Position or Time? The Two Readings of “Uveshochbecha Uvkumcha”
According to Beit Shammai: “beshochbecha” denotes lying down and “uvkumcha” denotes standing. According to Beit Hillel: these words denote the time when people lie down and the time when people rise. The Gemara frames the reasoning of Beit Shammai sharply: had the Torah wished to designate a time, it would have written “baboker uva’erev”; since it employed words of posture, it must intend posture. [The Gemara thereby supplies Beit Shammai with a textual argument rather than a thematic one.]
It seems that the deeper point of Beit Shammai is not posture in the abstract but Kriat Shema al hamitah. In the earliest period Kriat Shema was not yet part of the davening; it was recited at night upon retiring to bed — whence the bracha of Hashkiveinu — and in the morning upon rising. On this reading “beshochbecha” is the recitation of one lying down to sleep and “uvkumcha” the recitation of one who has risen from his bed, and the dispute concerns the original setting of the obligation.
A scholar proposed that Beit Shammai require standing because they conceive of Kriat Shema as a ceremony, a ma’amad demanding the posture of honor and attentiveness — the posture of “amod dom,” of attention, by which a person signals that he gives his whole mind to the matter and does not drift, sit, or fall asleep. This does not persuade, for a simple reason: it is difficult to imagine a ceremony conducted lying down. The asymmetry undoes the reading. Many parts of davening are indeed recited standing. But the verses here express not honor and ceremony but the natural acts of lying down to sleep and of rising.
An Early Mishna, the Zmanim of Kriat Shema, and the Supremacy of Beit Hillel
This Mishna is chronologically the earliest in the masechta, since Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel belong to the era of Bayit Sheni, whereas the Chachamim of the opening Mishnayot — Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua — are of the generation of Yavne. Its placement therefore returns to the fundamentals. The consequence reaches the zmanei Kriat Shema. According to Beit Shammai: if “uvkumcha” means “when you rise,” the time of recitation is simply whenever a person wakes, and there is no fixed zman. According to Beit Hillel: “the time when people lie down” and “the time when people rise” introduce a sociological, average measure — one looks to when people as a group retire and arise. The whole machloket of the Yavne generation concerning the zmanim thus operates within the framework of Beit Hillel.
The supremacy of Beit Hillel is bound up with the historical fate of Beit Shammai. Hillel and Shammai lived roughly in the time of Herod, who died in 4 BCE; their schools span the final seventy years of Bayit Sheni, and then Beit Shammai disappear. Yisrael Ben-Shalom devoted a doctorate to Beit Shammai and suggested that they were more deeply involved in the great revolt and were killed. Whatever the cause, once Beit Shammai vanish, Beit Hillel too lose their definition, for a school is defined against its opponent.
The generation of Yavne faced the task of rebuilding religious life after the churban, when whole domains of Halacha collapsed — there was no Avodat Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur, no Korban Pesach. The Beit HaMikdash had been the spiritual center that united the nation under the authority of Yerushalayim and the Sanhedrin; now the principle of “mibeit hamikdash l’beit hamidrash” shifted authority from Kohanim to Chachamim. Rabban Gamliel took upon himself the unification of the people around Torah, and unification required a single accepted authority. The Mishna in Yevamot records that, despite their many machlokot, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel did not refrain from marrying one another — the Gemara qualifies that they married only where both agreed, though the pshat of the Mishna is that they lived together in peace. In Yavne there was no longer the luxury of coexistence with dissent; hence Rabban Gamliel’s struggle with those who acted in the manner of Beit Shammai. Rabbi Eliezer is called a “Shammuti,” and the term itself is in question: it may mark him as an adherent of Beit Shammai, or as one placed under shamta, that is, cherem. The story of Tanur shel Achnai shows how Rabban Gamliel could not tolerate one who would not accept the ruling of the majority, lest the center fragment; the same insistence appears in his conflicts with Rabbi Yehoshua, including the episode of the calendar in Rosh Hashana, where he compelled Rabbi Yehoshua to desecrate the day that by his own reckoning was Yom Kippur, in order to demonstrate submission to the central authority.
