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רַבִּי יִשְׁמָעֵאל

Rabbi Yishmael

Thirteen methods, or rules, for reading the Torah, and then a request.

Daven with it Read it here

Draft. This siddur is waiting for a rav's review. For a halachic question, ask your rav.

At a glance

When: Every morning, right after Eizehu Mekoman
Taken from: The opening of the Sifra, an early commentary on Vayikra
How old: About 1,900 years
Before him: Hillel taught seven rules. This list has thirteen.

The words

Hebrew, then English. Open "What it means" under any line for the explanation.

This is learning, not a request: Rabbi Yishmael's thirteen methods for reading the Torah.
רַבִּי יִשְׁמָעֵאל אוֹמֵר בִּשְׁלשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה מִדּוֹת הַתּוֹרָה נִדְרֶשֶׁת בָּהֵן.
Rabbi Yishmael says: By thirteen methods the Torah is interpreted.
What it means
Rabbi Yishmael says: The Torah is interpreted by thirteen methods.
Why is a list of rules for reading the Torah in the siddur? The Tur (a law code, Spain, 1300s) gives two reasons. It opens the Sifra, the Sages' commentary on Vayikra, the book of the offerings you just read about. And it stands in for Gemara (the rabbis' discussions of the law) in your daily learning. Eilu Devarim explains that plan.
Tur, Orach Chaim 50; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 50:1
1. Kal vachomer
מִקַּל וָחֹמֶר,
From a lighter case to a heavier one.
What it means
The Sifra's example is Miriam. God tells Moshe: if her father had spat in her face, she would be in disgrace for seven days. By that logic, for God it should be fourteen. But she is shut out for seven. A conclusion cannot come out bigger than the case it was built on. That limit has a name, dayo: "it is enough."
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Bamidbar 12:14
2. Gezerah shavah
וּמִגְּזֵרָה שָׁוָה,
And from matching words.
What it means
And from matching words in two places.
The Torah uses the same words, "that he did not lay a hand on his neighbor's property," about an unpaid guard and a paid one. The Sifra links the two: a law about the guard's heirs holds for both. The Gemara sets a limit: a kal vachomer you may build on your own, a gezerah shavah you may not. Rashi (France, 1000s): it has to be received, going back to Sinai.
Sifra; Shemot 22:7 and 22:10; Niddah 19b; Rashi on Pesachim 66a
3. Binyan av
מִבִּנְיַן אָב מִכָּתוּב אֶחָד, וּמִבִּנְיַן אָב מִשְּׁנֵי כְתוּבִים,
From a model case built on one verse, and from a model case built on two verses.
What it means
Two methods on one line, and it happens again below. Spell them all out and you pass thirteen. The Raavad (Rabbi Avraham ben David, southern France, 1100s) gives the key: methods that work the same way count as one. The Sifra's example here: two laws open with the word "command," and both applied at once and for all time. So does any law that opens that way.
Raavad on the Sifra; Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Vayikra 24:2; Bamidbar 5:2
4. Klal ufrat
מִכְּלָל וּפְרָט,
From a general term followed by a specific.
What it means
When a wide word is followed by a narrow one, the narrow one sets the limit. The Sifra's example is the first law of the offerings: bring one "from the animals, from the cattle and from the flock." "Animals" is general. "Cattle and flock" is specific. So the law covers only what the specific names.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Vayikra 1:2
5. Prat ukhlal
וּמִפְּרָט וּכְלָל,
And from a specific followed by a general term.
What it means
Flip the order and the result flips. The Sifra's example: "If a person gives his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a sheep, or any animal, to guard." Three specifics, then a general term. Here the general term adds to the specifics, so the law covers every animal.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Shemot 22:9
6. Klal ufrat ukhlal
