Draft 1. Book Smart. Shema through different lenses. Targum, Midrash Agada, Midrash Halacha, Talmud, Halacha, Philosophy, Musar, Kabbalah Chassidus

(10) He replied, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

(14) When Abram heard that his kinsman’s [household] had been taken captive, he mustered his retainers, born into his household, numbering three hundred and eighteen, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

(17) To Adam [God] said, “Because you did as your wife said and ate of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’
Cursed be the ground because of you;
By hard labor shall you eat of it
All the days of your life:

(6) And Rachel said, “God has vindicated me; indeed, [God] has heeded my plea and given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan.

(7) Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.”

(20) As for Ishmael, I have heeded you. I hereby bless him. I will make him fertile and exceedingly numerous. He shall be the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation.

(2) And Sarai said to Abram, “Look, ה' has kept me from bearing. Consort with my maid; perhaps I shall have a child through her.” And Abram heeded Sarai’s request.

(12) But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed over the boy or your slave; whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be continued for you.

(18) All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed My command.”

(27) Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers agreed.

(27) Come let us sell him to the Yishmaelites [Arabs], and let our hands not be upon him; for he is our brother, our own flesh. His brothers listened [to him.] [obeyed him].

(1) וישמעו AND THEY HEARKENED — The Targum renders this by “and they accepted it from him” (i.e., they agreed with him). Wherever the verb שמע means agreeing with a person’s statement — obeying — as here, and as (28:7) “and Jacob had hearkened (וישמע) to his father”, and (Exodus 24:7) “We will do and we will obey (ונשמע)” it is translated in the Targum by קבל “accepting”, but wherever it merely means hearing with the ear, as e. g. (3:8) “And they heard (וישמעו) the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden”, and (27:5) “and Rebecca heard (שומעת;”, and (31:1) “And Israel heard (וישמע)”, and (Exodus 16:12) “I have heard (שמעתי) the murmurings of the children of Israel”, — all such cases are rendered by various forms of ושמעו: שמע “and they heard“, ושמעת “and she heard”, ושמע “and he heard”,שמיע ,קדמי “there is heard before Me” (I have heard).

(7) Then he took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that ה' has spoken we will do and obey!”

(5) At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask, what shall I grant you?” (6) Solomon said, “You dealt most graciously with Your servant my father David, because he walked before You in faithfulness and righteousness and in integrity of heart. You have continued this great kindness to him by giving him a son to occupy his throne, as is now the case. (7) And now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David; but I am a young lad, with no experience in leadership.^-a (8) Your servant finds himself in the midst of the people You have chosen, a people too numerous to be numbered or counted. (9) Grant, then, Your servant an understanding mind to judge Your people, to distinguish between good and bad; for who can judge this vast people of Yours?”

(9) Moses and the levitical priests spoke to all Israel, saying: Silence! Pay attention, (Take heed and accept ) O Israel! Today you have become the people of your God ה':

(4) Saul mustered the troops and enrolled them at Telaim: 200,000 men on foot, and 10,000 men of Judah.

MISHNA: Six actions were performed by the Jewish residents of Jericho, contrary to common practice. With regard to three, the Sages reprimanded them, and with regard to three, the Sages did not reprimand them..... And these are the ones with regard to which they did not reprimand them...and they would bundle Shema

We learned in the mishna that the residents of Jericho would bundle Shema . The Gemara asks: What does it mean that they bundled Shema? How did they do so? .... Rabbi Yehuda says: .... they would not recite: Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.

The Gemara asks: What is the reason that we recite that passage: Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever, even though it does not appear in the Torah? The Gemara answers: We recite it in accordance with that which Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish interpreted homiletically. As Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said that it is written: “And Jacob called his sons and said, Gather around and I will tell you what will occur to you in the end of days” (Genesis 49:1). Jacob wanted to reveal to his sons when the complete redemption would arrive at the end of days (see Daniel 12:13), but the Divine Presence abandoned him, rendering him unable to prophesy. He said: Perhaps the Divine Presence has abandoned me because, Heaven forfend, one of my descendants is unfit, as was the case with my grandfather Abraham, from whom Ishmael emerged, and like my father Isaac, from whom Esau emerged. His sons said to him: Hear Israel, our father, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. They said: Just as there is only one God in your heart, so too, there is only one in our hearts. At that moment Jacob our father said in praise: Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever, as all his children were righteous. The Rabbis said: What should we do? Shall we recite this verse? But Moses our teacher did not say it in the Torah as part of Shema. Shall we not recite it? But Jacob said it. In order to resolve this dilemma they established that this passage should be recited surreptitiously. Rabbi Yitzḥak said that the school of Rabbi Ami said: This is analogous to the daughter of a king who smelled the fragrance of the dried spices stuck to the bottom of the pot and craved to eat them. What can she do? If she tells her servants to give it to her, she will be disgraced, as the dried spices are a contemptible food. However, if she does not say she wants to eat them, she will endure suffering. Her servants began to bring them to her surreptitiously. One should conduct himself in that manner in similar cases of uncertainty.

