Mishnah Mondays #1

(1) And now, O Israel, give heed to the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe, so that you may live to enter and settle the land that the Eternal, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. (2) You shall not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, but keep the commandments of the Eternal your God that I enjoin upon you.

Rabbi Yochanan said: Those who write down the laws, it is as if they burn the Torah, and one who learns from these writings receives no reward.

Yet Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish read from a book of homilies on Shabbat.

For they interpreted as follows: “At a time when it is being done for God, they may uproot your Torah” (Psalms 119:126). So they said: It is better to uproot the Torah, so that Torah not be entirely forgotten from the Jewish people.

It is a time to act for God, for they have uprooted Your Torah.

From when does one recite the Shema prayer in the evening?

From the time the priests enter their houses in order to eat their terumah until the end of the first watch – these are the words of Rabbi Eliezer.

The Rabbis say: until midnight.

Rabban Gamliel says: until the dawn comes up.

A story: Once it happened that his sons came home late from the alehouse. And they said to him: We have not yet recited the Shema

He said to them: If the dawn has not come up yet, you are still bound to recite!

And not only in this case do they say so, but wherever you see the rabbis say, ‘Until midnight', the commandment may be performed until the dawn comes up. The commandment of burning the fat and the sacrificial pieces, too, may be performed until the dawn comes up. Similarly, all the offerings that are to be consumed within one day may lawfully be consumed until the dawn comes up.

Why, then, did the sages say ‘Until midnight?’ In order to keep a person far away from transgression.