From: office@etzion.org.il
To: Yhe-intparsha@vbm-torah.org
Subject: Parashat Va-Etchanan: THE SHEMA

YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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PARASHAT VA-ETCHANAN

The Framework of the Shema
By Rav Michael Hattin

Introduction

This week's Torah portion of Parashat Va-etchanan
continues some of the themes of Sefer Devarim that we
explored last week. The parasha begins with Moshe's
recollection of having pleaded with God - in the aftermath
of the successful wars that he waged against the Amorite
kings east of the Jordan - to enter the land. God's decree,
however, remained immutable, and Moshe's plea, juxtaposed
against God's stark refusal, provides the people with a
powerful lesson in appreciating the special privilege and
opportunity inherent in His gift of the land.

Moshe then goes on to encourage the people to adhere to
God's laws in order to maintain their hold over the land,
and spells out in ignominious detail the consequences of non-
compliance, culminating in the dire threat of exile. Again
and again, Moshe warns the people that their election to
become God's own, carries with it awesome responsibility.
The unrivalled experience of the Revelation at Sinai was not
a gratuitous expression of Divine grace, but rather an
irresistible invitation to Bnei Yisrael to serve God, to
teach humanity, and to become sanctified.

As Moshe shifts the focus of his address to the review
and to the explanation of the laws and ordinances, he begins
with a recollection of the Sinaitic experience, and a
restatement of the Ten Utterances. The people's sensation
of awe at God's majestic manifestation had never dissipated,
and Moshe skillfully weaves the reminiscence of the
encounter into his comprehensive message:

"These are the commandments, ordinances and laws that
God your Lord has commanded that I teach you, in order
to perform them in the land that you will cross the
river to inherit. It is in order that you might revere
God your Lord, to observe all of His ordinances and
commandments that I command you, you as well as your
children and grandchildren all the days of your life,
so that you will have length of days. Hear Israel and
be careful to fulfill, in order that you might
experience goodness and great increase, just as God the
Lord of your ancestors spoke to you concerning the land
flowing with milk and honey" (Devarim 6:1-3).

The Short Section of the 'Shema'

What follows is a deceptively short and seemingly
straightforward section that has become the 'mission
statement' of the Jewish people:

"Hear Israel, God is our Lord. God is one. You shall
love God your Lord with all of your heart, and with all
of your soul, and with all of your might. These things
that I command you this day shall be upon your heart.
You shall teach them to your children and speak of
them, when you dwell in your home, when you travel upon
the way, when you lie down to sleep and when you arise.
You shall tie them as a sign upon your hand and place
them between your eyes. You shall write them upon the
door posts of your home and upon your gates" (Devarim
6:4-9).

This paragraph, known as the 'Shema' because of its
opening words ('Shema Yisrael.'), is regarded in Jewish
tradition as an eloquent encapsulation of the Torah's most
profound and fundamental axioms. It constitutes the most
perpetual of the Jew's daily devotional recitations, and the
primary elements of the morning and evening prayers have
been structured around it. Thus, not a day goes by when it
is not uttered at least twice. It is a prayer as well as a
declaration, containing the first verses taught to an infant
and the final words proclaimed as life ebbs away and the
soul departs. In the popular imagination (and
misconception) the Shema has been associated with the final
defiant declaration of martyrs, but its message is primarily
about life and living.

The Theme of Constancy as Expressed in the Shema's
Observances

Examining its motifs more closely, a dominant theme
emerges. God's oneness is tempered by the command to love
Him, but these elemental ideas only constitute the first two
verses of the Shema. What follows are four verses that
together stress a single idea: constancy. Thus, we are
enjoined to place 'these things' upon our hearts, to
repeatedly teach them to our children, to speak of them
always, to 'tie' them upon our hands and between our eyes,
and to inscribe them upon our door posts.

Teaching One's Children

Significantly, tradition discerns at least four
separate ritual activities that are associated with these
verses. (1) "You shall repeat them to your children" refers
to the obligation to instruct one's children in the laws and
observances of the Torah. Remarkably, however, the Hebrew
word used here for 'teach,' 'veShiNaNtam,' comes from a root
associated with repetition. By extension, it is
occasionally used as a verb to describe the act of
sharpening or whetting a blade. In other words, the type of
instruction of which this command speaks cannot be
accomplished in a single lesson (inspiring though it may be
and then promptly forgotten), for the pedagogical goal of
the 'Shema' is to foster the discipline of constant
awareness and unceasing attentiveness. For its message to
be driven home, its tenets must be taught, repeated, and
stated again. Living teachings, those that are intended to
guide our lives, must be learned and learned well, but then
must be memorized and retained so that they become part and
parcel of our very fiber.