כְּלָל וּפְרָט וּכְלָל אִי אַתָּה דָן אֶלָּא כְּעֵין הַפְּרָט,
A general term, a specific, and a general term again: you derive nothing except what is like the specific.
What it means
A general term, then a specific, then a general term again: you may include only what is like the specific.
The Sifra's example: money to be spent on food in Jerusalem may buy "anything you want: cattle, sheep, wine, strong drink, anything you ask for." General, specific, general. So you may buy only what is like the items named. The Sifra spells that out: things born of what the earth produces, and grown from the ground. Left out: mushrooms and truffles.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Devarim 14:26
7. A general term and a specific that need each other
מִכְּלָל שֶׁהוּא צָרִיךְ לִפְרָט וּמִפְּרָט שֶׁהוּא צָרִיךְ לִכְלָל,
From a general term that needs a specific, and from a specific that needs a general term.
What it means
Here neither word limits the other. Each is unclear alone. The Sifra's example: "Sanctify to Me every firstborn." A firstborn female too? Another verse says "male." A male born after a female? The verse says "the one that opens the womb." And one born after a sibling delivered by surgery? Back to the word "firstborn." It takes all the words together.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Shemot 13:2
8. Singled out to teach
כָּל דָּבָר שֶׁהָיָה בִּכְלָל וְיָצָא מִן הַכְּלָל לְלַמֵּד לֹא לְלַמֵּד עַל עַצְמוֹ יָצָא אֶלָּא לְלַמֵּד עַל הַכְּלָל כֻּלּוֹ יָצָא,
Anything that was in a general rule and was singled out from it to teach something: it was singled out to teach not about itself, but to teach about the whole general rule.
What it means
Anything that was included in a general rule and was then singled out to teach something was singled out to teach not about itself, but about the whole general rule.
The Sifra's example: a person who eats the meat of a peace offering while impure is cut off (Vayikra 7:20). Peace offerings were already part of the law for all offerings. So why name them? To define the whole group. The penalty covers what is holy the way a peace offering is: holy for the altar. Gifts for the upkeep of the Temple are left out.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Vayikra 7:20
9. Singled out for a requirement of the same kind
כָּל דָּבָר שֶׁהָיָה בִּכְלָל וְיָצָא לִטְעֹן טֹעַן אֶחָד שֶׁהוּא כְעִנְיָנוֹ יָצָא לְהָקֵל וְלֹא לְהַחֲמִיר,
Anything that was in a general rule and was singled out to carry one requirement of the same kind: it was singled out to be lighter, not stricter.
What it means
Anything that was included in a general rule and was singled out to carry a requirement of the same kind as the rule was singled out to make it lighter, not stricter.
The Sifra's example comes from tzaraat, the afflictions of skin in Vayikra 13. A mark on the spot of a boil or a burn is still a skin affliction, but the Torah gives these two their own verses, with requirements of the same kind as the general ones. The result is only lighter: they are judged for one week only, where other marks can get a second.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Vayikra 13:18 and 13:24
10. Singled out for a requirement of a different kind
כָּל דָּבָר שֶׁהָיָה בִּכְלָל וְיָצָא לִטְעֹן טֹעַן אַחֵר שֶׁלֹּא כְעִנְיָנוֹ יָצָא לְהָקֵל וּלְהַחֲמִיר,
Anything that was in a general rule and was singled out to carry another requirement of a different kind: it was singled out to be both lighter and stricter.
What it means
Anything that was included in a general rule and was singled out to carry a requirement of a different kind from the rule was singled out to make it both lighter and stricter.
Same chapter, other result. An affliction on the head or the beard gets its own verses too, with a sign of a different kind. On the rest of the body the sign is white hair. On the head and beard it is yellow hair. So these come out lighter in one way and stricter in another: white hair does not count, and yellow hair does.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Vayikra 13:29-30