Why is the Halacha like Beit Hillel? The Gemara in Eruvin (13b) answers: because they would first state the words of Beit Shammai before their own. In our Mishna, too, Beit Shammai speak first — as they do in nearly all of the roughly three hundred machlokot of the Mishna, the sole exception being one Mishna in Sukkah where Beit Hillel precede them; the Or Zarua, a Baal HaTosafot of thirteenth-century Germany, holds that this must be a scribal error and reverses the nusach. But why should listening first be grounds for the Halacha to follow you? The character of the two schools supplies the answer. The Gemara in Shabbat (30b) portrays Shammai with the amat habinyan in hand, impatient with troublesome questioners, certain of the truth and leaving no room for other views. Beit Hillel, by contrast, listened to their opponents, weighed their words, and were anavim; their position was therefore the more considered and balanced one.
An illustration of this trait was heard from Justice Neil Hendel, whose son learned in Yeshivat Har Etzion, where Abba z”l served as Rosh HaYeshiva. At a meeting with parents, one asked whether the yeshiva ought to hold examinations, and Abba z”l replied that there are four reasons to hold exams. A man sitting next to Hendel remarked that the Rosh HaYeshiva favored exams; but Hendel knew that he opposed them, “because he is from Beit Hillel” — one who first sets out the reasons in favor will afterward explain the reasons against, and so indeed it proved. This is “makdim divrei chaveiro”: one listens to others, considers that they may be right, and only then forms a balanced position. The Gemara expresses precisely this when it states “bishlama Beit Hillel” — they explain both their own reasoning and the reasoning of Beit Shammai, accounting even for “uvelechtecha vaderech” — whereas Beit Shammai explain only their own reading.
The danger of departing from Beit Hillel is taught by the story of Rabbi Tarfon. Traveling on the road when the time for Kriat Shema arrived, he reclined to recite in the manner of Beit Shammai and thereby endangered himself before bandits (listim), the open road being the domain of those who do not obey the law. The Chachamim told him: “kedai hayita lachuv b’atzmecha” — you would have deserved whatever befell you, for you transgressed the words of Beit Hillel. [Strictly, Rabbi Tarfon violated nothing: Beit Hillel never forbade reclining but only declined to require it, so his act was an innocent stringency.] The lesson nonetheless impressed upon the child first meeting Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel is that there is no reward for misplaced piety, and danger in deviating from the established Halacha.
Kriat Shema as a State of Mind: The Exemption of Osek B’mitzvah and the Chatan
The drasha underlying the exemptions reads: “beshivtecha b’veitecha” — excluding one engaged in a mitzvah; “uvelechtecha vaderech” — excluding a chatan; “from here they said: one who marries a betulah is exempt and one who marries an almanah is obligated.” The conceptual key is that Kriat Shema describes the framework of mundane life. “Beshivtecha b’veitecha” is the realm of ordinary activity; the recitation morning and evening crowns HaKadosh Baruch Hu and places the whole mundane day under the impression of that declaration. It is, in essence, an attitude — a state of mind. One who is already osek b’mitzvah is by that very act engaged with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and is therefore exempt.
How does “uvelechtecha vaderech” yield this exemption? According to Rav Papa: “kederech” — just as a journey is reshut, so the whole obligation is framed around reshut. The Gemara objects: is a journey necessarily optional? One may travel for the sake of a mitzvah, and even so the Torah commanded recitation. The resolution lies in the possessive form: had the verse intended a flat rule it would have written “b’shevet uvelechet”; the added “becha” — “b’shivtecha uvelechtecha,” your sitting and your going — teaches “b’shevet didach uvelechet didach,” that one is obligated when occupied with his own affairs. A mitzvah, however, is not done for oneself but at the command of HaKadosh Baruch Hu; hence “haosek b’mitzvah patur min hamitzvah,” and hence “prat l’chatan.”
Why does the Torah require a separate exclusion for the chatan, given that he too is osek b’mitzvah? According to Rashi: the chatan is indeed osek b’mitzvah, but without the extra verse he would not have been exempt by the mi’ut of osek b’mitzvah alone. That exemption is not written explicitly (lo ktiv kra b’hedya) but derived as a mere mi’ut from “mibeitecha,” and it would have applied only where there is tirda — an active being-occupied with another matter. A chatan “domeh l’melech”: he sits at home and is anxious, yet he does nothing, others arranging the wedding around him. His clash is “tirda d’machshava b’alma” — a purely mental preoccupation, his mind upon the question of betulim — and such mental tirda would not have been excluded but for the additional word. Rashi was thus alert to the duality: the chatan is at once osek b’mitzvah and a case whose true issue is kavana, a defect of state of mind; and ultimately his exemption too rests upon osek b’mitzvah patur min hamitzvah.
