Introduction to Shema and its Berachot (3) – Foundational Texts (3) – Maharal, Tanya, Siftei Chayyim
We have learned three foundational texts that give us the basic structure of Shema and its blessings. We began with the Mishna in Berachot (1:3) that outlined the model of berachot before and after the Shema. We saw the Yerushalmi (5:1, 3c) that introduced two verses as sources for this idea – You shall meditate upon it day and night (Joshua 1:8) and I praise you seven times in the day (Psalm 119:164). We then moved to the Bavli (Berachot 11a /b) that explained the change in the language of the first beracha as an attempt to refer to “the attribute of night during the day.”
Let us now explore three commentaries on this material that will help to give us a direction for the remainder of our journey through this section.
Maharal (Rabbi Yehuda ben Bezalel of Prague, d 1609)
In chapter seven of his Netiv ha-Avoda 7, the second netiv of Netivot Olam, the Maharal offers several approaches to the Shema and its blessings. He begins with an emphasis on the number seven and writes:
יש לשבח בכל יום את הש”י בשבח שלם ומלא אשר השבח השלם ומלא על ידי מספר שבע
We should praise God every day with a praise that is complete (shalem) and full (maleh), and behold the praise that is complete (shalem) and full (maleh) is done with the number seven.
Seven is the number of completion, and the elements of Jewish life that exist in sevens — Shabbat, Shemitta, Yovel — represent the completion of a cycle. For the Maharal, this is the number of perfection and nature. Every day, the Shema is surrounded by seven blessings and a framework of perfection.
He goes on to say that time cannot be divided into component parts, but rather the day and the night are a single unit.
ולפיכך צריך להזכיר מדת יום בלילה ומדת לילה ביום, כי היום מחייב את הלילה והלילה מחייב את היום ואין זה בלא זה כיון ששניהם משלימים זה לזה עד ששניהם ביחד יום אחד, ואם היה מזכיר היום בפני עצמו או הלילה בפני עצמו, היה שבח הש”י על חצי דבר ואין ראוי לשבח את הש”י על חצי דבר.
And therefore we must mention “the aspect of day at night and the aspect of night at day,” for the day demands that the night comes and the night demands that the day comes, and neither one can exist without the other for both of them complete the other until both of them are one day. And if you were to mention the day without the night or the night without the day, it would be an inappropriate half-praise of God.
This is an interesting statement about the nature of time. He is, of course, correct that time can not be limited to discrete units. This is an important philosophical question that quantum physicists have struggled with at least since Einstein. The Maharal appears to claim that since time cannot be broken up in any obvious manner, that we impose the “day” as a kind of basic unit. The basic unit of time must, by this definition, include both day and night.
He then offers the following insight:
ועוד כי הלילה והיום הוא אחד, וזה מורה כי הש”י אשר ברא אותם הוא אחד
And also, because the night and the day are one – and this teaches us the God, who created them both, is One.
The Maharal then takes his idea about the unity of time and claims that the one who created time — God — must also be unified. At some level, this is the essence of the Shema –ה’ אחד — God is One. God’s oneness is unlike anything else in this world, but we can get a sense of that characteristic by seeing the way in which the unit of time known as “day” includes both the day and the night1 .
The Tanya (Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, d. 1812. Student of the Maggid of Mezritch and founder of Chabad Chassidut)
In chapter 49 Rav Shneyer Zalman of Liadi sets up a complex mystical world-view. For our purposes, I am interested in the answer that he offers to his own question that we saw in the first essay:
דלכאורה אין להם שייכות כלל עם קריאת שמע…ולמה קראו אותן ברכות קריאת שמע? ולמה תיקנו אותן לפניה דווקא?
For presumably they [the berachot] have no connection at all to the reading of the Shema…and why were they called, “The blessing of kriyat Shema?” And why, in particular, were they instituted before the Shema?
His answer is:
משום שעיקר קריאת שמע לקיים “בכל לבבך” וכו’ בשני יצריך וכו’, דהיינו לעמוד נגד כל מונע מאהבת ה’.
Because the essence of the reading of Shema is to fulfill, “With all of your heart…” With your two impulses [the evil as well as the good, Mishna, Berachot 9:5]…to stand in the way of anything that will deter the love of God.
What does it mean to love God with both your good and evil impulse? The Mishna that the Alter Rebbe quoted in part (Berachot 9:5) begins with the phrase:
חַיָּב אָדָם לְבָרֵךְ עַל הָרָעָה כְּשֵׁם שֶׁהוּא מְבָרֵךְ עַל הַטּוֹבָה
A person is obligated to bless God on the bad just as they bless on the good.
Again, we observe that same difficult theme of learning to see the Divine hand in everything. Just as the Maharal pushed us to see the oneness of God in the oneness of time, so too the Tanya urges us to seek God from all aspects of ourselves.
In a certain sense, we can see here another instance of bi-directionality. The Maharal describes the way in which the divine nature can be perceived here on earth, while the Tanya moves from our perspective upward to how we experience the divine in our lives. They both land in the same place, but they are moving in opposite directions.
Siftei Chayyim (Rabbi Chaim Freidlander, d. 1986, among the founding students of the Ponovich Yeshiva close student of Rav Eliyahu Dessler)
Rav Friedlander brings together all of these disparate pieces into a concise and powerful introductory essay to the Berachot of Shema (שפתי חיים, ביאורי תפילה, עמ’ קיא). He begins with a brief reference to the verses from Isaiah:
(ו) לְמַעַן יֵדְעוּ מִמִּזְרַח שֶׁמֶשׁ וּמִמַּעֲרָבָה כִּי אֶפֶס בִּלְעָדָי אֲנִי יְקֹוָק וְאֵין עוֹד: (ז) יוֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חֹשֶׁךְ עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא רָע אֲנִי יְקֹוָק עֹשֶׂה כָל אֵלֶּה:
(6) So that they may know, from east to west, that there is none but Me. I am the Lord and there is none else, (7) I create light and fashion darkness, I make peace and fashion evil — I the Lord do all these things.
He then writes:
ההדגש בפסוק הוא שהקדב”ה ברא את האור והפכו – החושך, את הטוב והפכו – הרע, את השלמות והפכו – החסרון
The emphasis in the verse is that the Holy Blessed One created the light and its opposite (the darkness), the good and its opposite (the evil), the completion and its opposite (lacking).
He then points out that chapter 45 of Isaiah is directed toward Koresh and is meant as an education to the non-Jews. For those people who live with a dualist world-view, this message is extremely difficult to accept. Of course the teaching of the non-Jews is meant as a reminder to the Jewish People who may have strayed from the path. Though it is painful, he concludes:
הקב”ה עושה את הכל: הטוב והרע, האור והחושך, הכל נובע ממקור אחד.
The Holy Blessed One makes everything: the good and the evil, the light and the darkness, all flows from one source.
He concludes with a brief citation of the Gemara in Berachot 11b that quotes Rava as saying that we must mention “the aspects of day at night and the aspects of night by day.” In this short entry, he builds a deep theological framework in which to situate the blessings of Shema: an unflinching commitment to seeing God in every part of the creation.
We live in a world with too much darkness and too much pain. The experience of “lacking” is not something to laud or extol. However, it is sometimes the case that when we look back on those experiences from a place of light, we are able to see God’s quiet hand.