11. Singled out for something new
כָּל דָּבָר שֶׁהָיָה בִּכְלָל וְיָצָא לִדּוֹן בַּדָּבָר הֶחָדָשׁ אִי אַתָּה יָכוֹל לְהַחֲזִירוֹ לִכְלָלוֹ עַד שֶׁיַּחֲזִירֶנּוּ הַכָּתוּב לִכְלָלוֹ בְּפֵרוּשׁ,
Anything that was in a general rule and was singled out to be judged by something new: you cannot return it to its general rule until the Torah returns it to its general rule explicitly.
What it means
Anything that was included in a general rule and was singled out for a new law: you cannot return it to its general rule until the Torah returns it to its general rule explicitly.
The Sifra's example: the guilt offering of a person healed from tzaraat. It has something no other guilt offering has. Its blood goes on the person's right ear, thumb and big toe. Once it is that different, do the usual altar rules still apply to it? You could not assume so. So the Torah says it outright: "the guilt offering is like the sin offering."
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Vayikra 14:13-14
12. Context, and the end of the passage
דָּבָר הַלָּמֵד מֵעִנְיָנוֹ וְדָבָר הַלָּמֵד מִסּוֹפוֹ,
Something learned from its context, and something learned from its end.
What it means
Something that is learned from its context, and something that is learned from its end.
Two tools, one method. Context: "he is bald, he is pure" sounds like pure in every way. The verses around it show it means free of one kind of affliction. The end: the Torah says a house can be struck with an affliction. Any house? The end of the passage speaks of "its stones, its wood and all the earth of the house." So only a house that has all three.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Vayikra 13:40, 14:34 and 14:45
13. Two verses that contradict
וְכֵן שְׁנֵי כְתוּבִים הַמַּכְחִישִׁים זֶה אֶת זֶה עַד שֶׁיָּבֹא הַכָּתוּב הַשְּׁלִישִׁי וְיַכְרִיעַ בֵּינֵיהֶם.
And likewise two verses that contradict each other, until a third verse comes and decides between them.
What it means
The Sifra's example: one verse says God "came down onto Mount Sinai." Another says "from the heavens He let you hear His voice." So where did the voice come from? A third verse decides: "from the heavens I spoke with you." The Sifra's reading: God bent the highest heavens down onto the mountain and spoke with them.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Shemot 19:20 and 20:19; Devarim 4:36
After the thirteen methods, a request:
יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶיךָ יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁיִּבָּנֶה בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ בִּמְהֵרָה בְיָמֵינוּ וְתֵן חֶלְקֵנוּ בְּתוֹרָתֶךָ.
May it be Your will, Hashem our God and God of our ancestors, that the Temple be rebuilt quickly, in our days, and give us our share in Your Torah.
What it means
A shorter form of this request ends a paragraph of Pirkei Avot, the part of the Mishnah (the Sages' rulings, written down about 200 CE) that collects their sayings. The Mishnah's text says "that You rebuild Your city." Here the Temple is named. The words "give us our share in Your Torah" come back every Shabbat, in the middle blessing of the Amidah.
Pirkei Avot 5:20; the Shabbat Amidah
וְשָׁם נַעֲבָדְךָ בְּיִרְאָה כִּימֵי עוֹלָם וּכְשָׁנִים קַדְמוֹנִיּוֹת.
And there we will serve You with awe, as in the days of old and as in years long past.
What it means
These two sentences also close every Amidah. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, Poland, 1500s, in his notes on the Shulchan Aruch, the main code of Jewish law) says why: prayer stands in for the Temple service, so we ask for the Temple, where we could do the real service. The last words are from the prophet Malachi. Pitum HaKetoret has a note on them.
Rema on Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 123:1; Malachi 3:4

