"It will be if you diligently hearken to My mitzvot which I command you today, to love HaShem your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give the rain of your Land in its appropriate season - the first rains and the last rains. And you will gather in your grain and your wine and your oil, and I will give grass in your field for your animals, and you will eat and be satisfied. Guard yourselves, lest your heart be tempted, and you turn away and serve other gods and bow down to them; for then HaShem's fury will be upon you, and He will

These are surely among the most familiar words for any Jew.

close up the heaven so that there will be no rain, and the earth will not give its produce, and you will be destroyed swiftly from upon the good Land which HaShem gives you. And you shall place these words of Mine on your heart and on your soul, and you shall tie them as a sign on your arm and they shall be an adornment between your eyes. And you shall teach them to your sons, speaking of them while you are dwelling in your home, and while you are walking along the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up; and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, in order that your days and your children's days be prolonged on the Land which HaShem swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven above the earth." (Deuteronomy 11:13-21, the second paragraph of the Shema liturgy)


These are surely among the most familiar words for any Jew, anywhere in the world, at any time in history. The echo of "Shema Yisra'el..." will resonate in the soul even of the Jew who is the furthest removed from Torah. These are the first words that a Jew learns to utter in prayer at his mother's breast; and these are the last words that a Jew says as he is about to leave this world.


But for too many of us, these words are so familiar that we recite them twice every day as a reflex action, with no conscious thought, without delving into what God is really telling us here.


The very first words of the Mishnah discuss the correct time to say the Shema of the Evening Service: "From what time do we read the Shema of the Evening Service? From the time that the Kohanim [Priests] enter [the Holy Temple] to eat of the terumah [the Priestly dues], until the end of the first watch, according to Rabbi Eliezer. And the Sages say, until midnight. Rabban Gamliel says: Until the first hint of dawn." (Berachot 1:1)


The question leaps out from this Mishnah: What is the connection between reading the Shema and the Kohanim eating the terumah?


Perhaps a clue to the answer lies in the fact that chazal selected these three passages from the Torah as the Shema because these 20 verses between them reiterate some of the most fundamental principles of Judaism: that God exists; that He is One, indivisible and unique; that it is fitting to pray to God and only to God; that God knows all our thoughts and actions; that God rewards all those who obey His mitzvot and punishes all who transgress them; that the redemption will one day come (the phrase "...that your days and your children's days be prolonged on the Land" is an oblique reference to the days of Mashiach and the eventual resurrection of the dead. See Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishma'el, Nezikin, end; Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a, and Rashi ad loc, s.v. "lema'an yirbu yemeichem....").


The very first words of the Mishnah discuss the correct time to say the Shema.



So, since the Shema is the quintessential Jewish proclamation of faith, it is inherently interconnected with the Holy Temple, whose very existence symbolises redemption and whose destruction epitomises exile. "It is good to give thanks to HaShem, and to sing praise to Your Name, O Most High; to speak in the morning of Your loving-kindness, and Your faith in the nights," says King David (Psalms 92:2-3). Morning - the bright sunshine of redemption, the time when the Holy Temple stands - is the time to speak of God's loving-kindness. During the long, dark night of exile - when the Holy Temple lies in ruins, buried beneath the rubble of idolatry - it is impossible to see God's loving-kindness. In the shadow of the Crusades, in the torture chambers of the Spanish Inquisition, in the blood-soaked fields of Chmielnitzki's Poland, in the pogroms of Kishinev, in the hideous chambers of Auschwitz, it is impossible to see, or even to speak of, God's loving-kindness. There, in the depths of exile, all we have is faith.


But in the bright morning of redemption, when we return home in freedom to our own Land, when we defeat our enemies who come to exterminate us - that is the time to speak of God's loving-kindness.


And the Shema stands by us throughout: "You shall teach [these words] to your sons, speaking of them while you are dwelling in your home" - while you live in peace in your homeland, in Israel; "and while you are walking along the way" - wandering through exile, to the furthest corners of the earth; "and when you lie down" - when your time comes to return your soul to its Maker and to sleep in the dust, you will still keep the faith; "and when you rise up" - in the time of the resurrection of the dead.


This is the connection between reciting the Shema and the Temple sacrifice. Start to proclaim faith in God "from the time that the Kohanim [Priests] enter [the Holy Temple] to eat of the terumah [the Priestly dues]" - which is the time of sunset, the end of the daylight of freedom, the very end of independence, immediately before the onset of the night of exile, while the Holy Temple is - just about - still standing.


And continue with this faith "until the end of the first watch, according to Rabbi Eliezer."


