שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃
<span class="x" onmousemove="Show('perush','El Rambam explica este versículo en el <b>1º Capítulo</b> de Las Leyes del Estudio de la Torá.',event);" onmouseout="Close();"> Oye</span>, Israel: <span class="x" onmousemove="Show('perush','Este es el <b>2do Precepto Positivo</b> enumerado por el Rambam en el Prefacio a Mishné Torá, su “Compendio de la Ley Hebrea” para todo el Pueblo de Israel.',event);" onmouseout="Close();">El Señor nuestro Dios, El Señor es Uno</span>:
Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot
MISHNAH: When does one start to read the Shema in the evening1The Mishnah presupposes that everybody knows that there is an obligation to recite the verses Deut. 6:4–9 since it is written (v. 7) “You shall teach them to your children and speak about them when you sit in your house, when you go on the road, and when you are lying down and when you are getting up.” Since it says “when you are lying down” before “when you are getting up”, the obligation of the evening is discussed before that of the morning.? From the time that the priests enter to eat2The spelling of the Yerushalmi is largely phonetic, in contrast to the Babli whose Hebrew spelling is historical. Since the א was silent in Galilean speech of the time and had lost its role as glottal stop, the Mishnah in the Yerushalmi has לוֹכֵל for classical לֶאֱכוֹל in the Babylonian Mishnah. their Terumah3Terumah, the heave, is the gift to the Cohen from agricultural produce (Num. 18:12) and also the Cohen’s part of the tithes given to the Levites from produce (Num. 18:26). These gifts must be eaten in ritual purity (Num. 18:13: “every pure person in your family may eat it.”) There are several stages in the cleansing from ritual impurity. Serious impurities (defilement by a corpse, a leper, or a sufferer from gonorrhea) need special rituals. More common defilements, such as touching a dead animal or coming in contact with a more severely impure person, need immersion in the ritual bath (miqweh). This immersion removes impurity but does not yet allow a person to touch sanctified food or to enter the Temple before nightfall, as it is said (Lev. 22:6–7): “He may not eat of sanctified food unless he immersed himself in water. When the sun leaves he shall be purified and after that he may eat of the sanctified food.” [For the more severe kinds of impurity, a sacrifice is needed before the Cohen may eat sacred food in the Temple; this does not concern us here.] The Halakhah will discuss the exact meaning of “the sun leaving” and its relation to sunset and nightfall.
Today, no Cohen may eat any Terumah and the minimal amount set apart for Terumah must be burned; it is ritually unclean from the start since nowadays everybody is defiled by the impurity of dead bodies. That impurity can be removed only by sprinkling with water treated with the ashes of the Red Heifer (Num. 19). The Mishnah was edited approximately between 200 and 220 C. E. It must be assumed that the rules of the Mishnah are intended to be practical. It follows that 130 years after the destruction of the Temple there were still places in Israel where the Cohanim could purify themselves by the ashes of the Red Heifer (in Galilee which was only minimally damaged by the two wars with the Romans.), until the end of the first night watch4The night is divided either into three (Babylonian) or four (Roman) watches. are the words of Rebbi Eliezer5The name of R. Eliezer is attached only to the statement about the night watch. The start of the time of the evening Shema is accepted by everybody. Rebbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was one of the foremost students of Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, the founder of the Synhedrion of Jabneh after the destruction of the Temple. He was the most conservative of all teachers of his time and reputed to transmit old traditions most reliably.. But the Sages say until midnight. Rabban Gamliel says until the first sign of dawn6It will be seen that the difference between Rabban Gamliel and the other sages is practical rather than theoretical. They agree that “when you are lying down” means “all the time that you are lying on your bed” and not “when you are ready to go to bed”. The latter interpretation is that of R. Eliezer..
It happened that his (Rabban Gamliel’s) sons returned from a wedding feast and told him: We did not recite the Shema‘. He said to them: If dawn has not yet come then you are obligated to recite.
Not only that, but everywhere the Sages said “until midnight”, the obligation is to the start of dawn. The obligation of burning fats and limbs on the altar [and eating of the Passover sacrifice] is until the start of dawn.134This entire Mishnah, and the following one, are still the words of Rabban Gamliel. In the Venice print and the Leyden manuscript, the Passover sacrifice is not mentioned in the Mishnah preceding the chapter but it is in the Mishnah repeated before the Halakhah. The Biblical precept is to burn the remaining parts of the sacrifices on the altar “the entire night until morning” (Lev. 6:1).
In the interpretation of the Mishnah, there is a fundamental disagreement between Rashi and Maimonides. Rashi (Berakhot 2a, s. v. להרחיק) כדי writes: “Concerning burning of the fats, the Sages did not restrict it to ‘until midnight’ at all and it is mentioned here only to emphasize that everything that has to be done in the night is kasher the entire night.” Maimonides, in his commentary on the Mishnah, writes: “They said about all of these activities ‘until midnight’, even though there would be time until the first signs of dawn, as a ‘fence’ that no one should come to act under pressure and prolong his actions until after the start of dawn; that is what they said ‘In order to remove people from sin.’ ” And he formulates this in his code (Maäse haqorbanot 4:2): “In order to avoid wilful transgression, the Sages said to bring to the altar the parts that have to be burned only until midnight.”
Neither the Yerushalmi nor the Babli discuss the burning of sacrifices during the night. However, as Rebbi Ḥuna points out in the following paragraph, in his opinion the entire discussion in the Mishnah is about Rabbinic precepts, rather than Biblical commandments. This is compatible only with the point of view of Maimonides. It is a well known principle that Maimonides follows the Yerushalmi in all points in which there is no contrary opinion indicated in the Babli; he will take the silence of the Babli in this matter as an endorsement of the interpretation of the Yerushalmi.
