Menachot 78: Limits on Sanctification, Bereira and Changing Status After the Fact

Some brief notes on today's daf:

• thanksgiving offerings were brought with forty loaves as meal offerings
• of the forty loaves, ten were made with chametz, leaven, and thirty were made with matzah, unleavened grain
• in a case where one brought eighty loaves,
• Chizkiya rules that forty of them are sanctified
• Rabbi Yochanan says that none are sanctified
• Rabbi Zeira explains:
• if one bringing the offering wants forty to be sanctified, they are
• if that same one wants all eighty to be sanctified, none become holy
• the issue between the two rabbis regards the owner's intentions
• Tosafot suggest 
• this appears to be about bereira, whether when there is a question about an object's status, an act taking place later fixes the status retroactively
• Rabbi Yochanan does not accept bereira, but he accepts that forty loaves become sanctified
• thus cases of bereira rely on later actions which may or may not occur
• in this case, even though we do not know the status of the loaves when the thanksgiving offering is brought, the forty loaves can become sanctified
• In my mind, this is the "no whining rule"
• we are permitted to plan for the worst, but we cannot demand more than our share