According to Tosafot, and so we rule le-Halacha: today a chatan does recite Kriat Shema, because we no longer possess regular kavana in any case. We may perhaps concentrate for the moment of Shema itself, but we cannot sustain such a state of mind throughout the day. Were a chatan today to say, “tonight I cannot recite, for I cannot concentrate,” he would be implying that on every other night he does concentrate — and that is ga’avah. Hence the final Tosafot of the second perek rules that today even a chatan recites.
Which Tirda Exempts? The Betulah, the Almanah, the Ship, and the Avel
The braita exempts only one who marries a betulah, while one who marries an almanah remains obligated — yet marrying an almanah is equally a mitzvah. According to the Gemara: “hai tarid v’hai lo tarid” — the one is preoccupied and the other is not. The tirda of the chatan who marries a betulah is not youthful excitement but the anxiety “shema einah betulah,” the concern over whether she is in fact a virgin — a concern that presupposes the whole of Masechet Ketubot. In the era of Chazal, eirusin and nisuin were two separate stages, often a year apart: eirusin, the giving of the ring, renders her an eshes ish, while nisuin is the commencement of married life. The fear is that she may have been unfaithful in the interval. The Mishna in Ketubot accordingly fixes Wednesday as the day of marriage, so that if a claim arises the Beit Din may sit the following day; and the financial stakes are real, the ketubah of a betulah being double that of an almanah. The chatan who marries a betulah is therefore rightly preoccupied, whereas the one who marries an almanah is not.
If mere tirda were sufficient to exempt, then one whose ship sank at sea — a man consumed by financial ruin — would equally be exempt. [The contemporary parallel is anxiety over the stock market: when prices and the price of oil move sharply amid the events of the day, one preoccupied with his account might claim that he cannot recite. It is a genuine tirda.] The Gemara entertains this — “v’chi tema haki nami” — that perhaps such a man is indeed exempt. The refutation comes from the avel: Rabbi Abba bar Zavda said in the name of Rav that “an avel is obligated in all the mitzvot stated in the Torah, except for tefillin, for ‘pe’er’ is said of them, as it is written ‘pe’ercha chavush alecha.’” An avel is surely tarid — his father or mother has died — and yet he is chayav in all the mitzvot, Kriat Shema among them. Tirda alone, then, does not exempt. The resolution: “hacha tarid tirda d’mitzvah, hatam tarid tirda d’reshut” — the chatan’s preoccupation is a tirda of mitzvah, while the avel’s and the merchant’s are a tirda of reshut. According to Rashi: since the exemption is only a mi’ut, “prat l’chatan,” it suffices to exclude a tirda d’mitzvah alone.
The Avel, Tefillin, and the Laws of Aveilus
The exception of tefillin opens onto the nature of aveilut. The laws of mourning are derived in Moed Katan largely from episodes in Tanach where mourning is forbidden, from which the normal practice is inferred. To Bnei Aharon, on the eighth day of the Mishkan when Nadav and Avihu died, Moshe said “bigdeichem lo tifromu v’rasheichem lo tifra’u” — whence the regular avel does rend his garments and does refrain from cutting his hair. Yechezkel was commanded to marry a woman who would die and not to mourn her, as a sign to the people of the churban of Bayit Rishon, when they would be too overwhelmed by their troubles to mourn; among the things he was told is “pe’ercha chavush alecha” — keep your turban, your pe’er, upon your head. The pe’er of a Jew, say Chazal, is tefillin, which by the basic Halacha were meant to be worn all day; today we wear them only during davening. An avel is patur from tefillin.
