Layers of Meaning in the Shema
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ShareThis sheet is part of a series exploring each prayer in the section of the service known as the Shema and its Blessings. Some of the bracketed language indicates simplification for younger students.
שְׁמַע יִשרָאֵל יהוה אֱלהֵינוּ יהוה אֶחָד:
בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוד מַלְכוּתו לְעולָם וָעֶד:
Hear O Israel! YHVH is our God, YHVH is One.
Blessed is God's name whose glorious majesty is forever and ever.
Arthur Green, Judaism's Ten Best Ideas (pg. 60)
This line is addressed to the community: “Hear O Israel”—Listen, Jews!—“Y-H-W-H is our God; Y-H-W-H is one!” How are we to understand Judaism’s great proclamation of our monotheistic faith? Let us begin by asking a functional question, the most important question regarding human behavior. What difference does monotheism make? One god, ten gods, a thousand—so what? We Jews seem to put so much store in the fact that we believe in one rather than many gods. Why? What is the payoff of the great monotheistic revolution? The only value of monotheism is to make you realize that all beings, every creature—and that means the rock and the blade of grass as well as your pet lizard and your annoying neighbor next door—are all one in origin. You come from the same place. You were created in the same great act of love, God bestowing God’s own grace on every creature that would ever come to be. Therefore—and this is the key line, the only one that really counts—treat them that way!
This line is addressed to the community: “Hear O Israel”—Listen, Jews!—“Y-H-W-H is our God; Y-H-W-H is one!” How are we to understand Judaism’s great proclamation of our monotheistic faith? Let us begin by asking a functional question, the most important question regarding human behavior. What difference does monotheism make? One god, ten gods, a thousand—so what? We Jews seem to put so much store in the fact that we believe in one rather than many gods. Why? What is the payoff of the great monotheistic revolution? The only value of monotheism is to make you realize that all beings, every creature—and that means the rock and the blade of grass as well as your pet lizard and your annoying neighbor next door—are all one in origin. You come from the same place. You were created in the same great act of love, God bestowing God’s own grace on every creature that would ever come to be. Therefore—and this is the key line, the only one that really counts—treat them that way!
(ד) שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יהוה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יהוה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃ (ה) וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת יהוה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ֥ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶֽךָ׃ (ו) וְהָי֞וּ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָנֹכִ֧י מְצַוְּךָ֛ הַיּ֖וֹם עַל־לְבָבֶֽךָ׃ (ז) וְשִׁנַּנְתָּ֣ם לְבָנֶ֔יךָ וְדִבַּרְתָּ֖ בָּ֑ם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ֤ בְּבֵיתֶ֙ךָ֙ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ וּֽבְשָׁכְבְּךָ֖ וּבְקוּמֶֽךָ׃
(4) Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. (5) You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (6) Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. (7) Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.
The Sh'ma and Its Blessings, My People's Prayer Book, by Joel Hoffman (pg. 91)
...we do not know fully what "name" [meant in ancient times]. It surely meant more than it does today. A change in name was a change in essence, for example (as with Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah), so declaring God's name to be blessed was tantamount to acknowledging God's very being.
...we do not know fully what "name" [meant in ancient times]. It surely meant more than it does today. A change in name was a change in essence, for example (as with Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah), so declaring God's name to be blessed was tantamount to acknowledging God's very being.
Arthur Green, Judaism's Ten Best Ideas (pg. 60)
...How do we render that mysterious name Y-H-W-H, once badly reproduced in English as “Jehovah”? The mystical tradition within Judaism insists on translating God’s name as “Being.” Really it’s not a name at all, not even fully a noun. Y-H-W-H is an impossible conflation of all the tenses of the verb “to be” in Hebrew. HYH means “was” in Hebrew; HWH indicates the present, “is;” YHYH would mean “will be.” Put them all together and you get the implausible, and therefore mysterious, verb form Y-H-W-H. It probably would best be translated as “Was–Is–Will Be.” But since that’s a little awkward to say each time, “Being” will have to do, a “Being” that embraces all of time and space as one, then reaches beyond them into impenetrable mystery. The meaning here is profound. “God” and existence are not separable from one another. God is not some entity over there who created a separate, distinct entity called “world” over here. There are not two; there is only one.
