparently uses the expression "Dai Berochos", in which the Beis of Berochos does require use of lips
Presumably the answer to your second point (not seeing lip erosion) is that it is figurative (to show the extreme).
Mark Bergman
I do not recall the source of the following. Apparently our gemoro here is bekittzur and the full version is not dai but dayyeinu berocho. The "b" of berocho requires use of the lips!
Good shabbos and yom tov
Mendy bude
The source of your explanation, Mendy and Mark, is the ANAF YOSEF in the Ein Yakov (Ta'anis 9a), who asks Daniel's question. In his answer he cites the Yerushalmi, that "Dai" is not the entire exclamation that people will be making. They will be saying a full sentence, "Daiyenu Berachah!" -- "Enough blessing!" Since "Beis" is pronounced with the lips, it is appropriate to say that their "lips" will wear out.
The MAHARAM SHIF (there in Ta'anis, printed immediately following the Gemara) makes a similar suggestion, saying that people will be saying a "long list of Dayeinu's" -- like we do on Pesach, but much much longer, "If you had only given us this it would have been enough, and had you added only that it would have been enough...". This is what the Gemara means that their lips will wear out. This approach also answers Daniel's question (among others).
Best wishes,
M. Kornfeld
We said in the shiur the Ben Yehoyada's interpretation on the word dai. A rich man would always have two meals a day, each meal would include the netilas yodaim, hamotzi, hagefen and the four berachot in all, making seven berachot in all, but he would also have berachot after birchat hamozon, haetz, haadama, mezonot, as was the sephardi custom, making a total of ten berachot a meal, or twenty a day.
A poor man would only make fourteen berachot for the two meals, as he could not afford the extras after the meal. When the abundance will be so great we will have such big meals that a meal without the extras will be sufficient, that is dai - the gematria of 14 - that will be enough for us for our daily meals.
YCD Cohen
Prestwich, Manchester England
Let me take a moment to thank you for enriching my Gemarah study. Although there were many Jews including the entire Mir Yeshiva in the Kansai region of Japan during WW2 (Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe-Nara), today it is a tiny community mainly concentrated in Osaka and Kobe. I believe my wife and I are the only Shomer Shabbes Jews living in this city of 3 million, and we are fairly geographically far from the rest of the Kansai community, such that we do not have easy access to any seforim that we do not own, and indeed I can study only via internet sites, sifrei kodesh I happen to have, and DVDaf.
Daniel Moskovich, Kyoto, Japan
My intent was sealing the lips so that the word "Dai," that we would want to say because of the Rov Tova, cannot escape the lips.
Gershon