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Mishnah [1]
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We have already explained, at the outset of our remarks, the reason this treatise opens with such an opening. The reason it was necessary to fix the time for the evening Shema recitation before fixing the time for its morning recitation is that the Scriptural text presents the obligation in this order, in "when you lie down and when you rise up" (Deut 6:7), by which it means that it is to be recited at the time when people lie down to sleep and at the time when they rise from their sleep.
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By saying "from the hour when the priests enter to eat of their terumah" the Mishnah means the time when priests who had become ritually impure and then immersed enter to eat of their terumah; and this cannot occur except after the day has fully ended, in accordance with His saying, regarding anyone who purifies himself from an impurity, "and when the sun has set he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things" (Lev 22:7).
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What led it to say "from the hour when the priests enter" rather than "from the appearance of the stars," even though the time is one and the same, was to teach us an additional point implicit in the phrasing. That point is this: an impure priest, if he immersed today, is permitted to eat terumah after sunset even if he is one "lacking atonement" — that is, where this immersion comes after the cessation of a flux (zivah) or of tzara'at, whose purification is not completed for him until he offers the obligatory sacrifices on the morrow. The Mishnah thus informs us that he may eat terumah before offering those sacrifices, for the only condition stipulated for eating terumah is the setting of the sun, not the bringing of atonement.
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Ashmurah is their term for a third of the night. His saying "the first watch" (ashmurah ha-rishonah) is thus the first third of the night.
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And "the column of dawn" (amud ha-shachar) is the column of fajr — a light that appears in the eastern horizon before sunrise by about an hour and a fifth of the equinoctial hours, its cause being the proximity of the cone of the sun's light to the dense vapors that perpetually rise from the earth, vapors whose elevation above the earth is fifty-one miles, as is demonstrated in the science of the mathematical disciplines.
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The Sages, too, in fact hold the view of Rabban Gamliel; they said "until midnight" only "to keep a person far from transgression," as will be explained further on. But the law is according to Rabban Gamliel.
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Mishnah [2]
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Beit ha-mishteh is a drinking gathering.
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He brought in this report in order to reinforce the view of Rabban Gamliel, and to show that he issued a practical ruling in accordance with it.
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Mishnah [3]
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Chalavim are all the fats of the sacrifices that the priests offer throughout the day. Eivarim are the limbs of the burnt offering that are offered each day — this is His saying, "the one lamb you shall offer in the morning," etc. (Num 28:4).
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The remainders of those fats and those limbs are offered all night long until the column of dawn rises, as Scripture says regarding the daily offering (tamid): "it is the burnt offering on its pyre upon the altar all night until the morning" (Lev 6:2).
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Likewise the eating of the holy things whose consumption God limited so that they may not be eaten beyond a single day — those of which He said, "on that same day it shall be eaten, you shall leave none of it until morning" (Lev 22:30) — their ruling, too, is that they may be eaten on the day of slaughter and through the night until the column of dawn rises.
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Their saying regarding all these "until midnight," and that the time in fact extends "until the column of dawn rises," is a precaution, so that the time not run short and a person come to do any of these things after the rising of dawn. This is the meaning of "to keep a person far from transgression."
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Mishnah [4]
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We have already explained this.
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Mishnah [5]
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Tekhelet is a name applied to blue wool only. His saying "between tekhelet and white" means: between the tekhelet that is in the tzitzit and the white that is in it. Karti is green.
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The time for recitation ends, according to R. Eliezer, "at the rising of the sun" (ha-netz ha-chammah), and according to R. Yehoshua "until three hours," for he holds to God's saying "and when you rise up" (Deut 6:7) — the moment when all people are risen; and there may be some who do not rise until three hours of the day have passed, namely the sons of kings, and so recitation is permitted until the close of the third hour.
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Know that all the hours mentioned throughout the Mishnah are seasonal hours. The meaning of "seasonal" is that they are the hours of which twelve fall in the day and likewise twelve in the night. So his saying "until three hours" is as though he said "until a quarter of the day has passed," whether the day be the day of the summer solstice (tekufat Tammuz) or the day of the winter solstice (tekufat Tevet); and reckon by this analogy.
