Reishit Chochmah

The first thought of the day

Sefer Chasidim (a book of ethics and custom from medieval Germany, about 800 years old) reads this verse as being about waking up. Asleep, your thoughts are not in your control. The moment you wake, they are yours again. That moment is "the beginning of wisdom," and the verse says it belongs to fear of Hashem (the Hebrew word, yirah, means both fear and awe). The book says this is why Shema Yisrael was set for the moment you wake. Elsewhere it says: like first fruits, give God "the first of the day and the night."

The beginning comes at the end

Tehillim 111 is an alef-bet poem. After the opening Halleluyah, each short phrase starts with the next letter, alef through tav. This verse is the last one, and it holds the final three letters: Reishit, Sekhel, Tehilato. Resh, shin (said here as s), tav. So the line about where wisdom begins is the line where the alphabet ends. The Meiri (a commentator from Provence, about 700 years ago) points out that the last two verses carry three letters each instead of two.

Smart is not the goal

Rava (one of the main teachers in the Gemara, about 1,700 years ago) had a line he repeated all the time: "The goal of wisdom is repentance and good deeds." His example of getting it wrong is a person who learns Torah and then treats his father, his mother and his teacher with contempt. His proof is this verse, which promises good sense "to all who do them." Sefer Chasidim spells it out: the verse does not say "to those who learn them."

A craftsman with no tools

Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa (a sage of the Mishnah) taught: if your fear of sin comes before your wisdom, your wisdom lasts. If your wisdom comes first, it does not. Avot DeRabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot) gives this verse as his proof. Then it brings a picture from Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. Wise and afraid to sin: a craftsman holding his tools. Wise but not afraid to sin: a craftsman with no tools. Afraid to sin but not wise: no craftsman, but he has the tools.

It has company

Some siddurim follow this verse with a few more lines. The first is "Torah tzivah lanu Moshe," the verse the Gemara says a father teaches a child who has just learned to talk. Another is "Shema beni musar avicha," listen, my son, to your father's teaching. That is Mishlei 1:8. The verse right before it, Mishlei 1:7, is this verse's twin: "Fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge." The Koren siddur prints the whole group later, after the blessings on the Torah, under the words "Some say."

Do what? Praise whom?

Two words in this verse are open. "All who do them": do what? Ibn Ezra (a Spanish commentator on Tanach who died in the 1160s) says God's commands, named three verses earlier. Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi of Provence, who died in 1235) says both things in this verse, fear of Hashem and wisdom. "His praise stands forever": whose? Both read it as the person who lives this way. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, in his modern commentary, reads it as God's praise.

It should have said "the end"

The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) has Rabbi Chiya ask about this verse: it should have said that fear of God is the end of wisdom. His answer is a picture. A king is high and hidden, behind gate after gate. At the end of them all he made one more gate and said: whoever wants to come in to me, this gate comes first. Fear of God is that gate. It stands at the end of all the gates, and it is the first one you reach. "If you do not go in through this gate, you never go in."

אוּף הָכִי תַּרְעָא קַדְמָאָה לְחָכְמָה עִלָּאָה יִרְאַת ה׳ אִיהִי. וְדָא אִיהִי רֵאשִׁית.

Three kinds of fear

The Zohar quotes this verse and then says that fear of God comes in three kinds, and two of them are not the main thing. One person fears God so that his children will live, or so that nothing happens to his body or his money. Another fears punishment in the next world. The third kind is the root: to fear God "because He is great and rules, the foundation and root of all worlds." Now read the verse again.

יִרְאָ"ה דְּאִיהִי עִקָּרָא, לְמִדְחַל בַּר נָשׁ לְמָארֵיהּ בְּגִין דְּאִיהוּ רַב וְשַׁלִּיט עִקָּרָא וְשָׁרְשָׁא דְּכָל עָלְמִין.

Wisdom needs somewhere to go

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (the Vilna Gaon's leading student, who died in 1821) explains this verse with a picture. The prophet Yeshayahu calls fear of God a "storehouse." So Torah is like a huge harvest of grain, and fear of God is where it is kept. A father dividing grain among his children can give each one only as much as that child's storehouse holds, even if he wants to give more. With no storehouse, the grain lies in the field and gets trampled. The size of the storehouse a person builds decides how much wisdom can stay with them.

ולפי ערך גודל אוצר היראה אשר הכין לו האדם. כן ע"ז הערך יוכל ליכנס ולהשתמר ולהתקיים בתוכו תבואות התורה.

Nobody brags about having bread

The Gemara says that for Moshe, fear of God was a small thing. The Mei HaShiloach (teachings of Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Izhbitz, a Chassidic leader in Poland who died in 1854) explains it with bread. When you describe a rich man, you do not say that he has bread. Everyone needs bread. You mention bread only when someone is so poor that he has none. Fear of God is like that, he says, and he quotes this verse: it is "the first level a person needs to reach." It is the main thing, the way bread is the main food.

כי זאת הוא המעלה הראשונה שיצרך האדם להגיע אליה... כי זאת הוא עיקר כמו הלחם שהוא עיקר מחיית האדם.

The line that belongs to your soul

The second sentence here is the same line that is said in a whisper after the first verse of Shema. The Maharal (Rabbi Yehudah Loew of Prague, who died in 1609) explains the whisper this way. This praise, he writes, fits beings with no body, like angels. But a person has a soul, and "from the side of the soul a person is like an angel." In his words, "only the body holds it back." The soul sits hidden inside a person. So in Shema, the line that belongs to the soul is said in a hidden way.

כי מצד הנשמה דומה האדם למלאך... רק הגוף הוא מעכב.

Why can't I say this in bed, like Modeh Ani?

Modeh Ani has no name of God in it, so it can be said the moment you wake. This line is a verse from Tehillim with God's name in it. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the law code of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe) rules that before the morning washing, words of Torah may be thought but not spoken. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, from around 1900) notes a view that wiping your hands clean is enough, but adds that it is proper to be strict and wash when you have water.

It is a verse from Tanach. Don't the Torah blessings come first?

That is a real debate. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says it is right not to say verses before the Torah blessings, even as prayer. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to the Shulchan Aruch) records that the custom is lenient when verses are said as prayer. The Mishnah Berurah says that in practice people became strict. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav calls it more correct to say the Torah blessings before any verse. In the siddur, this verse is printed before them.

My friend's siddur skips this line. Why?

Because siddurim differ here. Some, in both Nusach Sefard and Nusach Ashkenaz, print this verse right after Modeh Ani. Others do not have it. The Chabad siddur, arranged by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, goes from Modeh Ani straight to washing and the morning blessings, with no verse in between. So do the Sephardic (Edot HaMizrach) siddurim we checked. Both ways are printed customs.

Where else do I say Baruch Shem?

This line has laws of its own. In the Shema, the Shulchan Aruch says to say it quietly. The Rema records the Ashkenazi custom of two blessings on tefillin and says it is good to say Baruch Shem after the second one. And if you make a blessing that turns out to be for nothing, like when the fruit falls and is lost before you eat it, the Shulchan Aruch says to say Baruch Shem, because God's name was said for no purpose.