Le Lévitique 26:6 Halakha : Mishneh Torah, Fasts & Sefer HaChinukh

About the sword (foreign troops) — how is this? Even a sword of peace. For example, idolaters making war with idolaters and they passed through a place of Israelites: Even though there is no war between them and the Israelites, this is surely a trouble, and we fast about it. As it is stated (Leviticus 26:6), "and the sword shall not pass through your land" — implying that [merely] seeing a war is a trouble.

The law of the recitation of Shema morning and evening: That we were commanded every day, morning and evening, to read one verse from the Torah in this Order, and that is “Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). And about this verse is it stated (Deuteronomy 6:7), “and you will speak in them in your sitting in your home... in your lying down and in your rising up.” And the explanation about this comes (Berakhot 10b) [that it is] at the time that people lie down and at the time that people get up. And it is established to us for the Rabbis (Berakhot 10b) that all of the night until the dawn rises is called the time that people lie down — and like the matter that is written (Leviticus 26:6), “and you will lie down and there is no one that makes [you] tremble”; and so [too], “it does not lie down until it eats prey” (Numbers 23:24) — since all the time of its lying down is implied. And also that people are divided in their attributes regarding lying down. There are those that do not lie down until half of the night, and some [not] until its end, and there are some that lie down immediately at the beginning of the night. And because of this, they said (Berakhot 10b) that the time of the recitation of Shema at night is from the time that the priests retire to eat their priestly tithe — which is the coming out of the stars — until the dawn rises. And the time that people rise up was understood [by] them [to be] from the beginning of the day — meaning to say when the morning is light [enough] that a man can recognize his fellow from the distance of four ells — until three full hours (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Reading the Shema 1:11). And rising up was not understood by them to be all of the day, like lying down; as it is not the way of any person that is healthy to rise up from his bed at the end of the day, or even its middle. And they, may their memory be blessed, said (Berakhot 9b) about the recitation of Shema of the morning that, in any case, from here onward — meaning from the end of three hours until the end of the day — he who did not read [it] did not lose [out]; however, he may not read it with its blessings.