Layers of Meaning in Ahavah Rabbah (Birkat haTorah)

How deeply You have loved us Adonai, our God, gracing us with surpassing compassion! On account of our forebears whose trust led You to teach them the laws of life, be gracious to us, teaching us as well. O Merciful One, have mercy on us by making us able to understand and discern, to heed, learn, and teach, and, lovingly, to observe, perform, and ful fill all that is in Your Torah.

Enlighten our eyes with Your Torah, focus our minds on Your mitzvot, unite our hearts in love and reverence for Your Name. Then we will never feel shame, never deserve rebuke, and never stumble. Having trusted in Your great and awesome holiness, we shall celebrate Your salvation with joy.

Gather us in peace from the four corners of the earth and lead us upright to our land. For You, O God, work wonders. You chose us. Truly, you drew us near to Your Great Name, that we might acknowledge You, declaring You One in love. Priased be You, Adonai, who chooses Your people Israel in love.

(Translation from Mishkan T'filah, page 230).

MISHNA: From the laws of the recitation of Shema itself, the mishna proceeds to discuss the blessings recited in conjunction with Shema. Here, the order is established: In the morning when reciting Shema, one recites two blessings beforehand, the first on the radiant lights and the second the blessing on the love of Torah, and one thereafter, which begins with: True and Firm [emet veyatziv]. And in the evening one recites two blessings beforehand, on the radiant lights and on the love of God, and two thereafter, the blessing of redemption: True and Faithful [emet ve’emuna], and the blessing: Help us lie down. With regard to the blessing: True and Faithful, whether one recites it in its long formula and whether one recites it in its short formula, he fulfills his obligation (Tosafot).

Rabbi Ya’akov said in the name of Rabbi Oshaya: The blessing focuses on the verse: “Who forms light and creates darkness, Who makes peace and creates evil, I am the Lord Who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

The Gemara asks: And what is the formula of the other blessing recited before Shema? Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shmuel: An abounding love [ahava rabba]. And Rabbi Elazar instructed his son, Rabbi Pedat, to also say: An abounding love.That was also taught in a baraita: One does not recite: An eternal love [ahavat olam]; rather, one recites: An abounding love. And the Rabbis say that one recites: An eternal love, and so it says: “And an eternal love I have loved you, therefore I have drawn you with kindness” (Jeremiah 31:2). The blessing: An abounding love, is about God’s love for us and includes praise for His giving us the Torah. Therefore, Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: One who arose to study, until he recites Shema he must recite a special blessing over the Torah. If he already recited Shema he need not recite that blessing, as he has exempted himself by reciting the blessing of: An abounding love, which includes the components of the blessing over the Torah.

Certain details in this mishna are not sufficiently clear. First, what is the single blessing that the deputy High Priest instructed the guards to recite? The Gemara relates: It is like the incident where Rabbi Abba and Rabbi Yosei bar Abba happened to visit a certain unnamed place, and the people there asked them: What is the single blessing mentioned in the mishna? They did not have an answer readily available. So they came and asked Rav Mattana, and he too did not have an answer readily available. They came and asked Rav Yehuda, and he told them: Shmuel said as follows: An abounding love is the single blessing recited by the priestly watch. Rabbi Zerika said that Rabbi Ami said that Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said a different answer: This single blessing is: Who creates light. That was how Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish’s statement was received in Babylonia, yet when Rav Yitzḥak bar Yosef came from Eretz Yisrael to Babylonia, he said that this halakha was not a direct quote of a statement by Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish. That which Rabbi Zerika said was not stated explicitly by Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, but rather it was inferred from another statement. As Rabbi Zerika said that Rabbi Ami said that Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: From the expression: Recite a single blessing, in the mishna in tractate Tamid, it follows that failure to recite one of the blessings recited before Shemadoes not prevent one from reciting the other. This means that if only one of the blessings was recited, the obligation to recite that blessing was fulfilled, as the two blessings are not mutually dependent. The conclusion was drawn from Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish’s statement that he held that the single blessing recited was: Who creates light. The considerations that led the Sages to that conclusion were: Granted, if you say that they would recite: Who creates light, then the conclusion of Reish Lakish, that failure to recite one of the blessings recited before Shemadoes not prevent one from reciting the other, is understandable, as they recited: Who creates light, and did not recite: An abounding love, and they nonetheless fulfilled their obligation. However, if you say that they would omit: Who creates light, and would recite: An abounding love, on what basis would you conclude that failure to recite one of the blessings recited before Shemadoes not prevent one from reciting the other? In that case, one could offer another reason why only a single blessing is recited. Perhaps the fact that they did not recite: Who creates light was because the time for the recitation of: Who creates light, had not yet arrived, as the sun had yet to rise. The blessings of the priestly watch are recited in the early morning hours, long before sunrise. However, afterward, when the time to recite: Who creates light arrived, they would recite it. From the conclusion drawn by Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, that failure to recite one of the blessings recited before Shema does not prevent one from reciting the other, it is clear that the blessing recited by the members of the priestly watch was: Who creates light. As this deductive reasoning seems coherent and convincing, the Gemara asks: And if this halakha is based on inference, and not on an explicit statement, what of it? There seems to be no other way to interpret Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish’s statement. The Gemara answers: If this conclusion were based on an inference, one could say that actually they recited: An abounding love, and when the time to recite: Who creates light arrived, they would recite it. In that case, what is the meaning of: Failure to recite one of the blessings recited before Shemadoes not prevent one from reciting the other? Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish meant that failure to recite the correct order of the blessings does not prevent one from fulfilling his obligation. Even if one recites: An abounding love before: Who creates light, he fulfills his obligation. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish did not refer to a case where only one of the blessings was recited. Consequently, one cannot infer from his statement his opinion regarding the identity of the single blessing.