...How do we render that mysterious name Y-H-W-H, once badly reproduced in English as “Jehovah”? The mystical tradition within Judaism insists on translating God’s name as “Being.” Really it’s not a name at all, not even fully a noun. Y-H-W-H is an impossible conflation of all the tenses of the verb “to be” in Hebrew. HYH means “was” in Hebrew; HWH indicates the present, “is;” YHYH would mean “will be.” Put them all together and you get the implausible, and therefore mysterious, verb form Y-H-W-H. It probably would best be translated as “Was–Is–Will Be.” But since that’s a little awkward to say each time, “Being” will have to do, a “Being” that embraces all of time and space as one, then reaches beyond them into impenetrable mystery. The meaning here is profound. “God” and existence are not separable from one another. God is not some entity over there who created a separate, distinct entity called “world” over here. There are not two; there is only one.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Va'etchanan 5770
G-d, the sole object of worship, is invisible. God transcends nature. God created the universe and is therefore beyond the universe. God cannot be seen. God reveals Godself only in speech. Therefore the supreme religious act in Judaism is to listen. Ancient Greece was a culture of the eye; ancient Israel a culture of the ear. The Greeks worshipped what they saw; Israel worshipped what they heard. (https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5770-vaetchanan-the-meanings-of-shema/)
G-d, the sole object of worship, is invisible. God transcends nature. God created the universe and is therefore beyond the universe. God cannot be seen. God reveals Godself only in speech. Therefore the supreme religious act in Judaism is to listen. Ancient Greece was a culture of the eye; ancient Israel a culture of the ear. The Greeks worshipped what they saw; Israel worshipped what they heard. (https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5770-vaetchanan-the-meanings-of-shema/)
Rabbi Jonathan SacksIn the course of a discussion about the origin of the afternoon prayer, the Talmud refers to Isaac who ‘went out to meditate in the field toward evening’ and concludes that ‘meditate’ must mean ‘to pray.’ However, the Talmudic statement, ‘ein sichah ela tefillah,’ can also mean ‘conversation is a form of prayer.’ That is a startling and powerful idea. A genuine encounter with a human other can be a prelude to an encounter with the Divine Other. The disciplines required are the same: to be open, to listen as well as speak, to be capable of empathy and humility, to honour the other by an act of focused attention. Nor is this a minor matter. The greatest command of all, Shema Yisrael, literally means “Listen, O Israel.”
Susan Einbeinder, My People's Prayer Book (Vol. 1, pg. 90)
...unity...[emerges] from the multitude of voices that compose a human community - men, women and children; rich and poor; learned and unlearned; communal leaders and marginal characters; those who fight valiantly, those whose defiance is passive, and even those who try to run away. All of this human variety is "unified" itself in the moment it meets its God.
...unity...[emerges] from the multitude of voices that compose a human community - men, women and children; rich and poor; learned and unlearned; communal leaders and marginal characters; those who fight valiantly, those whose defiance is passive, and even those who try to run away. All of this human variety is "unified" itself in the moment it meets its God.
Lawrence Hoffman, My People's Prayer Book (vol. 1, pgs. 91-92)
Reform congregations say "Hear O Israel..." and "Blessed is..." standing. [Jewish law] prescribes sitting not standing for the Sh'ma...Reform Jews, however, say the Sh'ma as central to their claim that Judaism's uniqueness lay in its discovery of ethical monotheism. Wanting to acknowledge the centrality of the Sh'ma, and recognizing that people generally stand for the prayers that matter most, they began standing for the Sh'ma despite [Jewish law].
Reform congregations say "Hear O Israel..." and "Blessed is..." standing. [Jewish law] prescribes sitting not standing for the Sh'ma...Reform Jews, however, say the Sh'ma as central to their claim that Judaism's uniqueness lay in its discovery of ethical monotheism. Wanting to acknowledge the centrality of the Sh'ma, and recognizing that people generally stand for the prayers that matter most, they began standing for the Sh'ma despite [Jewish law].