The story

You already use rule one

Kal vachomer means "light and heavy." If something is true in the easy case, it is surely true in the harder one. You argue this way all the time. So does the Torah. In the Midrash (early rabbinic teachings on the Torah), Rabbi Yishmael, the sage this list is named for, counts ten such arguments in Tanach. The first: Yosef's brothers, accused of theft, say, we brought back the money we found in our sacks, so how would we steal silver or gold? Another is Moshe's: Israel did not listen to me, so how will Pharaoh?

Bereishit Rabbah 92:7; Bereishit 44:8; Shemot 6:12

Why a list of rules is in the siddur

Eilu Devarim explained that the siddur gives you three kinds of Torah each morning: verses, Mishnah (the first collection of the Oral Torah) and Gemara (the rabbis' discussions of it). Here the verses are the daily offering, the Mishnah is Eizehu Mekoman, and this list is the third. The Tur (a law code from the 1300s) gives two reasons it was picked. Drawing laws out of verses counts like Gemara. And it opens the Sifra, the early rabbinic commentary on Vayikra, which he calls "the head of all the offerings."

Tur, Orach Chaim 50; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 50:1

Two of these rules made Hillel the leader

The Gemara tells of a year when the day before Pesach fell on Shabbat. The leaders, the sons of Beteira, had forgotten whether the Pesach offering may be brought on Shabbat. Someone knew of a newcomer from Babylonia named Hillel. He answered with two of these rules. The daily offering is brought on Shabbat, and the same word, "in its time," is written about both. And the Pesach offering carries the heavier penalty, so it surely overrides Shabbat too. They made him their head on the spot.

Pesachim 66a

The siddur left out the examples

In the Sifra, each rule is followed by "How so?" and a case. Take rule six. The Torah says that money which had to be spent on food in Jerusalem may go for "anything you want." Then it lists cattle, sheep, wine and strong drink. Then it says "anything you ask for." General, specific, general. So does anything go? The Sifra says no. The list in the middle sets the type: "the offspring of what the earth produces, raised from the ground." Mushrooms and truffles, it says, are out.

Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael; Devarim 14:26

Count them. You may not get thirteen.

Go down the list and count each item. You can reach fifteen. To get thirteen, some items have to share a number. Which ones? Abudarham (a commentary on the prayers, Spain, about 1340) reports two ways. In the count he gives in the name of Rashi (the classic commentator, France, 1000s), "learned from its context" and "learned from its end" are one rule. Rav Saadia Gaon (head of an academy in Babylonia, 900s) counted those as two, and joined "general then specific" with "specific then general" instead.

Abudarham, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael

The boy in the Roman prison

The Gemara tells how the sage Rabbi Yehoshua, visiting Rome, heard of a boy in prison. He stood at the door and called out half a verse from Yeshayahu: "Who gave Yaakov over to be plundered?" The boy answered with the rest: "Was it not Hashem, against whom we sinned?" Rabbi Yehoshua swore not to leave until he ransomed him. Soon the boy taught law. The Gemara names him: Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha. Tosafot (medieval commentators on the Gemara) take him to be the Rabbi Yishmael of this list. Not everyone agreed.

Gittin 58a; Yeshayahu 42:24; Tosafot on Menachot 64b; Seder HaDorot, entry on Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha

The last line shows up in Pirkei Avot

After thirteen rules, one request. A shorter form of it is in Pirkei Avot (the part of the Mishnah with the sayings of the early rabbis), at the end of the paragraph that begins "Be bold as a leopard" (see the Yehi Ratzon prayer). In the Mishnah it reads: "that You rebuild Your city soon, in our days, and give us our share in Your Torah." Here, and in Pirkei Avot as some siddurim print it, the Temple is named. The last words, "as in the days of old and as in years long past," are from the prophet Malachi.

Pirkei Avot 5:20; Malachi 3:4

Hard questions

With rules like these, couldn't you make the Torah say anything?

Fair question. The rules come with limits. The first shows up in the first example in the Sifra (the early commentary on Vayikra that this list opens).

Miriam spoke against Moshe and was struck with a skin disease. God says to Moshe: if her father had spat in her face, would she not hide in shame for seven days? The Sifra reasons: if a father's anger means seven days, God's should mean fourteen. Then it stops: "It is enough for what is derived to be like what it was derived from." The source said seven, so Miriam stays outside the camp for seven. A kal vachomer can carry a law to a new case. It cannot make the law bigger. The Gemara calls this limit part of the Torah's own law.

Rule two has a tighter limit. A gezerah shavah links two laws because the same word appears in both. The Gemara rules: a person may build a kal vachomer on his own, but not a gezerah shavah. Rashi (the classic commentator, France, 1000s) explains why: maybe that word is there to teach something else. So a gezerah shavah has to be received from one's teachers, going back to Sinai.

And a kal vachomer that anyone may build, anyone may knock down. In the Hillel story in the Story section, the Gemara says his kal vachomer was answered: the daily offering is brought far more often, so maybe that is why it overrides Shabbat. His other proof, the one he had from his teachers, is the one that stood.

A law the highest court reached with these rules is not locked forever. The Rambam (Maimonides, who died in 1204) rules that if a later high court sees a reason to read it differently, it may overturn the earlier ruling. Laws received from Moshe are different. About those, he says, there is never an argument (more on that at the first Eizehu Mekoman passage).

