The Watchword of Our Faith: The Meaning of the Shema

Shema Yisrael adonai eloyanu adonai echad, “Hear Oh Israel, the Eternal is Our God, The Eternal God is one.” These words, taken from Deuteronomy Chapter Six, are part of this week’s Torah portion. As we say at every service, this is the eternal watchword of our faith. It expresses, succinctly and eloquently, the Jewish belief in one God. Its brevity makes it familiar to almost every Jew. For those murdered in Nazi Concentration camps, the shema was often the last words that left their lips. For many who are ill and close to death, saying the shema brings comfort and closure. What is it about these words that make them so powerful? Why is it the watchword of our faith? To answer these questions, we will look closely at two key words: shema and echad; hear and one. Behind each of these words is an array of insights and ideas.

 

Shema, Hear; The first word of the prayer is hear. It’s almost as if it is a way of grabbing our attention: Listen, Hear, O Israel; We’re about to say something very important. You better listen up. We’re about to proclaim our belief in one God. This is one way of understanding the word shema. It is a kind of wake-up call, a prelude to the main event of proclaiming God’s oneness. While possible, I think the word shema has a much greater role. In Hebrew, words often have multiple meanings. Hebrew began as an oral and not a written language. The vocabulary was small relative to modern languages, and words had different meanings depending on context. Last week I discussed the multiple meanings of the Hebrew word tzedek, which we translate as justice, but also implies righteousness, compassion, and empathy. The word shema is similar. It means hear, but it means so much more.

 

Among its other meanings is “understand.” The word shema is used in this way in other parts of the Bible. For example, in the story of the Tower of Babel, God confuses the languages of the all the various peoples. God does so that they can not tishmayu, understand, one another. Tishmayu is a form (third person plural) of the word shema. If we accept this reading, then the prayer means something like: Understand this, Oh Israel; Adonai, the Eternal is our God, Adonai Echad, God is one. The shema is a call to understand the meaning of what we are about say. It is a call to know what we are saying when we proclaim; Adonai Eloyanu Adonai echad. Now will discuss what this phrase means in a moment, but there are a couple of other interesting connotation for the word shema.

 

It can also mean to internalize, to take into one’s heart. You might remember the story of Ishmael in the book of Genesis. Sarah is not able to conceive, and so Abraham has a child with Sarah’s servant Hagar. The child is called Ishmael. Soon thereafter, Sarah becomes pregnant with Isaac, and upon his birth, Ishmael is banished. Ishmael and his mother plead to God, and we learn in verses. 17:20 that God tells Ishmael that God has “shemayti” heard his plea. Shemayti is the first person past form of the word shema. God has taken Ishmael’s plea into his heart. It has registered with God, and God appreciates and will respond to it.

 

Finally, Shema can mean “obey” or “respond in action.” In Genesis 16:2, we read that vayishma Avraham, and Abraham did, what Sarah said. Vayishmah, meaning “and he responded” to Sarah’s words is also derived from word shema.

 

Thus, shema can mean to hear, to understand, to internalize, and to respond. Let’s think about these words closely. They form a logical sequence of learning. First, we hear something. Then we seek to understand it. If we do so, we internalize it. And if it matters to us, we will act on it. The Hebrew language captures this entire sequence of events in one word—shema!

 

Now what is that the shema prayer calls on us to hear, understand, internalize, and act on? It is the belief that Adonai Eloyanu, Adonai Echad, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal God is one. What does this mean? What does it mean to believe in one eternal God? It is a rejection of a view of a tribal world. In the ancient Near East, where the Jewish people arose, each nation had their own particular God. Ba-al was a Ugaritic God. El was a Canaanite God. When these nations fought, their gods fought as well. The earth was the battle ground of the gods. This was true in ancient Greece as well. Just think about the ways the conflicts between gods like Zeus, Aphrodite—their jealousies, their lusts-- reverberate on earth.  Take Euripides' tragedy ''Heracles'' (of about 416 B.C.) Heracles is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman. He is a fine hero who has cleared the earth of monsters and villains and has made it a fitter place for humans to worship the gods. Yet Hera, Zeus’s wife, purely out of jealousy of her husband's infidelity, drives Heracles mad and makes him kill his beloved wife and children. Greek myth, as Professor Mary Lefkowitz writes, ''shows a world full of evil forces, unpredictable change, difficult conditions, and inevitable death and defeat.”

