{"id":185,"date":"2021-10-18T20:30:45","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T20:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deadmannotwalking.org\/?p=185"},"modified":"2021-10-18T20:30:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T20:30:53","slug":"hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deadmannotwalking.org\/?p=185","title":{"rendered":"Hear!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cHear, O Israel!  The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”  (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, NASB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This text from the book of Deuteronomy is the beginning of the “Shema.”  It’s recited by Jewish people at the beginning of morning and evening prayers.  According to myjewishlearning.com<\/a>, the Shema is “the quintessential Jewish statement of faith.”  It expresses the oneness of God, and reverence for His kingship.  The passage above is the first paragraph of the Shema.  The remaining two paragraphs are from Deuteronomy 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41.
The title “Shema” comes from the first word, which translates as “hear.”  The idea is more than just hearing, it’s hearing and then doing!  It’s about the follow-through.  Over the years, Sue would tell me something, then later tell me that I wasn’t listening.  It has taken me years to understand that she really meant “you didn’t do” what she said!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the phonetic Hebrew of the first two sentences:  “She-ma yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.”  Hear, O Israel!  The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! (v. 4)  The next verse is the emphasis on loving God, what Jesus called the greatest commandment!  For the remainder of this text Moses is teaching God’s people to teach these words to their children; to talk about them all the time, when they wake up and go to bed; to wear them on their wrist and forehead (many Jewish people wear philactories, little boxes with these verses, strapped to their arm and forehead when they pray); and to put them on their door post (many Jewish people have mezuzahs at their front doors).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mezuzah affixed to a door frame on South Street in Philadelphia,\u00a0found at Wikipedia.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I try to recite the first couple of verses of the Shema in the morning for my prayers, and then I personalize it:\u00a0 “She-ma yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.\u00a0 O Lord, You are my God!\u00a0 I will love You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my might!”\u00a0 When I pray the Shema, it helps me to remember what Jesus taught us:\u00a0 To love God, and love other people!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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