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His saying "he has lost nothing" (lo hifsid), which is to say "he has suffered no loss," means: he has not lost the blessings, but rather he recites the blessing Yotzer and Ahavah and reads the Shema even after six hours of the day; yet his reward in this is like that of one who reads the Torah, not like that of one who reads the Shema in its proper time.
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From here you learn that one who reads the Shema in its season has a greater reward than one who reads the Torah. The law is not according to R. Eliezer; the law is according to R. Yehoshua — but only in the case of one who was negligent; whereas at the outset (lekhatchilah) one is obligated to aim to complete the recitation together with the rising of the sun (ha-netz ha-chammah).
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Mishnah [6]
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Sharah yatu — "they shall incline," to recline; it is a Hebrew word, as in "it shall not be inclined to the ground" (cf. Job 15:29 / Ps 37:24). His saying "if so" (im ken) is precisely the objection of Beit Shammai against Beit Hillel.
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The reason for the disagreement between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel on this ruling is that Beit Hillel derive from His saying "when you walk on the way" (Deut 6:7) — which conveys [the law] however a person happens to be, without his observing a fixed posture. Beit Shammai say that "and when you walk on the way" came only to teach us that one engaged in a commandment is not obligated in Shema recitation, as if to say: [the obligation applies] when you are merely walking on the road and have undertaken nothing other than that walking; but if you are engaged in another task, the Shema recitation does not obligate you — and likewise the principle held by all, "one occupied with a commandment is exempt from the commandment."
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Beit Hillel scrutinized the matter closely and said to them: it is so; and yet it has likewise become clear, from what you yourselves have said, that one recites the Shema when he walks not in [the course of] a commandment. If so, the recitation of the Shema is permitted to one who is walking — and that is precisely what was sought.
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Mishnah [7]
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Sikanti be-atzmi — "I endangered myself," because he dismounted from the riding-animal and descended to the ground and reclined; whereas according to the view of Beit Hillel he would have recited while traveling on the back of his animal.
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Listin are highway robbers. "Thus you were liable for your own life" means: you deserved death by your deviating from [the view of] Beit Hillel; for had you died, it would have been only that you had put your own life at risk.
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Mishnah [8]
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The two blessings recited in the morning before the Shema recitation are the Yotzer and the Ahavah, and the one recited after it is Emet ve-Yatziv. At night, two are recited before it — Maariv Aravim and Ahavat Olam — and after it Emet Emunah and Hashkiveinu.
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A "long blessing" is Yotzer and Maariv Aravim; a "short" one is Ahavat Olam. Yotzer is called long and Ahavat Olam short because any blessing that has Barukh at its beginning and Barukh at its end he calls "long," and one that is not so he calls "short."
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The explanation of eino rashai is "he is not permitted" — that is, it is not allowed to him to do [it]. "To seal" (lachtom) means: to break off at a place that is not a place of breaking off.
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Mishnah [9]
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By "the going out from Egypt" (yetzi'at Mitzrayim) he refers to the paragraph of tzitzit, in which God said, "[I am the Lord your God,] who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Num 15:41). Analogy would have it that this paragraph not be recited at night, since the commandment of tzitzit is not obligatory at night, in accordance with God's saying "and you shall see it" (Num 15:39) — the time of seeing, as the tradition transmits — were it not for [the mention of] the going out from Egypt that is in it, on whose account it is in fact recited.
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As for the saying of R. Elazar ben Azariah, "Behold, I am like a man of seventy years" — and he did not say "of seventy years" — that is because he was not [really] seventy years old, but rather young in age; yet he applied himself so abundantly to study, learning, and reading night and day that the powers of his body grew weak, his hair turned white, and he became like an old man of seventy years. The onset of his white hair was by his own choosing, as is explained in the Talmud.
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So he said, marveling: despite the abundance of my striving and my close association with the people of knowledge, I had not merited to know the allusion in the text to the obligation of reciting the paragraph of tzitzit at night, until Ben Zoma expounded it.