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Rabbinic Tefilla Colloquium II

The Current Study Unit -- by R.Kimelman (Unit 3)

THE SHEMA' LITURGY

Welcome back to our ongoing study of the liturgy.

(For those just joining us: there is no need to review the last semester's material. If you are inclined to do so, however, go to the archive and take a look at the units on the Shema in Colloquium I.)

Having discussed the blessing structure of the Shema liturgy in previous study units, we shall focus this time on the biblical sections. This session will deal with the Shema verse itself and the next with its relationship to the Decalogue. We will then take up the rabbinic ceremony for the recitation of the Shema called Pores et Shma and the saying of the "Barukh Shem Kavod." ("Blessed be the name of His glorious sovereignty forever and ever.") Although the sources are rarely cited in these posts, any source may be requested.

One of the issues we might want to consider is how we might recover the significance of the communal recitation of the Shema today that existed in the early rabbinic period. If it is true that >the rabbis constructed a recitation ceremony modeled on Greco-Roman acclamation rites, what should we do? Would it make sense to have the cantor say, "Hear O Israel, I am the Lord your God," and to have the congregation respond with "the Lord our God, the Lord is One"?

What do you think of the link between being loved and acknowledging divine sovereignty? Is there any other area of our lives where the sense of divine love stirs our realization of divine sovereignty?

THE SHEMA VERSE

Just as the angelic Qedushah and the Song at the Sea consist of a verse or verses divided and recited antiphonally, so does the liturgical performance of the Shema verse. This performance mode is rooted in ancient models of royal acclamation as shall be discussed further in the discussion of Pores et Shma. The commonality between the Song at the Sea and the Shema is stated by R. Nehemiah:

They recited [the Song at the Sea] as people recite the Shema in the synagogue as its says, "And they said saying," (Exodus 15:1) -- This teaches that Moses initially opened the matter and Israel responded and finished with him. Moses said: "Then sang Moses," and Israel said: "I will sing unto the Lord...." Moses said: "The Lord is my strength and might," and >Israel said: "This is my God and I will glorify Him."

According to R. Nehemiah, since the double reference to "saying" ("and they said saying") indicates two voices, the Song is to be recited antiphonally as is the Shema in the synagogue. In the Talmud (Sotah 30b), the same R. Nehemiah is recorded as saying: "The precentor divides (pores) the Shema: he initiates and they respond after him." The leader says, "Hear O Israel," and the congregation responds, "The Lord our God, the Lord is One." Just as one party did not intone the whole Song at the Sea, nor one set of angels utter the whole Qedushah verse, so no one party declaimed the whole Shema verse.

Similarly, Midrash Psalms splits up each verse from Psalms 118:25-28 between the Jerusalemites and the Judeans, but with regard to the final verse (119) says: "The Jerusalemites and Judeans open their mouths and praise together the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.’ " Another midrash divides up the Qedushah in the form of an acclamation, with one voice declaiming one verse, the other the second verse, and both declaiming in unison the third. It states: "When Moses went up on high, he found one group saying: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.’ [A second] group [was] saying: ‘Blessed is the glory of God from its place’. They all responded in unison saying: ‘The Lord shall reign forever; your God, Zion, for all generations. Halleluyah.’ "

As the biblical example for the realization of divine sovereignty, the Song at the Sea serves as the paradigm for the synagogal realization of divine sovereignty. In saying, "This is my God," Israel acclaimed God sovereign at the sea. As the Mekhilta states:

When the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself at the Sea, not one of them had to ask: Which one is the king? On the contrary, as soon as they saw Him, they recognized Him, and all of them loudly acclaimed, "This is my God."

Those Genizah versions of the third blessing that replace "this is my God" by "the Lord is our King," or some such variant, make this linkage explicit.

In addition to the Song at the Sea, the Sinaitic revelation served as a model for the synagogal realization of divine sovereignty. According to the Midrash, the antiphonal recitation of the Shema verse imitates the Sinaitic experience. After concluding that "the Lord our God, the Lord is One" constitutes the formula for the realization of divine sovereignty, Deuteronomy Rabbah asks:

How did Israel get to recite the Shema? R. Pinchas b. Chama said: Israel got to recite the Shema from the Revelation of Sinai. How is this so? You find that it was with this word [Shema] that God opened at Sinai. He said to them: "Hear O Israel, I am the Lord your God." They responded saying, "The Lord our God, the Lord is One."

R. Pinchas accounts for the practice of the synagogue response, "The Lord our God, the Lord is One," by explaining its origins as a response to the opening of the Decalogue’s "I am the Lord your God."

This understanding of the recitation of the Shema verse as an antiphon parallels the liturgical recitation of the Song at the Sea and the angelic Qedushah. It is possible that eventually the Shema was sung by the congregation in choral fashion, as were the antiphons of the first and third blessing. In any case, the ancient synagogal recitation of the Shema verse serves as a reenactment of Israel’s acceptance at Sinai of God as sovereign.

The rabbis also understood the public reading of the Torah as taking its cue from Sinai. Subsequently, the custom of standing during the reading was explained in terms of such a reenactment, as was the annual reading of the Decalogue. Indeed, the latter’s special cantillation was meant to exemplify the original revelation. For some the daily recitation was intended to evoke Sinai. For the Zohar, not only does the public lectionary reenact Sinai, but also "anyone involved in [the study of] Torah is as if he stands each day on Mt. Sinai and receives the Torah." Based on Deuteronomy 4:9-10, Maimonides (in his epistle to Yemen), and Nachmanides, deemed it mandatory to bear Sinai constantly in mind. (Medieval Ashkenaz designed ceremonies for the induction of children into the study of Torah whose purpose was to evoke the giving of the Torah at Sinai.)

In sum, all three events which mark the realization of divine sovereignty are enacted liturgically through an antiphonal performance. The Shema actualizes the Sinaitic encounter, the Song at the Sea reenacts ancient Israel’s realization of divine sovereignty; and the angelic Qedushah presents the heavenly acclamation of God as sovereign.

The link among the three is strengthened through the appellation for beloved --ahuvim. In the first blessing, ahuvim refers to the beloved angels singing God’s praises as part of, or as a prelude to, the realization of divine sovereignty; in the third blessing, ahuvim refers to beloved, ancient Israel doing so; and in the second blessing, beloved Israel is called upon to follow suit. In each case, it is the beloved who realizes divine sovereignty, thereby calling attention to the overlap between divine rule and divine love.

By consciously patterning the ceremony for the realization of divine sovereignty, as well as that of ancient Israel and the angels, on a common model, the liturgy promotes a convergence among worshipers, predecessors, and angels. The convergence induces the worshipers to believe in both the historical and cosmic ramifications of what they are doing by participating in both the liturgy of the celestials and that of their progenitors.

(Historically, it is unclear which of the three liturgical enactments came first. Indeed, it seems that in the Palestinian rite, the angelic acclamation originally appeared only in the Sabbath and holiday liturgies. This coheres with the idea of the Sabbath as the day of divine sovereignty par excellence in the Bible, at Qumran, and in rabbinic literature.)

This linkage with both horizontal and vertical vectors of significance validates the ceremony, and inspires Israel to join in by realizing for itself divine sovereignty. Understanding the Shema verse as the telos of the whole unit, as will be shown in part five, confirms this construal of the liturgy.

Historically, while it is clear that the paradigm for the public liturgical use of the Shema was originally an acclamation rite, in the subsequent Byzantine period, when it no longer evoked any modality of royal acclamation, the rite fell into desuetude. Instead, as attested to in the later midrashic and early medieval literature, the recitation of the Shema came to be construed as an act of testimony.

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