Aside from its deceptive complexity, the mitsvah of keriat Shema stands out from the ones we have seen before in that it is the first from which women are exempt, and will therefore introduce us to the concept of a mitsvat aseh she-hazman grama, a positive time-related commandment. Although it might seem simple, there is a range of opinions as to how much of Keriat Shema the Torah meant to obligate us to say. At the low end of the spectrum, the Sefer haHinukh thought the mitsvah was only to say the first verse of Shema. Others think the mitsvah includes the first paragraph, or the first two paragraphs. Rambam, however, seems to me to view all three paragraphs as obligatory on a Torah level. At the beginning of Hilkhot Keriat Shema, he lists the 3 parashiyot we have to read, explains why, and, at the end of halakhah 3, says that reading these three paragraphs in order is what we call keriat Shema.

Sefer haHinukh and Rambam seem to disagree not only over the specific content of the mitsvah, but in important senses also differ as to the goal. The Hinukh, who focuses only on the statement of God’s Unity, sees the mitsvah as instituting a regular reminder of God’s existence. That reminder alone, he assumes, was sufficient to keep people away from sin and working towards a Godly life, since he sees that as the purpose of the mitsvah.

When Rambam explains the role played by each of the paragraphs in the Shema experience, he makes it clear that just awareness of God’s existence is not enough. The first paragraph teaches us not only God’s existence and absolute unity, but also the need to develop ahavah (love) for Him, and to learn (both Torah and about Him) in terms of furthering our connection to Him. The next two paragraphs expand the scope of our obligations to include all of mitsvot and (for the nighttime Shema) the memory of leaving Egypt. Implicitly, then, the reminders that these paragraphs provide go beyond reminders of His Unity to a slew of mechanisms by which we can, should, and must keep that Unity uppermost in our minds and actions throughout our day. Despite his philosophical interests, in other words, Rambam had a keen awareness of the various factors important to maintaining a person’s religious involvement.

That Rambam agreed with Hinukh that the prime goal of the mitsvah was to serve as a regular reminder of other existing obligations is supported by an oddity of his presentation of the mitsvah in the Sefer haMitsvot. Rambam notes a Tosefta that says that just as the Torah set fixed times for Shema, so, too, Hazal set fixed times for prayer. As Rambam notes, this concurs with his view (which we have already seen) that prayer is a Torah obligation, although the number of prayers and their times was set by Hazal. (Rambam here assumes that Hazal set those times to correspond to the sacrifices, a topic our Scholar in Residence, Rabbi Binyamin Tabory, will be"H, discuss next week.)

The strange thing about Rambam’s comment is that he is not discussing the obligation of prayer here. Were his point in citing the passage to show that he was right in his view of prayer, he should have quoted it in the mitsvah of tefillah. His quoting it here seems to be intended to draw our attention to what the Tosefta says about keriat Shema, that the Torah set fixed times for this mitsvah, in parallel to prayer. Just as in prayer, there was a general obligation for which Hazal set fixed times and forms of expression, so, too, in Shema, there were general obligations—knowing His Unity, loving Him, learning about Him—for which Shema, at a de-oraita level, provided fixed reminders at fixed times.

Recognizing that the saying of Shema is simply the concrete form of other mitsvot already made obligatory upon all Jews perhaps gives some insight into the entire category of mitsvot `aseh she-hazman grama. As Rambam notes, women are not obligated in the saying of Shema. Although he doesn’t stress it, in our times it becomes important to note that women are obligated in the underlying mitsvot for which Shema simply serves as a reminder—belief in the Absolute Unity of God, studying those issues to come to as great an understanding of that Unity as possible, developing a love of the Creator, etc. The only exemption here is from the requirement to, at fixed times, remind oneself of these obligations. Rambam asserts a similar split in the obligation to pray—women are obligated to pray at least once a day (Rambam in Hilkhot Tefillah makes it clear that the more one prays, and especially the more eloquently one prays, the better), but not in the specific times set up by Hazal.

This split suggests—for now, it is only a suggestion, but we will follow it as we go through these mitsvot—that the exemption from time-related mitsvot has to do with the issue of regimenting women’s lives rather than with a lessened concern for their spirituality. The "real" mitsvot here are just as obligatory for women as for men; the difference lies in the extent to which women’s ways of fulfilling those mitsvot are directly guided by the Torah. There are any number of ways in which we can explain that difference, although this is probably not the place to delve into them. Whatever the reason, it seems enough for our purposes here to have seen that this exemption (not to judge the category as a whole yet) does not take away from the spiritual expectations the religion has for women. It only refrains from obligating them (they are, let us recall, permitted to say Shema if they wish) in a specific expression of those spiritual expectations. Shabbat Shalom.