On berachos daf 25b, 2 lines down the gemara quotes from the mishna on 22b and assumes that we are speaking of a case where the man is toiveling in order to say the morning Krias Shema. The mishna says that he is rushing to say it before netz hachama, sunrise. My question is - we learned on daf 9a that one could even say Krias Shema of the evening until netz hachama (albeit not the optimal time, he should have said it way earlier). So what's our gemara trying to use the mishna to prove that the zman of morning Shema is like rabbi Eliezer and not rabbi yehoshua, maybe the whole case of that mishna is the evening Shema and not the morning Shema? So there's no proof at all to Rabbi Eliezer. What's the proof that the mishna was discussing the morning Shema, if it could be it was discussing the evening Shema. And the mishna 22b would be as follows: if he went to immerse, if he is able to go up & cover himself and say the EVENING Shema before netz, he should go up, cover himself and say it, but if unable to do it before netz, he should cover himself with the water and say Shema.
Please let me know if you have any insight. Thanks
Yisroel Dovid Berger , Lakewood, USA
The Mishnah usually discusses frequent scenarios. It is very unusual for someone to say the evening Shema so late, so the Mishnah is presumably not referring to this. It is unlikely that a person who has not yet said the Shema would go to the Mikvah at the very end of the night, before saying the evening Shema.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom