I am a natural procrastinator. As much as I try to live a planned, purposeful life managed through checklists, I cannot really do it. Left to my natural devices I like to let my mind roam to the next thing and let tasks lie until they are critical. My wife Anna can vouch for the veracity of this statement. So can my teachers, my parents and my kids. The Rabbis were aware of these tendencies 1,500 years ago and so they tried to create rules to prevent procrastination from turning into sin. We will see this in today’s Daf. We will also see a lot of wide ranging, free form association on seemingly unrelated topics.

Let’s take stock and remember how we got here. So far, we have considered one statement from the Mishnah in Berakhot 2 regarding from when we can recite the evening Shema. The Gemara took this statement and we have had meditations on why we should not enter ruins, how many watches there are in the night, what we can say in the presence of dead people, where demons reside, and many other things. Today the Gemara accelerates and makes short seemingly unrelated statements.

Before getting into that jumble, however, I want to turn to the middle of the Daf, where I draw my central lesson of today. The Rabbis come back for a brief moment to the debate about when we can say the Shema. They conclude that the Shema can be said at any time of the night. However, they create a rabbinic injunction to recite it before midnight to stop people from procrastinating in case they fall asleep before saying the Shema. In other words, saying the Shema before dawn is a command from God. Saying the Shema before midnight is a collective ruling of the Rabbis. Nevertheless, the Rabbis also state that if you violate their word, you are liable to death. The Rabbis note that death is not required for other rabinic injunctions, but it is needed here because sleep is a powerful drug! Also to show that the evening service is required, not optional. The Rabbis call this stricter ruling to guard us from transgressing a commandment “building a fence”. We will see it in the future.

We ended yesterday with a discussion of the sleeping habits of King David and a story of how he was consulted by the wise men of Israel about famine. David ultimately suggested raiding parties against invading armies. The wise men then consulted David’s close adviser, Achitophel, the Sanhedrin and the Urim veTumim. The Gemara then tries to prove this by finding proof texts in the bible. The Gemara got as far as proving that Achitophel was consulted first. Today’s Daf picks up to prove that the other people consulted by the wise men really mean that they consulted the Sanhedrin and the Uvrim veTunim with proof texts. Following the conversation, the Talmud jumps back to a proof text to show that King David slept with a harp above his bed.

The Gemara is concerned with the discussion in Berakhot 3 that King David could precisely determine midnight, but Moses could not. The Talmud speculates that Moses may have been less exact so that Pharoh’s astrologers could not come up with a different, inaccurate time for midnight and claim that Moses was wrong.

Without warning, the Gemara pivots back to David’s sleeping habits to prove how devout he was. In particular, David was expert in distinguishing between ritually pure and ritually impure women by examining their menstrual blood, miscarried embryos and afterbirths. Additionally, David consulted his teacher about all of his rulings. The Gemara then tries to derive the various names of David’s teacher and one of David’s sons. Despite David’s devotion, he had self-doubts about whether or not he merited a portion with the righteous in the world to come.

The Talmud reflects on the contradictory nature of God’s promises of protection and our own fear. We are afraid because we may sin and this may cause us to forfeit God’s protection. Indeed, exile is a result of our sin. Yesterday we discussed the pain of exile and how that scar shaped the Rabbi’s thinking.

The Talmud then turns to the proper order of saying Shema and the evening prayers. Of course, there is a debate about whether we say the Shema and then the evening prayers or vice versa. The Talmud debates whether the dispute arises as a point of logic or a point of biblical interpretation. Far more fascinating then the debate to me is the quoting of the very same prayers I say in my Reform Synagogue more than 1,500 years after the Talmud was written!

The Talmud next discusses why recitation of Psalm 145 ensures a person in the world to come. Psalm 145 is an acrostic, meaning the lines begin with each letter of the alphabet in order and verse 16 of Psalm 145 shows how God’s mercy sustains everything. Other Psalms have one of these features, but Psalm 145 has both. Actually, Psalm 145 omits the Hebrew letter Nun in its acrostic pattern, but the Talmud explains this by reference to the fact that Nun begins Amos 5:2 about the fall of Israel.

Without transition, we jump to a discussion of why the angel Michael is greater than the angel Gabriel. Apparently, based on Isaiah 6:6, Michael performs his (are angels gendered?) mission without stopping. Gabriel, based on Daniel 9:21, needs to stop on his way to perform missions. Elijah needs four stops and the Angel of Death needs eight stops, unless we are discussing a plague when no stops are needed.

Our Daf closes with reciting the Shema. After all the detours we come back to when do we recite the Shema. The Rabbis conclude that even if we say Shema in the evening service in the Synagogue, we must say the Shema when we lie down in bed. The Rabbis refer to Psalm 4:5, “So tremble, and sin no more; ponder it on your bed, and sigh.” From this, the Rabbis conclude that the Shema should be the last thing we say before falling asleep.