CLAL Rabbinic Community On Line
|
|
|
Rabbinic Tefilla Colloquium IIThe Current Study Unit -- by R.Kimelman (Unit 4)THE SHEMA' LITURGYWelcome 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.) This unit deals with the relationship between the Shema and the Decalogue: the former has become central to the liturgy, whereas the latter has become central to the architecture of the aron ha-kodesh. What would happen if the two exchanged places in our liturgical life -- would it make a difference? If you were choosing, which of them would you have chosen to represent the covenant in our liturgy? THE SHEMA AND THE DECALOGUEThe coupling of the Shema and the Decalogue harks back to the Bible. It appears in Deuteronomy 5-6, possibly Psalms 51 and 80, the Nash Papyrus, Qumran tefillin, possibly Qumran liturgy, and the report in Mishnah Tamid of the morning Temple service, albeit not in early Christianity. In Exodus 34, of the two, the Decalogue alone represents the covenant. In Deuteronomy, the Decalogue, though associated with the Shema, retains its place as the document of the Sinaitic covenant. The alleged allusion to the Shema in the Psalms adds to the early evidence for the association of the Shema with the Decalogue. In the Nash Papyrus, in Mishnah Tamid, and in ancient tefillin, both of these texts are found together. Also the Septuagint distinguishes the Shema by adding the same introduction that appears in the Nash Papyrus: "These are the statutes and the laws which the Lord [Nash Papyrus: Moses] commanded the Israelites in the wilderness when they went out of Egypt." The victory, as it were, of the Shema over the Decalogue is reflected in the liturgical canonization of the Shema and the corresponding excision of the Decalogue. This change of status is reflected in the explanation of Sifre Deuteronomy for the absence of the Decalogue from the daily recitation and from the tefillin as opposed to the presence of the Shema in both. The result is that the Shema alone is debated by the Houses of Hillel and Shammai in Mishnah Berakhot. It alone is mentioned in The Gospel of Mark, though never explicitly in the Pauline corpus. It alone appears in the tefillin of the caves of Murabba`at. And it alone is alluded to in The Rule of the Community (10,10) and in Pseudo-Aristeas (160). By the time of Mishnah Berakhot and the formalization of the liturgy, the Shema reigns supreme. In the tannaitic period, the Decalogue no longer appears in the liturgy, purportedly because a group of minim made the heretical claim that the Decalogue alone was given at Sinai. There are major difficulties in attributing such serious surgery of the liturgy to such a cavil alone. It is difficult to understand how the recitation of the Decalogue along with the three sections of the Shema, with their emphasis on compliance with all the commandments, supports the charge that only the Decalogue is Sinaitic. Surely, the multiple references to commandments therein cannot pertain to the Decalogue alone. Had the Decalogue been recited alone the charge would have had more cogency, but such was not the case. Moreover, it is hard to accept that such cavils would lead to the excision here if trinitarian explanations for the Kedushah/Sanctus or the Shema verse elsewhere did not. It is preferable to ascribe the absence of the Decalogue to its role’s having being assumed by the Shema. This is evident from the tannaitic discussion of the internal logic of their respective sequences. According to R. Simeon b. Yohai, the sequence of the first two sayings of the Decalogue adheres to the theory that the acceptance of God's sovereignty precedes the acceptance of His commandments. He understood the words, "I am the Lord your God" (of the Decalogue as well as those of Leviticus 18:2) to mean, "Am I not He whose sovereignty you have accepted at Sinai?" The thesis which argues for the logical priority of the acceptance of God's sovereignty over that of the commandments was applied by R. Simeon's younger contemporary, R. Joshua b. Korha, to the order of the Shema, in contrast to R. Simeon's aforementioned functional explanation of the sequence of the two sections. By including in the Mishnah R. Joshua's theological account for the sequence of the Shema, as opposed to R. Simeon's, R. Judah Hanasi confirmed the Shema as the Decalogue's replacement. This shift from the Decalogue to the Shema is confirmed by two other statements that attest to his understanding of the Sinaitic revelation and the recitation of the Shema as equivalents. In the first, he says, "When they all stood before Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah, they all made up their mind as one to accept divine sovereignty," whereas in the second he holds that the Shema verse itself constitutes the acceptance of divine sovereignty. The only additional requirement was mention of the Exodus. In the same vein, the Shema, as noted, is epitomized in the Kedushah of the Sabbath Musaf by the Shema verse followed by a call for redemption. The common terminology for the Shema verse and the opening line of the Decalogue identifies them as functional equivalents. Indeed, tannaitic opinion deemed the Shema verse unique due to its combining of the acceptance of divine sovereignty with the exclusion of idolatry on the model of the first two sayings of the Decalogue. The trouble is that the verse does not contain an explicit term for sovereignty. Thus in order to guarantee the understanding of the Shema verse as an expression of the realization of divine sovereignty, the rabbis inserted right after it the formula, "Blessed be the name of His glorious sovereignty forever and ever." The formula itself resulted from interpolating the term "sovereignty " into the verse - "Blessed be His glorious name forever" (Ps. 72:19). The interpolation is easily detected by the fact that the result defies smooth translation. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that the resultant expression "glorious sovereignty" matches that of verse eleven of Psalm 145, the very psalm dubbed the Shema of the Psalter, as noted in our postings last Spring on Ashrei (see archives). By requiring the recitation of the Shema verse in Hebrew, audibly, clearly, and sequentially, Rabbi Judah assures that the confirmation of the covenant conforms to its perceived original modality. Similarly, despite the mishnaic condoning of interruptions between the sections of the Shema and between the blessings, R. Judah prohibits such a break between the Shema and Emet ve-yasiv. This prohibition not only allows for the forging of an unbreakable bond between the Shema and the upcoming theme of the Exodus, but, more importantly, guarantees an uninterruptible link between the recital of the text of the covenant and its affirmation of acceptance. Strictly speaking, the Exodus is not part of the Emet ve-yasiv, but of the upcoming Ezrat avotenu blessing. In fact, the subsequent requirement of mentioning the motifs of Exodus, divine kingship, the crossing of the Sea, and the slaying of the first-born in the combined Emet ve-yasiv-Ezrat avotenu blessing bespeaks an original without them. The relationship between the first Shema section and the Decalogue has been pointed out by medievals and moderns alike. Their equivalency, in general, is supported by the fact that the acceptance of divine sovereignty as well as the biblical covenantal idea both view the love of God as comprised of a solemn binding of Israel to the service of God alone and obedience to His commandments. By amoraic times, the usurpation of the role of the Decalogue by the Shema made any recitation of the Decalogue superfluous. R. Levi justified its absence through a point-by-point correspondence to show how the Decalogue is incorporated in the Shema. For example, "I am the Lord your God" corresponds to "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God," and "You shall have no other gods before Me" corresponds to "The Lord is One." Similarly, R. Ba saw the Decalogue as the essentials of the Shema. The awareness of the redundancy is reflected in the statement: "The sages sought to insert the Decalogue into the recitation of the Shema, but did not because they are all already included." In later midrashic works, the thematic overlap between the Shema and the Decalogue is complemented by a chronological one. Thus, "When did Israel say 'Shema'? The moment that the Holy One, blessed be He, came to Sinai," or more expansively, "From Mt. Sinai, [Israel] got to recite the Shema.… [God said,] 'I am the Lord your God.' At that moment, they acclaimed the sovereignty of the Holy One, blessed be He, and said to each other, 'Hear O Israel.' " Once synchrony is established, it can be averred that, "Anyone who fulfills the Shema is as if he fulfilled the Decalogue, since at the time of the recitation of the Shema the Decalogue was given." All the early amoraic statements are predicated on the assumption that the recitation of the Shema obviates the need for the recitation of the Decalogue. The point is made explicit in medieval literature. A late Zoharic passage states that: "The early Hasidim instituted the recitation of the Shema as compensatory for (ke-neged) the Decalogue," whereas Abraham b. Nathan of Lunel argues that the attentive recitation of the three sections of the Shema is on a par with the recitation of the Decalogue. The significance of this replacement of the Decalogue by the Shema lies in the fact that the Decalogue is a biblical unit whereas the Shema is a liturgical-ritual construct. The mishnaic understanding of the contiguity of the sections of the Shema in terms of a two-tiered realization of divine sovereignty culminates the process of vitiating the liturgical function of the Decalogue. As the liturgical correlate, if not surrogate, of the Decalogue, the Shema's recital mode emulates models of covenantal renewal rites in order to evoke Sinai in a manner recalling the original covenant, just as the Decalogue had done. Bereft of a distinctive covenantal role, the Decalogue fell out of the covenantal ceremony of the Shema. An additional consideration for not retaining the Decalogue along with the Shema was the practice of choosing between competing materials to prevent the length of the service from unduly burdening the congregation. Accordingly, the effort to introduce the section of Balak/Balaam in the Shema liturgy was thwarted. Only in later amoraic times did the practice of reciting both liturgical possibilities come into vogue. There are several considerations for preferring the Shema over the Decalogue as the text for proclaiming the authority of divine sovereignty and that of the commandments. The Shema verse cannot be limited to those who experienced the Exodus. It was understood to affirm that our God is the one and only, the God who is to become the God of all. It also establishes the relationship with God on love. Finally, the commitment embraces all of the commandments, not just those of the Decalogue. It is only because of the tenuous status of the Decalogue to begin with that it became vulnerable to excision by virtue of external caviling. With the Decalogue gone, the Shema alone served as the biblical lectionary of the liturgical covenant ceremony. The fact that the Emet ve-yasiv prayer is recited right after the Shema sections also bespeaks that the liturgy grasps the Shema, sans Decalogue, as a covenantal ceremony. This function of the Emet ve-yasiv prayer is spelled out by Moshe Weinfeld in the conclusion to his study of ancient fealty oaths:
This link with the Shema is even more obvious in the extant evening version. That version constitutes an oath to accept the Shema, saying: "He is the Lord our God and there is none other and we are Israel, His people," which reformulates the Shema verse in reverse order. In sum: the retention of the Emet ve-yasiv prayer in the Rabbinic liturgy, despite it being distinct from the redemption theme of the blessing, attests to the link between the recitation of the Shema and ancient loyalty pacts. The Shema/Decalogue connection may also have spawned the Shema/Redemption connection. As the covenant at Sinai was grounded in the Exodus -- "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt" -- so the covenantal ceremony of the Shema came to invoke the Exodus. Once past redemption is evoked, hope for future redemption cannot be far behind. Accordingly, another Midrash takes the words "the Lord is one" to mean the Lord is one for all. The expectation is that all humanity will accept God as sovereign, as it says, "The Lord shall be king over all the earth. In that day shall the Lord be one and His name one" (Zechariah 14:9). This type of association accounts for the later appending of the same verse to the liturgical use of the Song at the Sea in the morning lectionaries before the Shema. The point is that the redemption of Israel, prefiguring the redemption of humanity, culminates in the universal acknowledgement of divine sovereignty, a point developed in our earlier post on the Amidah (see archive).
To Post a Comment or Question to the Ongoing Discussion, Click here: post.To Browse the Ongoing Discussion, Click here: ongoing.To Access Prior Study Units, Click here: archives. |
Copyright c. CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, 1999-2003 |