Lawrence Kushner and Nehemia Polen, My People's Prayer Book, (Vol. 1, pgs. 87, 93-94)Adonai Echad [wrote] that nothing exists but God...God is not only the basis of reality, God is the only reality; God is all there is. Creation is continuously brought into being through the divine word. If our eyes truly see reality we would see no material world at all, but instead, behold God's continuous utterance of the Hebrew letters, the real matrix of all being.
Lawrence Kushner and Nehemia Polen, My People's Prayer Book, (Vol. 1, pgs. 87, 93-94)
...there is no existence whatsoever apart from God's existence; the whole Creation is nullified within God as the rays of the sun within the orb of the sun...The question is how do we bring the awareness of that higher unity into the everyday reality of this world? That is the challenge of sacred living: to realize more unity...The Baruckh shem which is not in the biblical text itself, but was added by the rabbis as a congregational response...is our attempt to bring back into this world the supernal unity spoken of in the first line.
...there is no existence whatsoever apart from God's existence; the whole Creation is nullified within God as the rays of the sun within the orb of the sun...The question is how do we bring the awareness of that higher unity into the everyday reality of this world? That is the challenge of sacred living: to realize more unity...The Baruckh shem which is not in the biblical text itself, but was added by the rabbis as a congregational response...is our attempt to bring back into this world the supernal unity spoken of in the first line.
Judith Plaskow, My People's Prayer Book, (Vol. 1, pg. 98)
There is another way to understand oneness, however, and that is as inclusiveness. In Marcia Falk's words, "The authentic expression of [belief in one God] is not a [single] image but an embracing unity of [many] images."...God is all in all. This is the God who "forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace and creates everything," because there can be no power other than or in opposition to God who could possibly be responsible for evil. This is the God who is male and female, both and neither, because there is no genderedness outside of God that is not made in God's image. [Belief in one God] is about the [ability] to glimpse the One in and through the changing forms of the many, to see the whole in and through its infinite images. "Hear O Israel": despite the fractured, scattered, and conflicted nature of our experience, there is a unity that embraces and contains our diversity and that connects all things to each other.
There is another way to understand oneness, however, and that is as inclusiveness. In Marcia Falk's words, "The authentic expression of [belief in one God] is not a [single] image but an embracing unity of [many] images."...God is all in all. This is the God who "forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace and creates everything," because there can be no power other than or in opposition to God who could possibly be responsible for evil. This is the God who is male and female, both and neither, because there is no genderedness outside of God that is not made in God's image. [Belief in one God] is about the [ability] to glimpse the One in and through the changing forms of the many, to see the whole in and through its infinite images. "Hear O Israel": despite the fractured, scattered, and conflicted nature of our experience, there is a unity that embraces and contains our diversity and that connects all things to each other.
Arthur Green, Judaism's Ten Best Ideas, (pg. 63)
Shema‘ Yisra’el, Y-H-W-H Elohenu, Y-H-W-H ehad! “Listen, all you who struggle, all you who wrestle with life’s meaning! Being is our God, Being is one!” Don’t look beyond the stars. There’s no need to stretch your neck. God is right here, filling all of existence with endless bounty. Look around you. Look within. Open your eyes. Find God’s presence in each and every creature and in the unified, transforming vision of all that is. That’s what it means to belong to Israel, the people who struggle with God.
Shema‘ Yisra’el, Y-H-W-H Elohenu, Y-H-W-H ehad! “Listen, all you who struggle, all you who wrestle with life’s meaning! Being is our God, Being is one!” Don’t look beyond the stars. There’s no need to stretch your neck. God is right here, filling all of existence with endless bounty. Look around you. Look within. Open your eyes. Find God’s presence in each and every creature and in the unified, transforming vision of all that is. That’s what it means to belong to Israel, the people who struggle with God.