Le-Halacha, the only day on which an avel does not wear tefillin is the first day of aveilut. This is distinct from aninut: the onen, “mi shemeto mutal lefanav” until burial, does not don tefillin, performs no other mitzvot asei, makes no berachot, and does not daven. After the funeral his status changes from onen to avel, and an avel is “chayav b’chol hamitzvot” — save that on the first day, even after burial, he does not wear tefillin. A machloket arises where burial is not on the day of petira. According to many Rishonim, only the first day of aveilut is d’oraita; the Ramban in Torat Ha’adam discusses at length how the mitzvah of tefillin can be set aside by the mitzvah of aveilut, a difficulty resolved differently according to whether aveilut is d’oraita or d’rabbanan. According to the Mahritatz: where burial does not fall on the day of petira, that day’s aveilut is d’rabbanan, and one should therefore don tefillin after the funeral. Yet since others disagree, it is reported in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach — and was perhaps the minhag of Yerushalayim — to don tefillin without a beracha. Many, however, are cholek and hold that even on the first day, whether or not it is the day of petira, one does not don tefillin; and a tradition in our family runs straight to Volozhin, to the Netzi”v, not to wear them. When Abba z”l died, the funeral was delayed a day to await my brother from New York, and he was insistent — having heard it from the Rav z”l — that one does not wear tefillin on the first day of aveilut.
According to the Rav z”l, the matter belongs to the kiyum of aveilut. The Rambam holds that Kohanim who are aveilim must become tamei to their relatives — they express aveilut precisely by doing what is otherwise forbidden, demonstrating that something has changed; it is a kiyum aveilut for a Kohen to be nitma l’meitim. The Rambam therefore limits the obligation to one for whom tum’ah is forbidden, exempting a kohenet, who is permitted tum’ah and so need not express her mourning in that manner. So too the avel expresses his aveilut by withholding tefillin, the “pe’er” and crown that he is in no state to bear. The Rav z”l would describe the avel’s exemption as a din b’gavra: the very person of an avel, on the first day, the yom mar, stands in contradiction to the crown of tefillin.
Is Aveilut a Kiyum She’balev or an Expression of Kavod? The Rashi in Sukkah
The parallel sugya in Sukkah (25b) preserves a Rashi that bears directly on the nature of aveilut. The conflict the Gemara addresses is one of state of mind: when a man’s attention is drawn toward his money rather than toward Kriat Shema, why do we tell him to fix his mind upon Kriat Shema? When two objects of concentration clash, what is the Archimedean point upon which we instruct him to focus? According to Rashi: for a chatan who marries a betulah it is legitimate to concentrate on the mitzvah of marriage, and Kriat Shema is therefore nidcheh; but for one whose mind is on the market we say, focus on Kriat Shema and not on your money — and if he protests that he cannot attend to both, the answer is: then attend to Kriat Shema.
Concerning aveilut, Rashi states that the mourner “eino chayav l’hitzta’er” — he is bound to observe the practices of aveilut, the ne’ilah, rechitza, and sicha by which he shows kavod to his dead, but he is not obligated to grieve. Hence one who says, “I cannot concentrate on Kriat Shema, for I cannot cease thinking of my sorrow,” is told what a Jew does: he does what he is bound to do. This Rashi is striking, for it runs against the entire Torah of the Rav z”l on aveilut. According to the Rav z”l, the ikar of aveilut is a kiyum she’balev, an inner fulfillment of tza’ar; and when Rav Heshy Reichman published the Rav’s reshimot on Sukkah, the Rav, reading this Rashi, said that he must explain the Gemara otherwise, since the mareh is plain that the tirda of aveilut is a tirda d’reshut. The view that aveilut is the showing of kavod is the basis for understanding why one mourns parents more than other relatives — not because the grief is greater, but because one must show honor to those who gave him life and values, his roots. Le-da’ati the truth lies in both: aveilut is at once a kiyum she’balev and an expression of kavod.
Osek B’mitzvah Requires a Clash; Sukkah and the Mitzvah to Move
The principle “haosek b’mitzvah patur min hamitzvah” is by itself insufficient; it requires a clash. Where there is no clash there is no reason one cannot perform both mitzvot together. According to Tosafot throughout Shas, the exemption holds only “im ee efshar la’asos shneihem” — only where the two cannot be done at once. (The Or Zarua in Sukkah is cholek, but we follow Tosafot.) By the chatan the clash is not technical, not a matter of time — Kriat Shema takes but moments — but a matter of state of mind, so that the exemption becomes in truth a Halacha of kavana. Why, then, does a chatan not recite? Not because he holds a mitzvah, but because he cannot have kavana. And why is the mitzvah needed in the background? Because without it we would simply tell him to set aside thoughts of his wedding and concentrate; the osek b’mitzvah is what renders his tirda a legitimate one. The clash, in the end, is between the tirda and the kavana.
