Berachot 8: Many Teachings; the Shema Twice, Night and Day

A number of notes from today's daf:

• It is most favourable to pray with a congregation of people who are at prayer in a synagogue
• Synagogues should have two doors of entry, one before the other
• Matzah or motzeh? Means "has one found a good wife who brings the Lord's favour" (Psalms 18:22) or "Has one found a woman more bitter than death" (Ecclesiastes 7:26) 
• What we want to find most is the Torah
• The time of finding refers to death
• A baraita teaches that there are 903 totzaot, issues, of death
• Does "they who forsake the Lord will perish" refer to leaving the synagogue while the Torah scroll is out?  Are we permitted to leave during a break in the Torah reading while the verse is translated into Aramaic?  This is left unresolved
• May we study while the Torah is being read?  Our days and years are extended if we we complete Torah portions with the congregation
• We are to read the Torah portion of the week twice and the translation once
• Rabbi Yehuda says that we must cut the trachea and the esophagus in the ritual slaughter of a bird
• Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi teaches us to respect elders who ave forgotten Torah due to circumstances beyond their control; the broken tablets and the tablets are placed in the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple
• Meat should not be cut on one's hand due to danger of cutting oneself and due to the possibility of one drop of blood from one's hand rendering the meat repulsive to eat
• One must not sit on an Aramean woman's bed due to a story about Rav Pappa finding a dead baby beneath an Aramean woman's sheet; he would have been blamed for killing the infant if he had not insisted on raising the sheet
• Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai says that at times, we recite the Shema twice at night: once before dawn and once just after dawn
• Is after dawn still considered to be the night?
• We learn that at times one recites the Shema twice during the day, but one fulfills the dual obligation to recite the Shema one of the day and one of the night