So the rules did not let one clever person get the answer he wanted. An argument made with them could be checked, limited, and sometimes beaten.

Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael,Bamidbar 12:14,Bava Kamma 25a,Pesachim 66a, with Rashi,Niddah 19b,Rambam, Laws of Rebels 1:3 and 2:1

The Torah contradicts itself? And the siddur says so out loud?

Read rule thirteen again: "two verses that contradict each other, until a third verse comes and decides between them." The rule does not hide the problem. It names it, and it tells you what to do next: look for a third verse.

The Sifra gives a case. One verse says that when Moshe came into the Tent of Meeting to speak with God, he heard the voice. Another says Moshe could not come into the Tent of Meeting. Which is it? The answer is in the rest of that second verse: "because the cloud rested on it." While the cloud was there, Moshe did not go in. When it lifted, he went in and spoke with God.

A second case is about Mount Sinai. One verse says God came down onto the mountain. Another says He spoke to Israel from heaven. The Sifra's answer: God bent the heavens down onto the mountain and spoke from there. The Mekhilta (the matching early commentary on Shemot) records an argument about it. That answer is Rabbi Akiva's. Rabbi Yishmael points to a verse in Devarim: "From heaven He let you hear His voice, to discipline you, and on earth He showed you His great fire."

Abudarham (a commentary on the prayers, Spain, about 1340) adds a case from the first page of the Torah. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" sounds as if the heavens came first. A chapter later it says "on the day Hashem God made earth and heavens." His third verse is from Yeshayahu: "My hand founded the earth and My right hand spread out the heavens. I call to them and they stand together."

In each of these cases neither verse is thrown out. More of the Torah's own words, a third verse or the rest of the same one, show how both can be true. That is what the rule sends a reader to look for. And the rabbis did not bury the question. They made it rule thirteen.

Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael,Bamidbar 7:89; Shemot 40:35,Shemot 19:20 and 20:19; Devarim 4:36,Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Bachodesh 9,Abudarham, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael,Bereishit 1:1 and 2:4; Yeshayahu 48:13

Did Rabbi Yishmael just make these rules up?

It can look that way. The Torah never lists them, and the siddur opens with "Rabbi Yishmael says." But the sources show these rules in use well before him.

The Sifra itself, among its examples for the last rule, records another list in the name of an earlier sage: "Hillel the Elder taught seven rules before the elders of Beteira." Hillel lived generations before Rabbi Yishmael. His seven include rule one and rule two from this list, general-and-specific, and learning a thing from its context.

Rabbi Yishmael also had a teacher. The Gemara says he studied under Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah (the Ana BeKoach prayer says more about him), "who explained the whole Torah by general and specific," and so he did the same. Rules four through seven on this list are all built on general and specific.

Not everyone read the Torah his way. The same passage says Rabbi Akiva, who argues with him there, got a different method from his own teacher, Nachum Ish Gamzu: "including and excluding." The Gemara there shows the two methods giving two different laws from one verse.

They disagreed about something more basic too. When the Torah doubles a word, Rabbi Akiva learns something from the extra word. Rabbi Yishmael answers him: "The Torah spoke in the language of people." People repeat words when they talk, and so does the Torah.

So the sources do not describe an inventor. They describe a student who received a way of reading, and whose name is on the list of thirteen. Whether the wording of the list is his own or older still, the sources we opened do not say.

Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael,Shevuot 26a,Sanhedrin 64b

Sparks

Short ideas from the Chassidic masters, the Kabbalah and the Mussar teachers.

Zohar

No story is only a story

One of the thirteen rules says: when something was part of a general rule and was singled out to teach, it teaches about the whole rule, not only about itself. The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) turns that rule on the Torah itself. The Torah says Noach's ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Rabbi Elazar asks: what do we care which mountain it was? His answer: the whole Torah is the general rule, and each story is one case that came out of it. So a story is never there only to tell itself. It is there to teach about the whole.

