Tractate Berakhot of the Talmud of Eret—-Israel: 0018

1:
In the mishnah, as we have seen, the majority of the sages hold that the Evening Shema must be recited by midnight. However, the mishnah continues to inform us that Rabban Gamli'el disagreed with them and held that the Evening Shema may be recited any time of the night until the break of dawn heralds a new day.

2:
The Gemara suggests that Rabban Gamli'el is saying the same thing as Rabbi Shim'on bar-Yoḥai. For in the Tosefta [Berakhot 1:2] Rabbi Shim'on is quoted as saying that sometimes a person can recite the Shema twice during the same night, once just before dawn and again just after dawn; he will then have fulfilled his duty both as regards the previous evening and as regards the morning. Since both Rabbi Shim'on and Rabban Gamli'el hold that one can recite the evening Shema before dawn and thus fulfill the duty of reciting the Shema in the evening, it follows that on this point they are in agreement.

3:
The Gemara now asks whether this agreement holds good also as regards the recitation of the morning Shema. In other words, does Rabban Gamli'el agree with what we must understand to the be opinion of Rabbi Shimon that the morning Shema may be recited any time from the break of dawn onwards. Or, perhaps, halakhah does not follow Rabbi Shim'on in this matter. For there is a barayta which teaches that if someone recites the Morning Shema together with the Men of the Watch he has not fulfilled his duty because they recite it too early.

4:
When we studied Tractate Tamid we learned that the priests were divided into twenty-four 'watches' and each watch provided the priestly manpower in the Bet Mikdash for one week. In a similar manner the rest of the people, 'Israelites', were divided into watches. Each 'watch' provided a representative contingent whose task it was to stand just inside the Priestly Court of the Bet Mikdash, thus representing all Israel at the time of the public sacrifice. The members of the current 'watch' whose presence was not required in Jerusalem would get together in their home town in order to hold prayers and recite passages from the Torah at the same time as their colleagues were 'on duty' in the Bet Mikdash. As we learned in Tractate Tamid, the ceremony of the morning sacrifice began with the break of dawn, which is when the 'Men of the Watch' would recite Shema.

5:
The barayta says that if a Jew recites Shema with these 'Men of the Watch' he has not fulfilled his duty because they recite it very early, just after dawn. It follows that the author of this barayta held that in the morning Shema must be recited later than dawn — a few minutes before sunrise. This view contradicts that of Rabbi Shim'on. The Gemara does not resolve this issue at this point.

Sherry Fyman writes:

In #0017 you explained the position of Rabbi Abba bar-Yirmiyah on why the Amidah immediately follows the bracha: "The benediction that concludes Emet ve-Yatziv … must be followed immediately by the Amidah. This is learned from the juxtaposition of the last verse of Psalm 19 and the beginning of Psalm 20…"

I'm puzzled as to how we can establish practice on something which I might have thought is almost arbitrary, namely, the organization of the Book of Psalms. Here's what I mean: I know that microscopic scrutiny of the chumash is a thousands-year-old practice for extracting hints and suggestions as to how we might live a just and upright life. But even with the text of the chumash, if one doesn't hold by the Orthodox view that every single word was dictated by God to Moses (as I know you don't Sanhedrin 016), establishing practice based on something like the juxtaposition of pasukim can sometimes seem a bit weak. And that's using the chumash as a proof text. I would have thought that by the time we get to Psalms it would be all that much weaker a source to be used for establishing practice. I know nothing about how the Book of Psalms was put together, but I would be surprised if modern scholars wouldn't posit different theories about how one psalm came to follow another.

I respond:

It would be wrong to assume that the custom was dictated by the juxtaposition of the verses of the psalms. In reality it is the other way around. Many a time and oft I have had occasion to point out that in many instances biblical verses quoted by the sages to 'support' a ruling or custom are nothing more than 'a peg' on which to hang the idea. (I have mentioned this so many times that I cannot bring all of them here. A quick search in the archives produces, among others, Pe'ah 082, Sotah 104, Avot 123, Avot 164. ) When a ruling or custom is not derived directly from scripture it was necessary to attach it to some verse or other in the bible. The selected verse thus becomes a peg on which to hang the ruling or custom. During the very long period when the oral tradition was not written down it was prudent to link an idea to a biblical verse: since the sages knew their bible off by heart this would be a useful mnemonic.

In our case here, therefore, the custom of juxtaposing Shema and Amidah was well established and the biblical verses were just pegs on which to hang the custom. The reason why this custom came into being is hinted in today's shiur. There were (and are!) saintly people who try to get the start of their morning Amidah to coincide with sunrise. It is therefore necessary to 'calculate' back when one should begin to recite Shema before the Amidah. (Rambam, in the Middle Ages, [Mishneh Torah, Shema 1:11] allocates about six minutes before sunrise for the Shema and its benedictions. Tell that to some modern prayer leaders and ḥazzanim!)

There is no doubt that in earlier times the recitation of Shema and the Amidah were two separate and unconnected mitzvot. We have already seen that in Eretz-Israel the evening Shema was recited at bed time, without the Amidah. When the synagogue services became 'organized' and the Amidah came after Shema it was convenient to hang this custom on a biblical peg.

One last point. Regardless of the opinion of modern scholarship, for the sages of the Talmud the Book of Psalms was composed by King David and he was responsible for the order of the psalms within it.