Rif Brachot 35a

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35a

{Brachot 47a continued}

Ben Azzai says: If a one answers an orphaned Amen, his children will be orphans; if a hurried Amen, his days will be snatched away; if a curtailed Amen, his days will be curtailed. But if one draws out the Amen, his days and years will be prolonged.

Yerushalmi: What is an orphaned Amen? Rav Huna said: This is one who is obligated in the blessing and he answers {Amen} and he does not know to what he answered.

Rav and Shmuel sat at a meal, and Rav Shimi bar Chiya joined them and ate very hurriedly.
Rav said to him: What do you want? To join us? We have already finished.
Shmuel said to him: If they were to bring me mushrooms, and pigeon to Abba, would we not go on eating?

Therefore, in any situation in which if they brought them something additional they would eat from it, he may join with them.
And so it the halacha.

And the halacha is that the greatest one blesses even if he comes at the end of the meal.

We learn in perek Benei HaIr {Megilla, 4th perek, daf 28b}: Any Torah scholar who someone else blesses before him, even a Kohen Gadol who is ignorant, that Torah scholar is liable for death, as it states in Mishlei 8:36:

לו וְחֹטְאִי, חֹמֵס נַפְשׁוֹ; כָּל-מְשַׂנְאַי, אָהֲבוּ מָוֶת.

36 But he that misseth me wrongeth his own soul; all they that hate me love death.'

Read not מְשַׂנְאַי but rather מְשַׂנִיאַי, who cause others to hate me {by making himself low, he makes others think there is nothing that great about being a Torah scholar}.

But a Kohen who is a Torah scholar, it is a mitzvah to grant him priority, for Mar said: {it states in Vayikra 21:8:

ח וְקִדַּשְׁתּוֹ--כִּי-אֶת-לֶחֶם אֱלֹקֶיךָ, הוּא מַקְרִיב; קָדֹשׁ, יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ--כִּי קָדוֹשׁ, אֲנִי ה מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם.

8 Thou shalt sanctify him therefore; for he offereth the bread of thy God; he shall be holy unto thee; for I the LORD, who sanctify you, am holy.

For every matter of sanctification, he should open first, and bless first, and take a portion first.

{we return to Brachot 47b}
{The Mishna had stated:} "And the Cuthean may be included in the {three for the} Zimmun."
These words were stated in those days, but nowadays, they are reckoned as full gentiles, and we may not include them in the Zimmun.

Rav Nachman said: A minor who knows to Whom we are blessing, we may include him in the Zimmun. And so is the halacha.

And the Rabbis {post-Talmudic} say that this is only if he is in his thirteenth year, and even though he has not sprouted {pubic hair}. But a minor who has not yet entered his thirteenth year, even if he has sprouted, we do not include him in the Zimmun.

And we,