דְּהָא אוֹרַיְיתָא דְּאִיהִי כְּלָלָא עִלָּאָה, אַף עַל גַּב דְּנָפִק מִנָּהּ, חַד סִפּוּר בְּעָלְמָא. ודַּאי לָא אָתֵי לְאַחֲזָאָה עַל הַהוּא סִפּוּר

Zohar, Parashat Beha'alotcha

Chassidut

Thirteen rules, thirteen kinds of mercy

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (an early Chassidic master who died in 1809) quotes his teacher, the Maggid of Mezritch: the thirteen rules for reading the Torah are one with the thirteen attributes of God's mercy (Shemot 34:6). He explains one pair. The rule called gezerah shavah has the word "equal" in it, and it matches the attribute "merciful." When a rich person has mercy on a poor person, he has to make himself equal to the poor person and attach himself to that pain. God does the same, as Tehillim says: "I am with him in trouble."

ומדת רחום הוא גזירה שוה, כי הכלל כאשר העשיר מרחם על העני אז צריך העשיר להשוות עצמו ולדבק עצמו בצער העני

Kedushat Levi, Parashat Ki Tisa

Rav Kook

The contradiction is on our side

The last rule deals with two verses that contradict each other. Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) says a contradiction is only a sickness of logic, and logic is limited by the conditions of the human mind. We feel the clash, and we need it settled. Far above that, he writes, is God's light, where nothing is held back by a contradiction and nothing needs settling. That is why we cannot settle it ourselves. The cure has to come from the same source the two verses came from: a third verse.

עצמותה של הסתירה, היא רק מחלה הבאה על ההגיון, המוגבל, בתנאיו המיוחדים של שכל האדם והקשבתו.

Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on the Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael

Rav Kook

A detail cannot stand alone

One rule speaks of "a general rule that needs its detail, and a detail that needs its general rule." Rav Kook reads it as a statement about how everything exists. Why does the whole need details? If something above all limits could not also produce limited things, it would be limited itself. Why does a detail need the whole? No detail can stand alone. The moment it shuts itself inside its own border, he writes, its strength fades and it goes back to nothing. All of a detail's power comes from this: it always needs the whole, and longs for it.

תיכף כשהפרט יסגר בגבולו תפוג כחניותה של מציאותו, וישוב לאפס. וכל כחו ואדירתו של הפרט הוא מפני שהוא תמיד נזקק, עורג, וצריך לכלל.

Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on the Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael

Maharal

The world's heart and the world's mind

Why does the closing request ask for the Temple and for Torah in one breath? The Maharal (Rabbi Yehudah Loew of Prague, who died in 1609) answers with a picture. In a person, two things matter most: the heart, where life comes from, and the brain, where the mind is. The world has both too. The Temple is its heart: it stands in the middle, and every land receives life from it. The Torah is the world's mind. The two always go together, he writes, and so we always ask for both. We are asking for a share in what is real, and not in empty things.

כי כמו שבאדם הלב והמוח עיקר האדם... כך בכלל העולם בית המקדש והתורה עיקר מציאות העולם... וכמו שהמוח שם שכל האדם, כך התורה שכל העולם

Maharal, Gevurot Hashem, chapter 8

Halacha

The practical laws. For a final ruling, ask your rav.

A list of rules counts as Gemara. How?

The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says this passage is here so everyone learns Tanach, Mishnah and Gemara every day. It stands in for Gemara, "because Midrash is like Gemara." Midrash here means drawing laws out of verses. In its laws of Torah study, the same code says a third of your learning should be Gemara, meaning: seeing how one thing comes out of another, comparing things, and reasoning with "the rules by which the Torah is interpreted." This passage opens with nearly those words.

Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 50:1 and Yoreh De'ah 246:4

I say it every day and still don't get it. Now what?

The Eilu Devarim prayer gives the rule: a passage you do not understand does not count as learning. The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code from around 1900) repeats it here, and calls these thirteen rules the main principles of the Oral Torah. The Eliyah Rabbah (a law commentary from Prague, around 1700) points to Abudarham (a commentary on the prayers, Spain, about 1340), which explains each rule with examples. He takes it as a sign that everyone should learn the explanation, to understand what they say each day.

Mishnah Berurah 50:2; Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 50:1; Eliyah Rabbah, Orach Chaim 50:1; Abudarham

Could the rabbis use these rules any way they wanted?

