Menachot 75: Prayers for Small Meal Offerings; Shehechianu

The rabbis discuss how much bread is required to obligate the blessing over bread, ha motzei lechem min ha'aretz.  Rav Yosef says that an olive bulk of bread crumbs are present, ha'motzei is required.  A baraita is quoted where a person who stands in Jerusalem and brings meal offerings broken into pieces first says the shehechianu, the prayer thanking G-d for us reaching this point, and then eats them with the ha'motzi.  When the pieces have been broken up, each one is considered to be counted.

Rashi, Tosafot, Rav Yosef and the rishonim share their arguments.  Perhaps this is a cooked dish with bread in it; perhaps the bread has a different status that the meal offering.  Alternately, the breadcrumbs could have been laced in the dish after cooking; the bread could have been broken and then have soup poured on it.  The rishonim ask why the shehechianu is said.  Rashi explains that this is the person's very first meal offering.   Tosofot suggest that this is not a meal-offering, which can only be eaten by priests.

Tosofot also remind us that the shehechianu might be appropriate because priests only serve in the Temple two days of each year (there were 24 groups of priests consisting of 6 families each).  Each new offering was worthy of a shehechianu.