The night was divided into three watches; Rabbi Eliezer's declaration of faith endures for the first third of the night. Whenever the Talmud quotes Rabbi Eliezer without defining which Rabbi Eliezer, it always refers to Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkanos, the son-in-law of Rabban Gamliel the Elder. And Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkanos, known as Rabbi Eliezer the Great, was the rabbi and mentor of Rabbi Akiva (Jerusalem Talmud, Pesachim 6:3) - the great leader and visionary who tried, with his legendary general, Shimon Bar-Kochba, to bring the redemption. He failed - a tragic, magnificent failure - a failure that included an unprecedented victory against the Roman Empire, a military victory that no other nation in the world would ever match, a victory that would restore Jewish sovereignty to Israel for three years.


Rabbi Eliezer was the man who, with his friend and colleague Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananya, smuggled Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai out of Jerusalem during the destruction of the Holy Temple (Gittin 56a) in a desperate attempt to salvage something from the wreckage wrought by the Romans. Rabbi Eliezer, who saw the Holy Temple in its final days, who lived through its destruction, and was so connected with the redemption but failed to actualise it, accompanies us for the first third of the long night of exile.


"And the sages say, until midnight" - the sages support us for the first half of the night.


"Rabban Gamliel says: Until the first hint of dawn" - Rabban Gamliel still stands by our side, accompanying us throughout the long, wearying night of exile. Whenever the Talmud quotes Rabban Gamliel without further definition, it always refers to Rabban Gamliel II, the grandson of Rabban Gamliel the Elder. Rabban Gamliel II was the grandfather of Rabbi Yehudah the Nasi ("Prince" - i.e., head of the Sanhedrin), who redacted the Mishnah. Rabban Gamliel II was appointed Nasi about two years after the destruction of the Holy Temple (Tosafot to Shabbat 54b, s.v. "Hava me'aser"). His father, Rabban Shimon, was murdered in Kiddush HaShem by the Romans (Sotah 48b and Sanhedrin 11a with Rashi ad loc); Rabban Gamliel named his son Shimon after his father. It was Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai who selected Rabban Gamliel as Nasi, because Rabban Gamliel was the direct male-line descendant of Hillel, who was in turn a direct descendant of King David (Jerusalem Talmud, Ta'anit 4:2). Hence, he represented and still represents the unbroken link from before the destruction of the Holy Temple, from before the onset of the night of exile, to the sunrise of the final redemption.


The dispute as to the correct time to recite the Shema is between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel; and there is a halachic principle that in every dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel, the halachah always follows Rabban Gamliel. We have been saying the Shema - declaring our faith in HaShem throughout the horrifyingly long and wearying night of exile, until - in the words of Rabban Gamliel - "until the first hint of dawn."


The dawn has already broken, and the time of morning has come to speak of HaShem's loving-kindness.


The second Mishnah continues: "From what time do we read the Shema of the Morning Service? From the time that one can distinguish between techelet and white." (Berachot 1:2) "There is no Torah like the Torah of the Land of Israel" (Leviticus Rabbah 13:5; Yalkut Shimoni, Bereishit 22), because Torah learnt in the Land of Israel is the Torah of redemption; whereas, Torah learnt elsewhere is Torah of exile.

Torah learnt elsewhere is Torah of exile.



That is why Rabbi Zeira, when he made Aliyah from Babylon, fasted one hundred fasts to forget all the Torah he had learnt in Babylon (Ketuvot 112a, Bava Metzi'a 85a). And just as the Torah of Eretz Yisra'el is incomparably greater than the Torah of exile, so too is the Shema of redemption incomparably greater than the Shema of exile.


The dawn has begun to break and we are poised on the verge of reciting, after 2,000 years, the Shema of the Morning of Redemption. And the recital of the Shema is inextricably intertwined with the service of the Holy Temple: as long as it has not been rebuilt, all our service is defective. "Every generation in whose days the Holy Temple is not rebuilt is considered as though they had destroyed it." (Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma 1:1) Harsh words indeed! Why should a generation be considered as though they had destroyed the Holy Temple just because it had not been rebuilt in their days?


The Midrash explains: "What is the reason? Because they had not repented." (Yalkut Shimoni, Psalms 886). Had our generation - we personally - done true teshuva, then the Holy Temple would already have been rebuilt.


We have nurtured this faith for thousands of years, while we walked along the way in a hundred countries of exile. And now we are to speak of this faith while we are once again dwelling in our home in the Land of Israel. The time has long since come for us all do genuine teshuva, to proclaim the Shema of complete faith, to proclaim the Shema of the morning of redemption, to put the long night of exile behind us, and to allow the sunlight of Mashiach to burst forth over the rebuilt Holy Temple, from there to illuminate Zion and the whole of Israel, "in order that your days and your children's days be prolonged on the Land which HaShem swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven above the earth."