All sacrifices that can be eaten during one full day only could be eaten until the first dawn. In that case, why did the Sages say, only until midnight? In order to remove people from sin.
Today, no Cohen may eat any Terumah and the minimal amount set apart for Terumah must be burned; it is ritually unclean from the start since nowadays everybody is defiled by the impurity of dead bodies. That impurity can be removed only by sprinkling with water treated with the ashes of the Red Heifer (Num. 19). The Mishnah was edited approximately between 200 and 220 C. E. It must be assumed that the rules of the Mishnah are intended to be practical. It follows that 130 years after the destruction of the Temple there were still places in Israel where the Cohanim could purify themselves by the ashes of the Red Heifer (in Galilee which was only minimally damaged by the two wars with the Romans.), until the end of the first night watch4The night is divided either into three (Babylonian) or four (Roman) watches. are the words of Rebbi Eliezer5The name of R. Eliezer is attached only to the statement about the night watch. The start of the time of the evening Shema is accepted by everybody. Rebbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was one of the foremost students of Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, the founder of the Synhedrion of Jabneh after the destruction of the Temple. He was the most conservative of all teachers of his time and reputed to transmit old traditions most reliably.. But the Sages say until midnight. Rabban Gamliel says until the first sign of dawn6It will be seen that the difference between Rabban Gamliel and the other sages is practical rather than theoretical. They agree that “when you are lying down” means “all the time that you are lying on your bed” and not “when you are ready to go to bed”. The latter interpretation is that of R. Eliezer..
It happened that his (Rabban Gamliel’s) sons returned from a wedding feast and told him: We did not recite the Shema‘. He said to them: If dawn has not yet come then you are obligated to recite.
Not only that, but everywhere the Sages said “until midnight”, the obligation is to the start of dawn. The obligation of burning fats and limbs on the altar [and eating of the Passover sacrifice] is until the start of dawn.134This entire Mishnah, and the following one, are still the words of Rabban Gamliel. In the Venice print and the Leyden manuscript, the Passover sacrifice is not mentioned in the Mishnah preceding the chapter but it is in the Mishnah repeated before the Halakhah. The Biblical precept is to burn the remaining parts of the sacrifices on the altar “the entire night until morning” (Lev. 6:1).
In the interpretation of the Mishnah, there is a fundamental disagreement between Rashi and Maimonides. Rashi (Berakhot 2a, s. v. להרחיק) כדי writes: “Concerning burning of the fats, the Sages did not restrict it to ‘until midnight’ at all and it is mentioned here only to emphasize that everything that has to be done in the night is kasher the entire night.” Maimonides, in his commentary on the Mishnah, writes: “They said about all of these activities ‘until midnight’, even though there would be time until the first signs of dawn, as a ‘fence’ that no one should come to act under pressure and prolong his actions until after the start of dawn; that is what they said ‘In order to remove people from sin.’ ” And he formulates this in his code (Maäse haqorbanot 4:2): “In order to avoid wilful transgression, the Sages said to bring to the altar the parts that have to be burned only until midnight.”
Neither the Yerushalmi nor the Babli discuss the burning of sacrifices during the night. However, as Rebbi Ḥuna points out in the following paragraph, in his opinion the entire discussion in the Mishnah is about Rabbinic precepts, rather than Biblical commandments. This is compatible only with the point of view of Maimonides. It is a well known principle that Maimonides follows the Yerushalmi in all points in which there is no contrary opinion indicated in the Babli; he will take the silence of the Babli in this matter as an endorsement of the interpretation of the Yerushalmi.
All sacrifices that can be eaten during one full day only could be eaten until the first dawn. In that case, why did the Sages say, only until midnight? In order to remove people from sin.
Jerusalem Talmud Eruvin
MISHNAH: He who finds tefillin1Phylacteries, to be worn on weekdays, one on the arm and one on the head. Since they contain passages of Torah (Ex. 13:1–10, 11–16; Deut. 6:4–9, 11:13–21), they are holy and may not be left unprotected lying in the open on the road. Since the rule that phylacteries are muqṣeh and not to be worn on the Sabbath is rabbinic, in case of need the rabbinic restriction is waved; the tefillin may be worn as clothing; bringing them to a safe place in this way is a meritorious act, not a Sabbath desecration. brings them in pair by pair; Rabban Gamliel says, two by two2Even though on weekdays one never wears tefillin this way, since it is possible to wear two pairs simultaneously it is preferable to reduce the number of trips, i. e., the number of violations of rabbinic Sabbath restrictions.. When has this been said? For used ones, but for new ones3They look like tefillin but in fact might be amulets for which no rules are waived. he is not liable. If he found them in heaps or bundles4Heaps are lightly tied together, bundles are tied pair by pair. he stays there until it becomes dark and then brings them, but in times of danger5When the exercise of Jewish rites is prosecuted by the government. he covers them and goes away.
Jerusalem Talmud Sotah
MISHNAH: The following are recited in the vernacular: The verses of the suspect wife1The verses the Cohen has to read to the wife before she drinks. While the scroll has to be written in Hebrew, the wife has to understand them and, therefore, they have to be translated into her vernacular., and the declaration of tithes2Deut. 26:12–16., and the recitation of the Šema‘3Cf. Berakhot, Chapters 1–2., and prayer4The eighteen (respectively 7 or 9) benedictions of the ‘Amidah; cf. Berakhot, Chapters 1–2., and grace5After a meal., and the oath of a witness6If somebody puts an oath on a possible witness that he should come and testify for him; Lev. 5:1. Testimony itself is given without an oath., and the oath about a deposit7Ex. 22:6–12..