(36) Another interpretation [of Hear O Israel]. Our rabbis say: When Moshe went up to heaven, he heard the ministering angels who were saying to God: "Praised be the Name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever" and he brought it down to the Jewish people. Why then does Israel not say it in public? Said Rabbi Yosei: To what can this be compared? It is like someone who stole a piece of jewelry from the king's palace and gave it to his wife; he said to her: "Do not adorn yourself with this publicly, rather only in your house." However, on Yom Kippur, when they [the Jewish people] are pure like the ministering angels, they say it out loud: "Praised be the Name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever."

One who was reading the Torah and the time for the recitation arrived, if he focused his heart, he fulfilled. If not he did not fulfill.

GEMARA: Learn from this mitzvot require intent what is if one focused his heart to read to read isn’t he already reading he is reading in order to emend.

The Sages taught Shema as it is written, words of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. And the Rabbis say: in any language.

MISHNA: The first question discussed in the mishna is the question of intent. One who was reading the sections of the Torah which comprise Shema, and the time for the recitation of the morning or evening Shema arrived, if he focused his heart, he fulfilled his obligation and need not repeat Shema in order to fulfill his obligation.

GEMARA: We learned in the mishna that one must focus his heart while reading the portion of Shema in the Torah in order to fulfill his obligation.

From here, the Gemara seeks to conclude:
Learn from this that mitzvot require intent, when one performs a mitzva, he must intend to fulfill his obligation. If he lacks that intention, he does not fulfill his obligation. With that statement, this Gemara hopes to resolve an issue that is raised several times throughout the Talmud.

The Gemara rejects this conclusion:
What is the meaning of: If one focused his heart? It means that one had the intention to read.

The Gemara attacks this explanation:
How can you say that it means that one must have intention to read? Isn’t he already reading? The case in the mishna refers to a person who is reading from the Torah. Therefore, focused his heart must refer to intention to perform a mitzva.

The Gemara rejects this:
Perhaps the mishna speaks of one who is reading the Torah not for the purpose of reciting the words, but in order to emend mistakes in the text. Therefore, if he focused his heart and intended to read the words and not merely emend the text, he fulfills his obligation. He need not have the intention to fulfill his obligation.

But here, with regard to a shofar, it is written: “A memorial of blasts” (Leviticus 23:24), which might have been understood as requiring conscious intent, and this one was merely acting unawares, without having any intent whatsoever of performing the mitzva. Therefore, Rava teaches us that the absence of intent does not invalidate fulfillment of the mitzva, even in the case of shofar. The Gemara concludes: Apparently, Rava maintains that the fulfillment of mitzvot does not require intent. That is to say, if one performs a mitzva, he fulfills his obligation even if he has no intention of doing so. The Gemara raised an objection to this conclusion from what we learned in a mishna: If one was reading the passage of Shema in the Torah, and the time of reciting Shema arrived, if he focused his heart, he has fulfilled his obligation, but if not, he has not fulfilled his obligation. The Gemara reasons: What, is it not that he focused his heart to fulfill his obligation, and if he failed to do so, he has not fulfilled his duty, therefore implying that the fulfillment of mitzvot requires intent? The Gemara rejects this argument: No, the mishna means that he intended to read the passage. The Gemara asks in astonishment: To read? But he is already reading it, for the mishna explicitly states: If one was reading in the Torah. The Gemara answers: We are discussing one who was reading from a Torah scroll in order to correct it, uttering the words indistinctly. The mishna teaches that if such an individual intends to articulate the words correctly, he has fulfilled his obligation. The Gemara raises another objection: Come and hear that which we learned in our mishna: If one was passing behind a synagogue, or his house was adjacent to the synagogue, and he heard the sound of the shofar or the sound of the Scroll of Esther, if he focused his heart, he has fulfilled his obligation, but if not, he has not fulfilled his obligation. What, is it not that he focused his heart to fulfill his obligation, and if he failed to do so, he has not fulfilled his duty, therefore implying that the fulfillment of mitzvot requires intent? The Gemara rejects this argument: No, the mishna means that he intended to hear the sound of the shofar. The Gemara immediately asks: To hear? But he already hears it, since the mishna explicitly states: And he heard the sound of the shofar. The Gemara answers: We are discussing one who thinks that it is merely the sound of a donkey that he is hearing, and in this case, where the listener thinks that the sound was not that of a shofar, he does not fulfill his obligation. Therefore, the mishna teaches that it is sufficient that one have intent and know that he is hearing the sound of a shofar. The Gemara raised an objection to this answer from a baraita: If the hearer of the shofar had intent, but the sounder of the shofar did not have intent, or if the sounder of the shofar had intent, but the hearer did not have intent, he has not fulfilled his obligation, until both the hearer and the sounder have intent. Granted, with regard to the case where the sounder had intent, but the hearer did not have intent, Rava can say that this is referring to a case where the hearer thinks that it is merely the sound of a donkey and he did not have intent to hear the sound of a shofar. But with regard to the case where the hearer had intent, but the sounder did not have intent, under what circumstances can this case be found? Is it not where he sounds a shofar for music and despite the intent of the hearer he has not fulfilled his obligation? This implies that unless the sounder of the shofar has intent to fulfill the mitzva the hearer does not fulfill his obligation. The Gemara rejects this argument: Perhaps the baraita is referring to a case where he sounded bark-like blasts with the shofar, i.e., he did not sound the shofar in the proper manner, but merely acted unawares without intent to perform the mitzva. The baraita teaches us that if he has intent to sound the blasts in the correct manner, he has fulfilled his obligation.