The same drasha governs the petur of shluchei mitzvah from Sukkah. In our sugya the drasha appears to belong to Beit Shammai, since the question was what Beit Shammai do with “uvelechtecha vaderech,” and it would seem that Beit Hillel, who read the verse as permitting any position, possess no drasha for osek b’mitzvah. Yet the Gemara in Sukkah (25b) brings the entire drasha without mentioning Beit Shammai at all, so that it appears to be l’kuli alma. [This requires resolution and is left open.] According to Beit Shammai: “vaderech” serves “prat l’shluchei mitzvah.” According to Beit Hillel: from it one likewise derives that one may recite even while walking, in any position.
Is the petur of shluchei mitzvah from Sukkah merely technical — that one on the road cannot build a sukkah? The Gemara in Sukkah (26a) indicates that they are exempt even at night, “biyom uvalayla,” so the petur is not technical: Sukkah too is a mitzvah of state of mind. The mitzvah of Sukkah, as set out in an article by Rav Michael Rosensweig, is to move — not merely to eat in the sukkah but to transfer one’s dwelling from house to sukkah, “teishvu k’ein taduru.” This resolves a question of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, how can one fulfill the mitzvah while sleeping, when a sleeping man has no da’at and no awareness of what he does? His own chiddush was that the mitzvah is to go to sleep in the sukkah, after which one may be removed. But the resolution, le-da’ati, is that Rav Shlomo Zalman was right in his question: the mitzvah is not to sleep in the sukkah but to move to it. To establish that one has moved his dwelling, one sleeps where one dwells; there is no mitzvah in the sleeping itself, only in the moving — a matter of state of mind, of regarding one’s house as no longer one’s house. Such a state of mind can clash with another, and that is why shluchei mitzvah are exempt.
The Closing Braita and the Fear of Fixing Halacha for the Generations
The braita records the full breadth of the leniency of Beit Hillel: “omdin v’korin, yoshvin v’korin, u’matin v’korin, holchin baderech v’korin, osin melachtan v’korin” — one may recite standing, sitting, reclining, walking, or while at his work. [One should nonetheless not walk during the first verse, which requires kavana.] The accompanying ma’aseh sharpens the concern that gives this its weight. Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah were reclining together; Rabbi Yishmael lay on his side (mutteh) and Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah sat upright (zakuf). When the time of the evening Kriat Shema arrived, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah lay down, while Rabbi Yishmael sat up. Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah said: “Yishmael my brother, I will give you a parable. To what is the matter comparable? To one whom people tell, your beard is grown handsome, and he answers, let it be against the destroyers — you praise my beard, so I will shave it off. So too you: as long as I was upright you were reclining, and now that I have lain down you have sat up.”
The reply of Rabbi Yishmael — to be explained next week — is: “I acted according to Beit Hillel and you acted according to Beit Shammai.” How did sitting up accord with Beit Hillel, who permit any position? Because, seeing Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah deliberately lie down to make the point that one must recline, Rabbi Yishmael understood that were he to continue reclining, observers would take him to be insisting in the manner of Beit Shammai; he therefore did the opposite. [The family tradition relates that Reb Chaim, though he did not eat kneidlach on the night of the Seder, would place matzah in his soup, to show that the avoidance of gebrokts is narishkeit — that “we are not of them.” So too Rabbi Yishmael acted to show that he was not of Beit Shammai.] “V’lo od,” moreover, “ela shema yir’u hatalmidim v’yikbe’u Halacha l’doros” — lest the students see and fix the Halacha for the generations like Beit Shammai. The closing lines — “had he been reclining from the outset it would be no matter, for Beit Hillel too permit reclining; but here, since he had been upright and now reclined, they would say he holds like Beit Shammai” — remain to be explained next week.
Chidushim and Conclusions
The core distinction that emerges is between tirda d’mitzvah and tirda d’reshut: only a preoccupation that is itself a mitzvah legitimates the displacement of Kriat Shema, and the exemption of osek b’mitzvah operates solely where there is a genuine clash, which by the chatan is a clash of kavana rather than of time. That recasts both the chatan’s petur and the petur of Sukkah as matters of state of mind. The treatment of the avel and of tefillin, in turn, exposes a fundamental dispute over the essence of aveilut — kiyum she’balev or the showing of kavod — with practical nafka minot for the first day of mourning and for the wearing of tefillin.
