Rabbi Shim'on says: Be careful with the recital of Shema. And when you pray do not make your prayer fixed, but [a plea for] mercy and supplication before the Omnipresent, blessed be He; as it says: "For He is gracious and merciful, patient, full of kindness and relenting of evil. And do not be wicked in your own eyes.
1:
In the Tannaïtic literature 'Rabbi Shim'on' without any further definition or patronymic almost invariably refers to Rabbi Shim'on ben-Yoĥai who lived a couple of generations later than the Rabbi Shim'on ben-Netan'el of our present mishnah, who, as we learned in Mishnah 9 [Avot 126], was one of the students of Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai.
2:
I think that this is a rare mishnah – for Tractate Avot – in that it is concerned with the liturgy. But even in this matter the concern is not really the minutiae of the liturgical rules (though, as we shall see, one of the classical commentators tries to make it so). As is common in this tractate so far the teaching of Rabbi Shim'on ben-Netan'el is triple:
- Be careful with the recital of Shema;
- And when you pray do not make your prayer fixed etc;
- And do not be wicked in your own eyes.
3:
Clearly, Rabbi Shim'on would hold as axiomatic that all parts of the liturgy should be recited properly (even if he knows that, human nature being what it is, this will not always be the case!) Therefore, we should ask ourselves why he singles out the recitation of the Shema for a special recommendation of diligence and piety. I think it would be useful here if I quote, rather extensively, from what I wrote on this subject when we studied Tractate Berakhot. The following paragraphs, therefore, are reproduced from there.
4:
The Shema, in its basic essentials, is an anthology of three passages from the Torah that are to be recited twice daily, morning and evening. The three passages are: Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:13-21; Numbers 15:37-41. The purpose of the recitation is, presumably, to inculcate daily into the consciousness of the worshiper certain basic elements of Jewish belief and practice. A very broad description would state that the first passage is concerned with our acceptance of Divine Sovereignty; that the second is concerned with the consequences of observance and non-observance [of the mitzvot]; and that the third is concerned with the mitzvah of Tzitzit [Fringes, Tallit] or, possibly, the duty to be ever mindful of the Exodus from Egypt.
5:
The first Parashah of the Shema starts with what is probably the most famous sentence in the whole of Jewish experience: Shema Yisra'el Adonai Eloheynu Adonai Eĥad. According to tradition this first sentence should be the very first item in an infant's religious experience: the moment children can formulate a coherent sentence they should be taught to recite this line. Furthermore, according to tradition, if a person is conscious when their death is fast approaching, they should be encouraged to recite this first sentence of the Shema. And, hopefully, during all the long years between these two events the recitation of the Shema should be the most meaningful element in the worshipper's daily communion with God and express the concepts of the faithful concerning God.
6:
The first sentence of the Shema is impossibly difficult to render into a language other than Hebrew, and a translation is almost inevitably doomed to become an interpretation – and therefore possibly misleading. So, instead of translating the sentence let us describe its contents. When we recite this one simple line we are declaring our faith in God's existence, God's unity and God's absolute sovereignty in and over all creation, which, of course, includes our recognition of the truth that we ourselves are subject to God's commandments. Without this basis of pure monotheism Judaism has no meaning.
To be continued.
IAt the end of Avot 139 I castigated "a mighty empire" for endangering the ozone layer out of economic considerations. I should have stuck to rabbinics! Several people wrote to me about this.
Michael Lewyn writes:
Actually, the ozone layer is one of the few global environmental indicators that seems to be heading in the right direction.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/08/31/ozone.layer.reut/
And Marc Auslander explains what I should have said:
What my country, to my embarrassment, is doing is refusing to reduce the release of carbon dioxide, which is believed to cause global warming. This is different from the ozone layer problem, which I believe has reasonable world wide agreement and cooperation.
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