No. The Gemara sets a limit. A person may reason out a kal vachomer (from a lighter case to a heavier one) on his own, but not a gezerah shavah (linking two laws through a shared word). Rashi (the classic Gemara commentator) explains: only if he learned it from his teacher, and his teacher from his, back to Moshe. Elsewhere Rashi writes that of all thirteen rules, only kal vachomer was given to use on your own. Tosafot (medieval commentators on the Gemara) disagree: all of them were, except gezerah shavah.

Niddah 19b; Pesachim 66a; Rashi on Sukkah 11b and 31a; Tosafot on Sukkah 31a

Is there a right way to say the list?

Slowly. The Ben Ish Chai (a law book by Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, late 1800s) writes that this passage holds great secrets, so it must be said calmly, without hurry. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary, early 1900s) records the wording received from the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the Kabbalist of Tzfat). In the last rule he did not say vechen, "and likewise." He said vechan, with an "a" sound. The Ben Ish Chai answers an objection to that. Siddur Sefard prints vechen.

Ben Ish Chai, Year 1, Miketz 10; Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 48:1, from Sha'ar HaKavanot; Siddur Sefard

I count more than thirteen. How do they add up?

The Ben Ish Chai quotes a manuscript: it is good to count the thirteen rules on your fingers. But the list has more than thirteen phrases. Abudarham gives the count he credits to Rashi. The two binyan av lines (a rule built from one verse, or from two) count as one. So do "learned from its context" and "learned from its end." The Rosh (Rabbeinu Asher, about 700 years ago) agreed with that count. Rav Saadia Gaon (Babylonia, 900s) counted differently. The Story card "Count them" gives his count.

Ben Ish Chai, Year 1, Miketz 10; Abudarham, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael

My friend's siddur adds a line about a leopard here. Why?

The Kaf HaChaim traces the closing request to a mishnah. He records that one from Pirkei Avot (the Mishnah's book of the rabbis' sayings) was set after this passage: Yehudah ben Teima says, be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and strong as a lion, to do the will of your Father in heaven. It ends by asking God to rebuild "Your city" and give us our share in His Torah. Siddur Edot HaMizrach (Sephardic) prints the mishnah. Siddur Sefard has only the request. Both say "the Temple," not "Your city."

Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 50:3; Pirkei Avot 5:20; Siddur Edot HaMizrach; Siddur Sefard

I say this same request after the Amidah. Why twice?

Siddur Sefard prints the request here, after the offering passages, and again at the end of the Amidah (the standing prayer), after the three steps back. For the Amidah, the Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to the Shulchan Aruch) gives the reason. Prayer stands in place of the Temple service. So we ask for the Temple, where we could do the real service. He says that about the Amidah. For this spot, the Kaf HaChaim only traces the line to the mishnah in Pirkei Avot.

Rema, Orach Chaim 123:1; Siddur Sefard, end of the Amidah; Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 50:3

