A student in Kitah Zayin chose to do an independent Torah study. We were learning about the Ma'ariv service in class. In our discussion of the Shema, we learned that the second line is not found in the Torah. This student wanted to know why, despite it not being in the Torah, we include this line in our daily prayers. In her study, she learned that the second line is a Talmudic commentary on the first. Therefore, it is not something that Moses recorded in the Torah. She explained to her classmates that it is not appropriate for us (even for respected rabbis and scholars) to say our opinion of the passage as loudly as the original, in order to avoid "editing" the Torah. This led to a class discussion about the ethics of primary and secondary document study in Judaism.
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