QUESTION

While davening on military duty, I was called away to deal with a security situation in the middle of tefillah. I finished Shema while putting away my tefillin. About an hour and a half later I became available to finish my tefillah.

Where should I resume?

1. The beginning of Birkhot Kriyat Shema
2. The beginning of Shema
3. Emet v’Yatziv
4. The Amidah

What is the guidance for future situations like this?

ANSWER

This is a direct application of the law of mafsik mipnei ha-yirah (interrupting out of fear/danger), codified in Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim 66:1, which permits such an interruption even b’emtza ha-perek (in the middle of a passage). When you resume, you pick up from exactly where you left off — even after a long interruption.

See Mishnah Berurah 66:26. While the case discussed there is different from yours — it deals with a chazzan interrupting to ask for a name during Mi SheBerakh, not a security-driven interruption during Shema — but it establishes the principle that governs your case: an interruption, even a long one, does not require restarting the passage.

ונראה דאם באמצע מי שבירך שכח החזן שמו ושואלו לכו״ע מותר להשיבו מפני הכבוד, וכשחוזר אח״כ לק״ש אין צריך לחזור רק למקום שפסק, אפילו היה פרשה ארוכה ושהה עי״ז כדי לגמור כולה.

It appears that if, in the middle of Mi SheBerakh, the chazzan forgets someone’s name and asks for it, everyone agrees it is permitted to respond out of respect. And when one returns afterward to Kriyat Shema, one need not go back further than the place where one stopped — even if it was a long passage, and even if the delay lasted long enough to have finished the entire passage in that time.