As they continue their conversation about the ordering of prayers around the Shema, the rabbis teach that the priest in the Temple originally recited the Ten Commandments (in addition to the Shema, V'Haya im Shamoa, VaYomer, True and Firm, Avoda, and the Priestly Benediction). However, heretics claimed that only the Ten Commandments were the words of G-d. To ensure that people did not believe the words of the heretics, they eliminated that recitation from our prayers. This also happened in outlying areas, Sura, and Neharde'a.
On Shabbat, the outgoing priestly watch is blessed as well. The outgoing watch would say to the incoming watch: May G-d Who caused G-d's Name to dwell in this house cause love and brotherhood, peace and camaraderie to dwell among you.
What if we blessed wine as if it were beer? When we realize that we have erred, we add the end of the blessing: Blessed are You O Lord Our G-d, Master of the universe (first part of the formula)... Who creates the fruit of the vine (second part of the formula). But what about more complicated errors? For example, if for the morning prayer we begin with the formula for the morning prayer but end with the formula of the evening prayer, we are obliged to end with the morning prayer for that prayer to fulfill our obligation. The general principle is that everything follows the end of the formula. And if we say the blessing over bread when we ate dates, we do not need to correct ourselves for dates are also a source of proper nourishment.
The remainder of amud (a) discusses the formula for the blessings recited along with the Shema. This includes that we bow when we say "Blessed" and when we stand upright when we say G-d's name. The prooftext is from Psalms (146:8) where we are told about "the Lord, Who raises the bowed".
Rava teaches us about praying for one who is ill. If the person in need of mercy is a Torah scholar, we cannot simply pray on his behalf; we must make ourselves ill worrying about him. This is the first of many instances where those who wrote the Talmud and Gemara ruled that people should respect Torah scholars more than others. They promoted their authority in their own texts. In my opinion, this might have had something to do with the many competing religious sects that attempted to claim their own authority regarding the Torah.
Ezekiel (16:63) teaches us that we should be embarrassed of our transgressions; shame leads to G-d's forgiveness. A prooftext is shared regarding a Saul being pardoned from his transgression due to his shame.
The rabbis did not want to encumber the people by forcing them to say the Shema along with the potion of Balak twice each day. Balak was considered because of the verse in Numbers 24:9) which sounds similar to a line in the Shema. In Balak: "G-d crouched, G-d lay down like a lion and a lioness; who shall rouse G-d?" would be juxtaposed with the Shema's "When you lie down and when you rise". We are not allowed to divide and read anything that Moshe Rabbeinu did not divide - and he did not divide the portion of Balak.
And why do we include the words about the tzitzim, ritual fringes? They include the five elements of the Exodus from Egypt, the mitzva of tzitzit, acceptance of the mitzvot, turning from the heretics, turning from thoughts of transgressions, and turning from thoughts of idolatry.
We are introduced to a new Mishna at the end of today's daf. It teaches that the exodus from Egypt is mentioned at night near the recitation of the Shema. We are very familiar with its teaching due to our Pesach seder: Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya said that he is approximately seventy years old and he never privileged mentioning the exodus from Egypt at night until Ben Zoma interpreted it homiletically. Ben Zoma said that "Remember the day you went out of the land of Egypt all the days of our life" (Deuteronomy 16:3). "The days of your life" refers to daytime but the addition of the world "all" means that the nights were included as well. The rabbis added that "the days of your life" referred to the days in this world, while the world "all" included the days of the Moshiach.
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