For the source text click/tap here: Yoma 79
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We have learned that one of the five forbidden, pleasurable activities on Yom Kippur is eating. The Mishnah (73b) taught that in order to be held liable for eating, one must consume an amount of food the size of a kotevet ha-gasah – a large date. Since this measurement is an unusual one (for example, with regard to birkat ha-mazon – grace after meals – the minimum amount that needs to be eaten is either a kezayit – the size of an olive– or a ka-beitzah – the size of an egg), the Gemara on our daf attempts to define it.
Rava quotes Rav Yehuda asteaching that a kotevet ha-gasah must be larger than an egg, since the Sages determined that only an amount greater than a ka-beitzah size gives a sense of satisfaction. While ordinarily the Sages do not attempt to give explanations for the specific size requirement given by the Torah,
Rabbi Avraham Tiktin, in his DavarBe-ito argues that in this case there was a recognition that the rules of Yom Kippur were left to the Sages to define (see the Ran’s explanation of this phenomenon on page 73b), so we must try and understand their underlying logic.
This leads us to examine the halochos of berocho acharona, and to the extraordinary Israeli scientific achievement of growing seven date palm trees from 2000-year-old seeds found in the Judean desert near Jerusalem.