From when may the Shema be recited in the morning? – From the hour one can tell the blue from the white; Rabbi Eli'ezer is of the opinion that it is blue from green, and that it must be completed by sunrise. Rabbi Yehoshu'a, however, is of the opinion that [it may be completed] until the third hour, for it is the habit of royalty to rise [as late as] the third hour. One who recites it after that has not [entirely] lost: he is like one reading from the Torah.
1:
The second mishnah of Chapter One seeks to define the time parameters for the recitation of the Shema in the morning,
uvekumekha [and when you rise up]. Just as in the evening the sages set a time that derived from the intensity of darkness in the evening sky, so they now set a time from which the Shema may be read that derives from the intensity of light in the morning sky.
2:
The undisputed terminus a quo [earliest time] is given as the moment in the morning after dawn when it is first possible by natural light to distinguish between blue and white. In mishnaic times the tzitzit [tassels, fringes] of the tallit [prayer-shawl] still had one blue thread among the white threads. (See the words of the Torah [Numbers 15:38]: "Tell the Israelites to make themselves tassels on the corners of their clothes throughout their generations, and to put on the corner-tassel a thread of blue.") The dye used for staining the white woolen tassel blue was extracted from a sea mollusk – possibly the same one from which the Romans were wont to extract the dye for their purpur, the dye that stained the edges of the togas of the aristocracy 'royal purple'. All we know is that the mollusk was called in Hebrew ĥilazon, but its identity was lost very early on, and for centuries now the tzitzit of the tallit have been left pure white. Obviously, our mishnah is stipulating that when there is sufficient natural light to enable one to tell the one blue thread from the other white ones, the time has arrived from which one may begin to recite the morning Shema.
3:
The Gemara [Berakhot 9b] also gives other definitions, which presumably are intended to indicate the same intensity of light. I think we can assume that these other definitions became necessary when there no longer was any blue in the tassels of the tallit to distinguish from the white, as I have explained above. The definition that was eventually accepted was that attributed to "others": according to this definition the earliest time for reciting the Shema in the morning may be defined as when there is sufficient light to enable one to recognize someone not entirely strange to us a a distance of two metres [4 cubits].
4:
Both these times, like the visibility of three medium stars at night, are very subjective. Obviously later authorities would seek to create a more uniform definition. The view that seems to have gained ascendancy is that of Rambam in his commentary on our present mishnah that sets this time at 72 minutes before sunrise. However, in common with almost all rabbinic time-keeping, these hours are not 'clock' hours of 60 equal minutes, but each hour represents one twelfth of the time that lapses between sunrise and sunset on any given day. Thus 72 minutes [one hour and a fifth] in the summer will be a much longer time than 72 minutes in the winter. Thus it is now generally accepted that the earliest possible time to recite the Shema in the morning is approximately 72 minutes before sunrise.
To be continued.
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