Avot144

12:
When we studied Tractate Berakhot we covered the rules and regulations that govern the recital of Shema in great detail. We cannot repeat them here. Let us just give a brief resumé:

In the morning, ideally the Shema should be recited during a period that begins just before dawn and ends by the end of the first third of daylight. In the evening the period for reciting Shema begins with the onset of dark and ideally ends at midnight. (There are extenuations in both cases.) And there are also other halakhic considerations. In his halakhic compendium, Mishneh Torah [Keriat Shema 2:1] Rambam states that

To be continued.

I am unable at the moment to access the Hebrew text of this Mishna on the web, but I have looked in two siddurim. In each the text says to be "careful with the recital of Shema and tefila. Is there a reason for this difference in language?

I respond:

Among the various codices which have come down to us there is a variation here: some have the reading "Be careful with the recital of Shema and with Tefillah" and others just have "Be careful with the recital of Shema". I chose the latter version because it seems to me that the threefold nature of the mishnah suggests that Rabbi Shim'on is talking about three different things. We have no way of verifying which text is correct.

Although it has nothing to do with our present topic I present here a message that Rémy Landau sent me. I do so now because this is the last shiur of 5765. (Seasoned participants may recall that Rémy was a very active participant when we studied Tractate Rosh ha-Shanah.) He writes:

The calendar calculation for the first day of Rosh HaShannah 5766 required the use of a calendar arithmetic rule that is invoked on average, about once every 200 years. The rule, known as Dehiyyah B'TU'TKPT, was last used 78 years ago for Rosh HaShannah 5688 (Tue 27 Sep 1927). The next time this rule will be invoked is 247 years from now, for Rosh HaShannah 6013 (Tue 5 Oct 2252). At least until then, may you and all of your students have good health! Shannah Tovah!

I respond:

It might just happen that there will be among the readers of this shiur one or two people who do not understand what Rémy has written. So let me elaborate just a little.

Our calendar does not permit the first day of Rosh ha-Shanah to fall on certain days of the week (Sunday, Wednesday or Friday). This is to avoid the inconvenience of having Yom Kippur fall on a Friday or Sunday, which would entail two consecutive days of Shabbat restrictions; it also prevents Hosha'na Rabba from falling on Shabbat, which would prevent the special ceremony associated with that day. So, when the day following 29th Ellul would have fallen on one of those three days we obviate this by adding a day to the preceding month of Marĥeshvan. (This is compensated for in another year.) There are also astronomical considerations which require us to postpone the first day of Rosh ha-Shanah. The one which is invoked this year is a postponement [Deĥiyyah] as follows: if the molad of Tishri [the actual moment of the conjunction of the moon by average calculation] in a non leap year [in our case 5766] which follows a leap year [5765] occurs on Monday any time after 9:33 in the morning Rosh ha-Shanah is shifted to the following day. This is to prevent the outgoing leap year having only 382 days, which is one short of the minimum for a leap year.

I hope everyone understood this, because there will be a quiz on it after Rosh ha-Shanah!.

Our next shiur will be, God willing, on Thursday 6th October. I take this opportunity of wishing everybody Ketivah va-ĥatimah Tovah: a very happy New Year.