MARK WASHOFSKY

firmly entrenched and cannot be changed. They suggest to the observant worshipper various compromises designed to allow him to pray with the congregation and yet recite the Shema at its proper time.’ These"compromises," however, did not indicate halakhic approval of the minhag: these authorities clearly recognized that the recitation of the Shema before sundown does not fulfill one’s halakhic obligation.

The later Ashkenazic authorities, meanwhile, offered a different kind of compromise. The halakhah, they acknowledge, does not follow the tana’im who allow the evening Shema to be recited early. Nonetheless, patterns of communal life decree that we accept their view. The people cannot wait until sundown, quite late in the evening according to the summer clock, to assemble for public prayer. Public prayer, if not Toraitically required, is itself an important religious value."Therefore, the people are accustomed to recite the Shema and pray before the appearance of the stars, relying on these tana’im, although in principle, one should not recite the Shema until the appearance of stars." These authorities, therefore, draw a distinction between the abstract halakhah and halakhah in practice. In principle, the evening Shema ought to be read after sundown. In the actual circumstances of communal life, however, the halakhah must follow the minority opinion, inasmuch as the desire of the community to pray together as a congregation has preserved the minhag of early recitation of the Shema. The minhag thus transforms the nature of rabbinic discourse over the issue. The discussion of the theoretical halakhah is accompanied, especially among the Ashkenazim , by a rigorous defense of their ancestral custom("those who reject the words of R. Tam and delay the Shema till after sundown are guilty of excessive piety")*> and by the creation of halakhic arguments, however forced they may be, to defend that minhag according to the rules of the halakhic system. This justification became increasingly difficult; by the fifteenth century, Ashkenazic authorities were complaining that ma’ariv was being recited much

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