With their belief in one God, our ancestors imagined a different world. The earth is not the playing ground of jealous and fickle gods. It is the creation of one God, who gives human beings free will and imbues us with the power to becharta b’chayim, choose life. The actions of God are not arbitrary. God does not human beings as puppets to resolve disputes. Rather, God created the universe with a moral law. We are free to choose whether to obey that law—and many people do not--but it is inherent in the world itself. What we do matters. Thus, to say God is one is to say that the humanity is not, in Shakespeare’s wonderful phrase, “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Rather, we are divine creatures who can create, adapt and serve as God’s partners in sustaining the world.

In addition, if we did not believe in one God, we could not say that human beings are created b’tselem eloyim, in the image of God. To say that we are created in the image of God is to say that a spark of the divine in each of us. It brings a measure of equality to humanity. A person cannot say—I am greater than you, because my god is greater than your god. Tragically, this sentiment continues to exert a powerful force in the world today. There are people who believe that their God is almighty, and the gods worshipped by others are inferior. A belief in one God nullifies that type of thinking. Every human being is a creature of the same God. Now you might be wondering whether this belief is itself rather imperialist, even dangerous. Several years ago Time Magazine called monotheism one of the world’s most dangerous ideas. Who are we to say that every person in the world is created by one God? What about people—such as Hindus—who believe in multiple gods? Are we denying their beliefs? Well, on a theological level, yes we are. We do believe that there is only one God in heaven earth. As our prayer book says, we pray for “one God over all, [and] one human family of all.” Yet, on a practical level, we are not. Judaism has never argued that there is only way to worship that God. We have never held that there is only one path to salvation. There is one God, but there are also multiple paths to that God. Judaism, necessitated perhaps by always being a minority religion, maintained that it is not what one believes, but how one acts, that leads to salvation and is the highest testimony of one’s faith. 

You might be thinking to yourself—all this theological stuff is interesting. Probably even more interesting to a rabbi. But what does it all mean to me as a person. How does believing in one God shape and change my life? I think it brings a sense of order and purpose to the universe and the lives we live. Religion is, ultimately, a way of looking at the world. It is a way by which each of us perceives and understands the events of our lives. In his book, Rabbi Sam Karff tells of visiting two sets of new parents in the hospital. The mother in the first set of parents held her baby and said “Who do you think he looks like?” The father then joked, “Shall we start saving for college? This is it for us, Rabbi, we can’t afford more.” Rabbi Karff then walked into other room and found a mother holding her newborn daughter. Her eyes welled up with years. “What a miracle, Rabbi.” Of course, these words are perfect segue into that prayer they recited together “Blessed are you, Oh God, Ruler of the universe, who has kept us in life, sustained us, and enabled us to experience this moment.” The entry of a child into the world can be seen as a natural outcome of a physical activity at the right time. But it can also be viewed as one of God’s wondrous gifts. They are not, of course, mutually exclusive. Judaism never asks to turn off our minds. Rather, it offers us a compelling world view.

 

That worldview is expressed eloquently and succinctly in the Shema.  We believe that we are part of one human family. We believe that we are part of one interdependent world. We believe that we are bound by universal moral principles. Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere. Hatred anywhere threatens humanity everywhere. Kindness anywhere builds peace everywhere. The Shema is a call to hear, understand, internalize, and act on these beliefs. Just as one God created us all, so one world binds us all together.  Perhaps Edmond Fleg expressed it best in his famous poem, I Am a Jew. In its concluding verses, he said “I am a Jew because Israel places humanity and its unity above the nations and above Israel itself. I am a Jew because, above humanity, image of the divine unity, Israel places the unity which is divine.”