Yerushalmi Berakhot 1:3 ירושלמי ברכות א׳:ג׳

MISHNAH: The school of Shammai say: In the evening, everyone must bend down¹⁷⁶Means to lie down on a couch, or as on a couch. “Reciting” always refers to the Shema‘ since, as a technical term, it is used only for formal recitation of Biblical texts. and recite and in the morning they should stand up since it is said (Deut. 6:7): “when you sit in your house or go on the road, when you are lying down and when you are getting up.” But the school of Hillel say: everyone should recite in the position he is in, since it says “or go on the road.” In that case, why does it say: “when you are lying down and when you are getting up;” this means the time when people go to sleep and the time when they are getting up.

HALAKHAH: They of the school of Hillel are able to explain both parts of the verse. How do those of the school of Shammai explain “when you sit in your house or go on the road”? “When you sit in your house”, to exclude those who are occupied with other religious commandments, “or go on the road” to exclude bridegrooms.¹⁷⁷An almost exact parallel is found in the Babli, Berakhot 11a. The bride is exempt from reciting the Shema‘ since women are freed from all positive commandments which have to be performed at set times. The bridegroom himself fulfills a divine commandment by getting married, but that fulfillment is really restricted to the short act of actual marriage and then to the first married intercourse; the exemption of the bridegroom from saying Shema‘ refers to the entire wedding feast when he is unable to concentrate even on the first verses.

We have stated¹⁷⁸In the Babylonian parallels (Berakhot 11a, Tosephta Berakhot 1:4, Sifri Deut. 34), R. Eleazar ben Azariah at first is sitting up and R. Ismael is reclining. This means that in the Babylonian version, the discussion was in the evening (also indicated in the Babylonian Talmud by a change in language, not “that they stayed at the same place” but that “they had dinner together.”) In our version, the discussion takes place in the morning.
While R. Ismael, after R. Aqiba the greatest scholar of his generation, did certainly exceed R. Eleazar ben Azariah in scholarship, the latter was the vice president of the Synhedrion; it is more likely that R. Ismael was sitting upright at the start. They might have got up very early, before the start of dawn, when it still was possible to eat before praying. It is impossible to decide which of the two versions is the original.: It happened that Rebbi Eleazar ben Azariah and Rebbi Ismael stayed at the same place and Rebbi Eleazar ben Azariah was reclining while Rebbi Ismael was standing. When the time for the recital of the Shema‘ arrived did Rebbi Eleazar ben Azariah stand and Rebbi Ismael reclined. Rebbi Eleazar said to Rebbi Ismael, this is as when one says to someone in the market place, your beard is overgrown, and he says, that is against those who shave¹⁷⁹I do it deliberately. Why did you do the opposite of what I am doing?. I, who was reclining, stood up and you, who were standing, went on to recline. He answered him: You stood up following the school of Shammai, I reclined following the school of Hillel. Another explanation: That the students should not see me and make it the permanent practice to follow the school of Shammai.¹⁸⁰Both explanations are necessary. R. Ismael did recline, not because it was required by the school of Hillel, but to spite the followers of the school of Shammai. He had to do this, even though the school of Hillel would have allowed him to continue standing, to give an example to the students. This shows that in all cases where there is a disagreement over practice, the actions of the leading Torah scholars count more than all theoretical arguments.