I’m sure I’ve shared the complaint with you before that one of the major occupational hazards of my profession is that I so rarely have the opportunity to listen to great derashot or divrei torah. One of the highlights of my trips to Yerushalayim is the opportunity to hear thought provoking and morally relevant divrei Torah. When I returned to DC I heard such effusive praise of the drashot and divrei torah that were shared here in my absence! I’m jealous that I missed hearing them in person and I think I need to schedule more special speakers from within the congregation.
However, there is another genre of Torah discourse that I do not appreciate and that is the mealtime Dvar Torah (unless it’s delivered by a child – if a child does it it’s cute). But otherwise, you’re at a Shabbat meal, feeling a bit drowsy and looking forward to a nap, or maybe eager to get back to the book you’re reading on the existentialist philosophy of Rav Hutner as delineated in Pahad Yitzhak – whatever it may be, and your host quiets the table, and shares a Dvar Torah. The ideas are forgotten as soon as they are spoken, and then the meal continues and returns to the real conversation topics. The problem is not the content of the Dvar Torah. The problem is when we treat Torah as something that belongs in a separate compartment, an interruption before we return to what we truly wish to discuss..
Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai have a dispute regarding how the Shema should be recited. We read this morning:
וְלִמַּדְתֶּ֥ם אֹתָ֛ם אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶ֖ם לְדַבֵּ֣ר בָּ֑ם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ֤ בְּבֵיתֶ֙ךָ֙ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ וּֽבְשׇׁכְבְּךָ֖ וּבְקוּמֶֽךָ׃
“and teach them to your children—reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.”
What is meant by reciting the Shema וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ וּֽבְשׇׁכְבְּךָ֖ וּבְקוּמֶֽךָ?
The Mishnah in Berachot teaches:
בֵּית שַׁמַּאי אוֹמְרִים, בָּעֶרֶב כָּל אָדָם יַטּוּ וְיִקְרְאוּ, וּבַבֹּקֶר יַעַמְדוּ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (דברים ו) וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ וּבְקוּמֶךָ. וּבֵית הִלֵּל אוֹמְרִים, כָּל אָדָם קוֹרֵא כְדַרְכּוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שם) וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ
Beit Shammai say: In the evening every person must recline on his side and recite Shema, and in the morning he must stand and recite Shema, as it is stated: “When you lie down, and when you rise.” And Beit Hillel say: Every person recites Shema as he is, as it is stated: “And when you walk along the way,”
Beit Shamai teach that the verses are telling us the posture and position we should adopt when reciting Shema. Beit Hillel teach that the verses are telling us about the time of day at which the Shema should be recited.
For Beit Shamai, there is no way to recite the Shema other than by interrupting whatever else one may have been doing, to adopt the appropriate posture: say it while reclining at night and say it while standing at attention in the morning. For Beit Hillel, the Shema can be said in the midst of one’s evening activities and in the midst of the morning activities. The Shema is incorporated into these potent times of the day and can be integrated into the activities of the evening and activities of the morning.
But the dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shamai is not only dispute about how to interpret the words of the parsaha, the dispute is about what it means to recite the Shema and declare our allegiance to God, the Torah, and its mitzvot. This broader dispute is echoed by several others throughout rabbinic literature that all echo a common theme.
Beit Shammai, as Rabbi Ilai Ofran and others have noted, has a holistic commitment to step outside of the routines of everyday life in order to encounter the Divine and create experiences of transcendence and holiness.
This commitment can be seen in Massechet Beitzah where Beit Shamai shares instructions to set aside the very best food we come across and save it for Shabbat, each day updating the nicest portions for Shabbat as we acquire new food. Beit Hillel, in contrast teaches an ethos of ברוך ה׳ יום יום we bless God for each day and therefore eat delicious food each day of the week and trust that we will find something appropriate for Shabbat.
Some of you may remember that when Rabbi Shlomo Dov Rosen spoke at Ohev last spring, he shared a perspective that every dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shamai can be understood as a dispute between the ideal and the realistic. Beit Shamai teach halakhah for an ideal world. Transcendence requires stepping aside from mundane pursuits. Shabbat deserves to be the focus of an entire week of acquisition and accomplishment. Beit Hillel teach halakhah for the world as it is. And, Beit Hillel understand, that our material and mundane lives need an infusion of spirituality. In our broken world, a house divided against itself, between materialism and matters of spirit, will fall.
Ironically, despite the halakhah being in accordance with Beit Hillel, we find a religious instinct that pull us in the direction of Beit Shamai. While it is inspiring to see someone davening Shacharit on the subway, I am always tempted to recommend that they just find a shul where they can join with other Jews to recite tefilot in a sacred space. And I think most of us try to eat special foods on Shabbat; many of us even eat simple meals during the week so that we have the appetite and budget to really indulge our favorite foods on Shabbat.
Our conversations, as Jews, when we gather together, should be conversations about Torah and other matters of utmost importance. But it’s easier to carve a few moments for Torah, to consign service of God to the shul or beit midrash, to step outside our lives for tefilah, then it is to integrate holiness into our lives.
