Menachot 87: Preparing Wine and Incense

Today's daf includes a Mishna that describes how to ensure that the ingredients for libations were of the highest quality.  It shares where the grapes were grown and harvested, how they were grown and how the wine should be stored.  It teaches that libations should not come from the top of the barrel where there was 'flour', the white dust of fermentation, and not from the bottom of the barrel where the sediment had settled.  

The Mishna notes that the appointed official would sit with the barrel with a measuring reed in his hand while it was poured.  When refuse was poured, he would bang on the barrel with his reed, signifying that no more wine should be poured from that barrel.

The Gemara asks why it was necessary to bang on the barrel instead of simply shouting.  Rabbi Yochanan is quoted: although speech was good for preparing the incense, it was bad for preparing the wine.  Some of the explanations include:

• the sound waves from speech help the mixing process of preparing incense ingredients
• a metered melody or recitation allowed the workers to work at a consistent pace
• two workers would have to hold the mortar and speech helped them work together

These explanations focus on the ways that speech would help the people at work preparing the incense and not the incense itself.  Tosafot note that a similar statement appears in Masechet Keritot (6b).  There Rabbi Yochanan tells workers to chant, "sound well, well pound!" while they work with mortar because it is good for the incense (but not for the wine).