Tractate Berakhot of the Talmud of Eretz-Israel: 0002

1:
Having established that the earliest time that the Shema may be recited in the evening is when day has ended, night has set in, and the stars begin to appear (which is when the priests go in to eat their terumah and when country folk begin their Sabbath repast on Friday nights), the Gemara now takes the matter a stage further.

2:
The Gemara quotes a barayta which stipulates that if one recites the evening Shema before the stars begin to be seen in the darkening sky he has not fulfilled his religious duty of reciting the Shema every evening. The Gemara now asks a practical question: if we may not recite the evening Shema before it gets dark how come we recite it in the synagogue as part of the evening service?

3:
In order to understand this question we must understand that in Eretz-Israel, certainly during the era of the Mishnah and Gemara and probably for several centuries thereafter, the evening service was recited in the synagogues very early. The reason was probably (but not definitely) a very practical one: it was not really safe for people to be out of doors once darkness had set in. So, in the late afternoon, as the sun was clearly westering, they would recite the Afternoon service and this was immediately followed by the recital of the Evening service. Then the people would go home for their evening meal. Then, upon going to bed, they would recite the Shema again in order to fulfill the religious obligation.

4:
It was the fact that in the synagogues the Shema was recited before dark that prompted the question of the Gemara. Rabbi Yosé explains that they read the Shema in the synagogue not in order to fulfill the mitzvah of reciting the Shema but in order to preface the recital of the evening Amidah with words of Torah; this is similar to our own prefacing the Afternoon Amidah with the recital of Psalm 145, Ashrey. So, in Eretz-Israel, having completed the Minḥah Amidah they would recite the Shema without the attendant benedictions, just the three paragraphs of Shema. (There are indications that in some congregations they omitted the third paragraph in the evening, but it does not seem to have been the general custom, nor is it of relevance to our present discussion.) Then they would stand and recite the Arvit Amidah. (In Eretz-Israel the Ḥazzan would repeat the Arvit Amidah out loud, but that too need not detain us here.) Upon going to bed for the night they would recite the Shema again, this time with its attendant benedictions.

5:
The Gemara now pursues the issue of reciting the Shema before dark sets in. Rabbi Ze'ira quotes Rabbi Yirmiyah and presents a problem. In the Bavli Rabbi Ze'ira is referred to as Rabbi Zera. He was born in Babylon but at a certain stage in his career — and against the specific wishes of Rav Yehudah, the head of his Yeshivah — he made aliya to Eretz-Israel. He was most earnest in his desire to leave behind the Torah of Babylon and to absorb the Torah of Eretz-Israel, which he admired greatly. (He claimed that "the very air of Eretz-Israel makes people wise" and that "even the idle chatter of people in Eretz-Israel is Torah".) In order to clear his mind we are told that he fasted for one hundred days before attempting to learn according to the manner and customs of Eretz-Israel. He settled in Tiberias where he studied under Rabbi Yoḥanan and Rabbi Shim'on ben-Lakish (Resh Lakish), the two giants of the age. Despite some setbacks he became a great Rabbi in Eretz-Israel. His foremost student was Rabbi Yirmiyah. We know a little about him personally: he was unusually short in stature and lived to a ripe old age. His colleagues thought of him as "one of the great ones of the age".

6:
Rabbi Ze'ira was somewhat of a "Torah archeologist", as it were, seeking out old and semi-forgotten traditions. In the Gemara here he presents a problem: we know that if one is not certain whether or not one has recited Grace after eating bread one is required to recite it for what might be a second time, even though this may involve reciting a berakhah le-vatalah. When we recite a benediction unnecessarily we are invoking God's name to no purpose. However, Grace after bread is a mitzvah directly from the Torah [Deuteronomy 8:10] and in the case of all such mitzvot we must take the more stringent view. Rabbi Ze'ira continues: we also know that if one is not certain whether or not he had recited a certain Amidah he may not recite it for what may be a second time. This is because the duty to recite the Amidah does not derive directly from the Torah, but is mandated by the sages; and in the case of all duties that derive from the sages we take the lenient view. In this case, since it is not required, by reciting the Amidah "just in case" one would be invoking God's name to no purpose.

7:
Here our source interjects that Rabbi Yoḥanan did not agree with this ruling. He held that since all prayers are directed to God would that a person could be in contact with the divine through prayer all day long. The sages require us to recite the Amidah three times a day, says Rabbi Yoḥanan, but they did not intend to deny us the right of voluntarily reciting the Amidah more often. Therefore, according to him if one were not certain whether or not one had recited a compulsory Amidah there was no reason why one should not do so voluntarily.

8:
Having presented these two situations, one regarding Grace and the other regarding the Amidah, Rabbi Ze'ira now propounds his question: what about reciting the Shema? If one is not certain whether or not he had recited the Shema may he recite it for what may be a second time? Would this be invoking God's name unnecessarily or not? At first glance this is a very strange question? Could Rabbi Ze'ira have been in doubt that reciting the Shema was a direct requirement of the Torah [Deuteronomy 6:8], just like Birkat ha-Mazon? A standard commentary on the Yerushalmi, Pney Moshe, puts it this way:

The commentary Pney Moshe was written by Rabbi Moshe Margolies who lived in Lithuania in the 18th century. He was possibly one of the teachers of Rabbi Eliahu, the Gaon of Vilna.

9:
The Gemara says that the answer to this question may be deduced from the barayta quoted previously: "If someone reads it before that time he has not fulfilled his duty." Does not the phrase 'before that time' indicate a case of doubt? In other words, if one recites the Shema during the indefinable period when day is turning into night (before the stars have appeared) one must be in doubt whether the duty had been fulfilled or not: was it day or was it night? And in such circumstances the barayta says that one must recite it. That means that if one is in doubt whether or not one had recited the Shema one must recite it.

10:
It seems to me that we could also understand the question of Rabbi Ze'ira in the light of the custom of Eretz-Israel that we have already mentioned: they used to recite the Shema before dark as a preface to the Arvit Amidah. This recitation could not possibly be de-orayta so it must be de-rabbanan. If it is de-rabbanan it should not be repeated later on. Does this mean that it must be recited again after dark has set in or not? Of course it does, because "if someone reads it before that time he has not fulfilled his duty."

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I respond:

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