Self-instruction and the Recitation of the Shema

(2) " Speak of them when you dwell in your home, when you
travel upon the way, when you lie down to sleep and when you
arise." This phrase contains an amplification of the
command concerning instruction considered above. This time,
however, the teaching is to be directed primarily towards
the self, and must also be all encompassing. There is no
forum in which the words of the Torah are to be considered
out of place. They are to be learned at home and abroad,
before one retires for the night and immediately when one
arises. This is of course an emphatic way of stating
'ALWAYS.' A similar formulation occurs in the Book of
Yehoshua, when God instructs Yehoshua to remain cognizant of
the Torah's teachings at all times:

"Be but strong and very courageous to carefully fulfill
all of the teaching that Moshe My servant commanded
you. Turn neither to the right nor to the left, in
order that you will be successful in all of your
endeavors. This Book of the Torah shall not depart
from your mouth, for you shall meditate upon it day and
night, in order that you shall be careful to fulfill
all that is written in it, for only then shall you be
successful in your efforts" (Yehoshua/Joshua 1:7-8).

At the same time, the expression "when you lie down to sleep
and when you arise" was understood to indicate a specific
obligation to recite the words of the 'Shema' twice daily,
at nightfall and at daybreak. There is much discussion in
the early sources concerning the various elements and
details of this command, but the basic requirement is
straightforward enough: recite the words of this section
twice a day, everyday. Recite them once in the morning, and
repeat them again at night. Let not a single day of your
life go by without stating them. Again, the ability to
successfully integrate the content of the instruction is
made a function of its mode of transmission. How the
teaching is communicated is, in this case, as important as
the teaching itself.

The Ritual of the 'Tefillin'

(3) "You shall tie them as a sign upon your hand and place
them between your eyes" is a somewhat obscure verse that the
Oral Tradition asserts refers to the command concerning the
donning of Tefillin. The Tefillin consist of two small
almost identical leather boxes containing a selection of
Scriptural sections, including the Shema. One of these
boxes is tied upon the arm, and the other is fastened on the
head and centered. They are typically worn during the
weekday morning service, but can be worn any time of the
day. The Torah refers to them on four separate occasions:
Shemot 13:9 and 1316 where they are introduced as
commemorations of the Exodus, and Devarim 6:8 and 11:18
where they are presented as constant reminders. Of course,
the connection between these two groupings is obvious
enough, for the Torah instructs us to remember the Exodus
always.

Often, however, the above-quoted phrase was
misinterpreted as expressing nothing more than a poignant
metaphor. Such was the position of the Karaites, a sect
founded in the 8th century that won many adherents during
the following few hundred years, and whose creed was the
rejection of 'Rabbinic' interpretations of the Biblical
text. They explained these words, as well as the succeeding
injunction concerning the doorposts, to refer to a non-
specific command to be always aware of the words of the
Torah. Based upon similar linguistic usages from the Book
of Mishle/Proverbs that speak of 'wearing' words of
instruction as a beautiful ornament around the head and neck
(1:9), or 'tying' them around the neck and heart or
'engraving' them upon the heart (3:3, 6:21), the Karaites
understood that the Torah here enjoins us to never forget
the message of the Shema, AS IF they were tied upon our
hands, placed between our eyes, or written upon our
doorposts.

Now, it is the case that the Rashbam (12th century,
France) explains in his commentary on Sefer Shemot (12:9)
that the deep INTENT of this commandment is to indeed foster
the sentiments of which the Karaites spoke. In glaring
contrast to their rejection of the Oral Tradition, however,
he maintains that the means of achieving that intent is
through the fulfillment of the observance of the Tefillin.
Significantly though, a more comfortable agreement between
this all-embracing intent and the seemingly more limited
ritual observance existed during the times of the Mishna and
Talmud, when the Tefillin were often worn all day long. In
fact, even today, there are pious individuals who fill their
days with study, teaching, and prayer, and don the Tefillin
constantly.

The ritual command of the Tefillin can therefore be
understood as an integral part of this same rubric of
constancy suggested by the Shema's larger framework. The
Tefillin are worn as part of our daily attire and impress
upon us the Shema's profound truth in tangible and
substantial form.

The Observance of the 'Mezuza'

(4) "You shall write them upon the door posts ('mezuzot') of
your home and upon your gates" is the final injunction of
the section. It is understood as a command to inscribe the
words of the Shema as well as of another similar section
('VeHaya im shamoa' - Devarim 11:13-21) upon a small piece
of parchment, which is then rolled up and secured to the
doorpost. Here, it is the home of the Jew that is provided
with a constant reminder of God's teaching. According to
traditional interpretation, almost all of the rooms of one's
dwelling must be provided with a 'mezuza,' excepting
bathrooms and other similar areas. The mezuza is fastened
at approximately eye-height and is therefore an unavoidable
visual cue when one enters or leaves a room. It is as if
all of our home activities are lived in the presence of the
Shema's instruction, as if no part of our private lives can
be lived detached from its overarching message, as if entry,
exit and dwelling can become Godly pursuits.

We have seen that the underlying theme of the Shema is
the perpetual and ceaseless recognition of the Torah's
instruction and teaching. This has found expression in
requirements to learn, to teach, to wear a tangible reminder
upon one's body, and to mark our homes with its message.
There remain, of course, the two preliminary principles that
introduce the Shema: God's Oneness and the command to love
Him.

God's Oneness and the Command to Love

The Oneness of God is Judaism's greatest innovation and
the foundation upon which all else depends. No idea of an
Absolute Creator is possible in its absence. No concept of
Divine incorporeality can exist without oneness, for perfect
oneness is indivisible but all material bodies are composed
of parts. God cannot be Absolute and Transcendent if He has
material form, for all matter has limits of dimension, and
all things concrete exist in time. The notion of a Perfect
Being, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent, Eternal and
Everlasting, necessarily depends upon an acknowledgement of
God's utter immateriality and ineffable oneness, as does the
corollary of an absolute moral code. Oneness is at once the
Torah's most profound as well as its most inaccessible and
unfathomable concept concerning God.

The commandment to love Him with all of one's heart,
soul and might seems, at first glance, equally unachievable.
How are we to approach, let alone revere and love, a God so
supreme and remote from our material and mortal lives? What
common language do we share with a Being that embraces and
transcends not only our individual or collective lives, not
only this planet or the solar system, not only our
constellation or the galaxy, but the very Universe itself?

The Way to Find God

The Shema seems to raise uncomfortable questions that
we are incapable of ever truly resolving. To only meditate
at length on its profound and utterly abstract concepts is
to live a life of frustration, for material beings can
scarcely begin to conceive of utter immateriality, and
mortal man can never truly fathom eternity. It is for this
reason that these two related concepts of Oneness and love
introduce the following verses that emphasize constant and
concrete activities. There is a way to begin to comprehend
the mystery of God's grandeur and to experience His ethereal
but real presence, and it is through the recognition of our
material lives - our children, our minds, our bodies, our
homes.

God's Oneness and the command to love are indeed
profound ideas, and we are obligated to utilize our
analytical faculties and intelligence to ponder them and to
attempt to comprehend them. Superficial pronouncements of
doctrine and shallow rote declarations are anathema to the
Torah's oft-repeated injunction to study and to learn. At
the same time, though, we must not be detached from the
material realities that bind us to worldly concerns and hold
most of our attention.

The injunctions of learning, teaching, Tefillin and
mezuza provide a short list of man's most material concerns
and most time-consuming pursuits. We spend countless hours
with our children, with our thoughts, with the care of
ourselves and with our homes. Constantly infuse those things
with an awareness of God, unceasingly impress them with a
sensitivity to His presence, never let the life experiences
that they encompass be devoid of His teaching, and then the
Ineffable will no longer seem so unapproachable, and the
Absolute will suddenly be near.

"These things that I command you this day shall be upon
your heart" - The Sifre (Chapter 33) explains: 'this
verse enjoins upon us to love God, but how shall I love
the Omnipresent? The section therefore continues:
"These things that I command you this day shall be upon
your heart," to suggest that by learning Torah and
fulfilling its commands one comes to recognize the One
Who by His word brought the Universe into being.'

Shabbat Shalom

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