Sources

Show the 10 sources quoted on this page

Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael
מקל וחומר, כיצד? ... ואביה ירק ירק בפניה הלא תכלם שבעת ימים ... קל וחומר לשכינה ארבעה עשר יום! אלא: דיו לבא מן הדין להיות כנדון
By kal vachomer, how so? "If her father had spat in her face, would she not be shamed for seven days?" For God's presence, all the more so: fourteen days. But no: it is enough for what is derived to be like what it was derived from.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael
כתוב אחד אומר "ובבא משה אל אהל מועד לדבר אתו". וכתוב אחד אומ' "ולא יכול משה לבא אל אהל מועד…". הכריע "כי שכן עליו הענן". אמור מעתה, כל זמן שהיה הענן שם, לא היה משה נכנס לשם. נסתלק הענן, היה נכנס ומדבר עמו.
One verse says, "When Moshe came into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him." Another verse says, "Moshe could not come into the Tent of Meeting." What decides it: "because the cloud rested on it." So say: as long as the cloud was there, Moshe did not go in. When the cloud lifted, he went in and spoke with Him.
Sifra, Baraita of Rabbi Yishmael
הלל הזקן דרש שבע מדות לפני זקני בתירה קל וחומר. וגזרה שוה. ושני כתובים. וכלל ופרט. וכיוצא בו. במקום אחר. ודבר למד מענינו.
Hillel the Elder taught seven rules before the elders of Beteira: kal vachomer, gezerah shavah, two verses, general and specific, a like case in another place, and a thing learned from its context. (The Sifra as printed names six. Another early source, the Tosefta, lists the model case twice, from one verse and from two.)
Tur, Orach Chaim 50
ומדרש של ברייתא דרבי ישמעאל הוי במקום תלמוד שהמדרש כתלמוד ועוד שהיא תחלת תורת כהנים שהוא ראש לכל הקרבנות קבעוה אצל הקרבנות
Rabbi Yishmael's teaching is midrash (drawing laws out of verses), and it stands in place of Gemara, because midrash is like Gemara. Also, it is the opening of Torat Kohanim (the Sifra), which is the head of all the offerings, so they set it next to the offerings.
Bereishit Rabbah 92:7
תָּנֵי רַבִּי יִשְׁמָעֵאל זֶה אֶחָד מֵעֲשָׂרָה קַלִּים וַחֲמוּרִין שֶׁכְּתוּבִים בַּתּוֹרָה, הֵן כֶּסֶף וגו' הֱשִׁיבֹנוּ אֵלֶיךָ, קַל וָחֹמֶר וְאֵיךְ נִגְנֹב.
Rabbi Yishmael taught: this is one of ten kal vachomer arguments written in the Torah. "Look, the money... we brought back to you." All the more so, "how would we steal?"
Niddah 19b; also Pesachim 66a
אָדָם דָּן קַל וָחוֹמֶר מֵעַצְמוֹ, וְאֵין אָדָם דָּן גְּזֵרָה שָׁוָה מֵעַצְמוֹ.
A person may build a kal vachomer on his own. A person may not build a gezerah shavah on his own.
Shevuot 26a
רַבִּי יִשְׁמָעֵאל, שֶׁשִּׁימֵּשׁ אֶת רַבִּי נְחוּנְיָא בֶּן הַקָּנָה, שֶׁהָיָה דּוֹרֵשׁ אֶת כָּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּהּ בִּכְלָל וּפְרָט, אִיהוּ נָמֵי דּוֹרֵשׁ בִּכְלָל וּפְרָט. רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא, שֶׁשִּׁימֵּשׁ אֶת נַחוּם אִישׁ גַּם זוֹ, שֶׁהָיָה דּוֹרֵשׁ אֶת כָּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּהּ בְּרִיבָּה וּמִיעֵט, אִיהוּ נָמֵי דּוֹרֵשׁ רִיבָּה וּמִיעֵט.
Rabbi Yishmael studied under Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah, who explained the whole Torah by general and specific, so he too explains by general and specific. Rabbi Akiva studied under Nachum Ish Gamzu, who explained the whole Torah by including and excluding, so he too explains by including and excluding.
Sanhedrin 64b
דִּבְּרָה תוֹרָה כִלְשׁוֹן בְּנֵי אָדָם.
The Torah spoke in the language of people.
Rambam, Laws of Rebels 2:1
בֵּית דִּין הַגָּדוֹל שֶׁדָּרְשׁוּ בְּאַחַת מִן הַמִּדּוֹת כְּפִי מַה שֶּׁנִּרְאָה בְּעֵינֵיהֶם שֶׁהַדִּין כָּךְ וְדָנוּ דִּין. וְעָמַד אַחֲרֵיהֶם בֵּית דִּין אַחֵר וְנִרְאֶה לוֹ טַעַם אַחֵר לִסְתֹּר אוֹתוֹ. הֲרֵי זֶה סוֹתֵר וְדָן כְּפִי מַה שֶּׁנִּרְאֶה בְּעֵינָיו.
If the high court used one of the rules to work out, as they saw it, that the law is a certain way, and ruled so, and a later court arose and saw a different reason that overturns it, that court overturns it and rules as it sees it.
Pirkei Avot 5:20
יהי רצון מלפניך ה׳ אלהינו שתבנה עירך במהרה בימינו ותן חלקנו בתורתך.
May it be Your will, Hashem our God, that You rebuild Your city soon, in our days, and give us our share in Your Torah.

Every prayer in the siddur