דברים פרק לב, ג כ ִּי ש ֵׁם ה' אֶקְרָ א הָבו גֹדֶל לֵׁאלֹ קינו
מסכת ברכות דף כא א אמר רב מנין לברכת התורה לפניה מן התורה שנאמר כי שם ה' אקרא הבו גדל לאל קינו
T.T. The Gemara in Yuma teaches that when Moshe began to tell over the Shira (of HaAzinu), he told Yisrael I will make a blessing and you will answer after it, amen. This is the intent of “I will call”, to make a beginning blessing.
The Chachamim disagree whether one makes a blessing only on learning Torah, or also on learning Mishneh and Talmud. Disagreement hinges on whether one considers the Mishneh and Talmud as proper forms of Scriptural learning since verses are included and explained within them.
T.T. Evidently, this disagreement pertains only to the blessing prior to learning. However, all agree that one only makes the after blessing after reading the Torah, since this reading has a set time as established by Moshe. However, learning Mishneh and Talmud has no ending time, and a “final” blessing is not applicable. A possible evidence to this understanding can be learned from Tosefos in Nidah 51b. The people in the West (Eretz Yisrael) make a blessing when the take off their Tefillin (at the end of the day), and Tosefos explains that they maintain that this mitzvah is not applicable at night. Thus, since the mitzvah has a set time, one makes an after blessing. However, since we maintain that the Mitzvah of Tefillin is applicable at all times (only the Rabbis made a decree to take them off at night to avoid falling asleep while wearing them), thus, this is a constant Mitzvah with no final blessing.