Moshe was obsessed with this concern as he neared the end of his life. It is one of the central topics of Sefer Devarim and animates Moshe’s words in Parashat Ekev. At the border of Eretz Yisrael, Moshe is worried that after forty years of miraculous existence, after forty years of mannah from heaven and the perpetual guidance of a pillar of fire, after the comfort and intimacy of the clouds of glory, we will enter Eretz Yisrael and become utterly absorbed in the material concerns of conquest and subsistence and wealth acquisition. The wilderness was a Beit Shammai existence: a life defined by miracles, separation, and constant reminders of God’s presence. Moshe’s challenge was teaching us how to remember God when the miracles stop.
A paradigmatic example of this concern is the mitzvah, introduced in our parashah, of Birkat HaMazon. In Eretz Yisrael we are meant to plow and plant and reap and thresh and winnow and sort and grind and bake and eat and be full and to then express our gratitude to God who enables this entire chain of events. Birkat HaMazon integrates moments of religious consciousness into the everyday experience of eating. It’s a mitzvah in the spirit of Beit Hillel because we recite it while sitting at the same table where we have eaten.
Parashat Ekev sets forth an ambitious goal of Jewish religious life.
We are told to revere God and to cleave to God וּב֣וֹ תִדְבָּ֔ק and we are told, in a summation of a life devoted to mitzvot:
כִּי֩ אִם־שָׁמֹ֨ר תִּשְׁמְר֜וּן אֶת־כׇּל־הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֗את אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם לַעֲשֹׂתָ֑הּ לְאַהֲבָ֞ה אֶת־ה אֱ-לֹהֵיכֶ֛ם לָלֶ֥כֶת בְּכׇל־דְּרָכָ֖יו וּלְדׇבְקָה־בֽוֹ׃
If, then, you faithfully keep all this Instruction that I command you, loving the LORD your God, walking in all God’s ways, and cleaving to God. וּלְדׇבְקָה־בֽוֹ
Since it is impossible to physically grasp ahold of God and cleave to God, our rabbis taught that we attain this exalted level of intimacy with God through our imitation of God’s attributes and actions. Just as God clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, cares for the sick, and buries the dead. So should we. Walking in God’s ways, לָלֶ֥כֶת בְּכׇל־דְּרָכָ֖יו, leads to וּלְדׇבְקָה־בֽוֹ the intimacy of deveikut.
My teacher, Rabbi David Ebner z’l, taught that we should strive to emulate, not only God’s actions as they are made known to us in the Torah, but also emulate God’s attributes, including God’s attribute of unity. So we add to the list of imitations. Just as God clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, and buries the dead, so should we. And just as God is One, we should also strive to be one. We imitate God’s unity by living an integrated life where each part is a singular example of a cohesive whole.
In a letter to a student, Rav Yitzhak Hutner explained the distinction between living a rich life and a double life. A rich life includes many interests and activities and someone with a rich life might have a need for a home with many rooms so that he or she can cook in the kitchen and sleep in the bedroom, and eat in the dining room. But someone living a double life, shamefully, maintains a second home where he may live an entirely distinct identity among completely different people.
Jews should have times and places for material pursuits. We should have times and places for pursuing intellectual and cultural interests, and we should have times and places like this one for spiritual endeavors. But the same values and integrity and personality should pervade each of these spaces we inhibit. A rich life, a home with many rooms, is a blessed life. A double life is duplicitous and unsustainable.
Rav Hutner illustrated his point by referring to a famous surgeon who recited a Misheberakh blessing on behalf of his patients in the operating room. He prayed for his patients and he performed surgery – not because he didn’t believe in the power of prayer and not because he doubted his efficacy as a surgeon, but because his faith and his profession were subsumed under a common unity.
I hope the medical professionals in the community daven for your patients. For those of us who are not physicians – what is the equivalent in your professional life of a Misheberakh blessing? Would those who encounter you at work, or while you watch your kids at the playground, or while you wait in line to pay for groceries, recognize the personality you take on when you come to shul? Is it obvious that the same religious values that control our behavior in shul also control our behavior in the competitive work environments where we spend the week?
Every morning and every evening we recite the Shema and declare God’s unity. Although the Shema can be said on a horse or on a subway, I recommend swinging by the shul and joining us for communal tefilot. But wherever you recite the Shema, remember that we are not merely asserting a philosophical or theological truth about God, but we are also asking an implicit question about ourselves and declaring an ambitious goal for our lives. Do we strive for unity and integration in our lives that mirrors the way that God is One?
That is Beit Hillel’s great religious vision. Can we learn to encounter God in the midst of life itself? That was Moshe’s hope for the Jewish people as they crossed into Eretz Yisrael: that when the miracles ceased and ordinary life began, they would not forget God. As these final weeks of summer lead into Elul and the Yamim Nora’im, may we learn to see every part of our lives, our work and our rest, our families and our friendships, our prayers and our professions, not as parallel lives,, but as different rooms in the same expansive house, all dedicated to serving the One God.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 