Day #21–Rambam DAILY Sefer HaMitzvos

is day number 21 of our daily study of the ramam savitz and we have two Mitzvahs today one of them is a repeat it's a Mitzvah we studied yesterday and I've explained to you before why it works this way the way that we study say for Mitzvahs is we study whatever Mitzvahs correspond to that which is being studied in the daily study of three chapters a day of mission of Torah so in the three chapters of day of mishna Tara were finishing the laws of the recitation of Shema the loss of recitation of Shema have five chapters So today we're doing chapters four and five and we're beginning the laws of Prayer so we're going to learn the myths was that correspond to those two sections of so the first Mitzvah the Mitzvah corresponding to the laws of Shema is the Mitzvah of Shema now we learned it yesterday but we'll talk a little bit about it more uh right now what's interesting about shma we mentioned this yesterday is that we're supposed to say it twice a day when you lie down and when you get up and as I mentioned yesterday lying down and getting up is not uh when you as an individual happen to lie down or get up maybe a person works the graveyard shift he has his nights and days flip-flop you know maybe he sleeps all day it doesn't matter the time for the morning the time for the evening are set and they are standardized and they have their Universal parameters for everybody what are they I'll say the nighttime first because actually we the way the Jewish day works is its first night and then day just like when Hashem created he created first the night and then the day um so the nighttime is from Sundown until ideally uh before midnight or if necessary one can say the nighttime all night until dawn the morning shama is from dawn until the the first quarter of the day the end of the first quarter of the day what time is that that really varies from every location and throughout the solar year it varies every single day so you have to have a luach that's a calendar so you can check what time is the last time for saying Shema and like I said it varies every single day so you always have to be aware of what time that is now what's interesting about these times and this is sort of a sneak preview and a segue into the next Mitzvah that we're going to learn today what's interesting about these times is they are biblical are you going to say what do you mean of course they're biblical we're learning a Biblical Mitzvah well no not necessarily it could be like prayer for instance there's a Biblical commandment to pray but the times when to pray are of rabbinic origin it's a Biblical it's for to pray but what times to pray that is something that the rabbi has enacted and that's a little sneak preview because the next section of Allah we're going to be learning as I mentioned through the laws of prayer so we're gonna it's a little sneak preview the Shema the Mitzvah itself the biblical Mitzvah itself is not just the seismo whenever it's to say it at these specific times when you get up and when you lie down now because the Shema is recited at specific times meaning it is a positive time-bound commandment you may be familiar with this principle there's a concept called um that Mitzvah says man Grandma positive time time-bound Commandments women are exempt women are exempt from positive time-bound Commandments therefore women are exempt from Shema however as always however the code of Jewish law explains that women should nevertheless recite Shema not on a specific time but they should say it as a prayer and a declaration of faith in God's Oneness so that's an interesting aspect of Shema okay now I said we had a sneak preview of our other Mitzvah we're starting Hillcrest Villa and I want to tell you something's 15 chapters so we're doing chapter one today um so it's going to take us we have we'll do chapter one today and then we have 14 more chapters which is going to take another five days so we're going to be doing hell we're going to be doing this this mitzvah for six days including today so we're gonna hear a lot about this Mitzvah but here it is here is the Mitzvah it is positive commandment number five and I should have mentioned because I always like to say the number of the Mitzvahs and I didn't say it when I said the previous myths of the midst of Shema because I said it yesterday but I'll say it again today the Mitzvah of Shema is positive commandment number 10. positive commandment number 10. okay and now positive commandment number five positive commandment number five is prayer where does it say to pray it is based on when it says and you shall serve the Lord your God now that ABBA masks a question You Shall Serve the Lord your God and it says various variations of such phrases throughout the Torah the realm of says You Shall Serve the Lord your God that's a general commandment that's a general concept serving Hashem means whatever serve him whatever he's told you to do why therefore that I'm gonna ask this question maybe you're thinking it now too remember before we even got into the Mitzvahs we had those principles uh remember 14 principles of how their album determined what actually counts as a Biblical commandment remember principle number four you might not remember it was principle number four but it was that their album doesn't count General Obligations all embracing obligations that could mean everything so why is that a Mitzvah of the 613 Mitzvahs he says because in this context you shall serve as a very specific meaning and connotation which is you should pray you should pray serving Hashem in this context means you should pray so there's a Biblical Mitzvah to pray and we're going to be talking about the biblical Mitzvah to pray for the next five days and we will see you then God willing