Note 122 — II. OUR DUTIES. (continued 3)

The reading of shema in the evening and in the morning, the three sections constituting the shema, and the order of these sections, are assumed in the Mishnah as fully established by law and usage. Only a few regulations are discussed concerning the time and the mode of the reading. There was this difference between the custom of the Babylonian Jews and that of their brethren in Palestine, that the latter omitted in the evening the passage referring to tsitsith. Later on, however, the Palestine Jews conformed to the Babylonian custom. Suggestions have been made to substitute other Biblical passages for shema, but they have been rejected. Several attempts have been made to introduce, as an addition to the three sections of shema, the reading of the Decalogue; the addition was disallowed, lest people should be misled to think that the Ten Commandments alone were to be observed, and that the other laws were not binding (Babyl. T., Berachoth 12a).122