Parashat Va-Etchannan (3rd
portion in triennial cycle)
D=varim
5:1 - 7:11
(Plaut 1354-78; Etz Hayim 1015-31; Hertz
765-76)
David B. Brooks
Prepared for Or ha-Neshamah
(Ottawa, Canada: 24 July 2010)
Parashat Va-Etchannan is
described in the Chumash, Etz Hayim, as Aincomparably rich@ (1005). Even the portion that we read in triennial
cycle includes Moses= repetition of the Ten
Commandments, the concept of a chosen people, some verses that are said every
day in the morning and evening service, and that most important of all Jewish
prayers, the Sh'ma (Dv 6:4). Why do I
say it is the most important? For one
reason, the Talmud opens by discussing when to say the Sh'ma. It is also the
last prayer one says before falling asleep. The Sh=ma is the only prayer for
which total concentration is required, hence the practice of covering our eyes
during its recitation. Further B may it never apply to any
of us B the Sh=ma is the prayer that
martyrs say before they die. Rabbi Plaut
calls it the Awatchword@ of our faith (1369), and
says the words Aenshrine Judaism=s greatest contribution to
the religious thought of mankind (920).
There is of course an
enormous body of commentary on the six apparently simple Hebrew words that
appear in Chapter 6, verse 4 of Devarim (Deuteronomy):
$(! %&%* &1*%-! %&%* -!9:* 3/:
translated by both the
Plaut (Reform) and Etz Hayim (Conservative) Chumash as, Hear, O
Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord Alone. I say Asix words@ in the prayer, but the
great bulk of commentary is on the last four words, AAdenoy Elohainu Adenoy
Echad,@ and it is on those four
that the remainder of my d=var will focus.[1]
Despite my wording to now,
and despite the statement in Etz Hayim (1024) that the Sh=ma is Athe quintessential Jewish
prayer,@ it is not really a prayer
at all. Prayers are addressed to God;
the Sh=ma is addressed to other
Jews. Moreover, the Sh=ma serves none of the three
functions of prayer; it is not praise of God, not thanks to God, not a plea for
something from God. Rather, it is an
affirmation of Jewish faith. I emphasize
AJewish@ because it is not, or at
least not only, a generalized affirmation of monotheism. The principle of monotheism has already been
firmly stated in Dv. 4:35 (see also 4:39): AIt has been clearly
demonstrated to you that the Lord alone is God; there is none beside Him.@ To quote Rabbi Plaut (1366), AIn this translation of the Shema
two affirmations are made: one, that the Divinity is Israel=s God, and two, that it is
He alone and no one else.
(A digression: As a member
of two egalitarian congregations, I try to avoid gendered language when talking
about God. However, as a researcher, I
cannot bring myself to alter quotations, and most of them use masculine
pronouns when referring to God.)
Getting back to the
subject, if Plaut says that the Sh=ma contains two
affirmations, Etz Hayim ups the ante by one; it finds three affirmations
in the wording (1025): God is not none; God is not two; and God is not
many!
Evidently, the meaning of
the Sh=ma is less obvious that
most of us have seen. As Etz Hayim
admits, AFor all of its familiarity,
the precise meaning of the Sh=ma is uncertain.@ Plaut offers four
translations that are grammatically possible for a phrase that has no verb or
punctuation (1369). What a strange
situation for words that may be said in any language precisely because Ait is crucial that the
worshiper understand what he or she is affirming@ (Etz Hayim, 1024).
Knowing all that, nearly 25
years ago Eugene Borowitz, the dean of Reform rabbis, published Echad: the Many Meanings of God is One (Port Washington, NY: Sh'ma, Inc., 1988). The book has 25 chapters
by his colleagues, each offering one perspective on the meaning of God is
One. Rabbi Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People,
provides a good place to begin: How, he asks, can we even attribute
"oneness" to a God that is beyond description. In his phrase (45),
once we look deeply at Echad, we find ourselves in a Atheological 'double bind.@ If a physical attribute,
we are blasphemous; if a philosophical essence, we are impossibly vague.
I am not going to go
through 24 other commentaries on the Sh=ma. I will start with two that challenge the
translation, and then go on to excerpts from a few others that have a
distinctly modern flavour.
$ Harry
Orlinsky[2] says that the wording is faulty because the Hebrew
Bible was originally translated into Greek and Latin in a word-for-word manner
for fear of altering anything that was believed to be the word of God. He insists that, if the verse means "the
Lord is One," it begs to be asked, "One what?" Orlinsky goes on
to say that Hebrew priests were vigilant to guard against inroads by
polytheistic influences, especially as the Hebrew God not only excluded all
other gods but "had all the attributes associated elsewhere by other
peoples with the many gods they worshipped" (56) -- ie, gods of war, gods
of rain, gods of love etc. Thus, for Orlinsky, the correct translation is: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
$
David Sperling also challenges the translation
but from quite a different perspective.
He asks first why the Sh=ma is placed just before
the ve'ahavtah commandment to love God.
He also notes that, though Adonay Eloheinu works grammatically, Adonay
Echad does not; it requires at least the pronoun "hu." Therefore, he suggests that what we have is a
scribal error; we should not be reading the noun "one" but the verb
"love" -- not aleph-het-dalet but aleph-hay-bet. He emphasizes that, in the context of Devarim,
love is something that is commonly commanded between subject and master, minor
king and major, etc. Therefore, for
Sperling the correct translation should be: Adonay our God; Love Adonay. The ve'ahavtah then follows logically, and
the Sh'ma "becomes a command to every Israelite rather than a credo"
(85). (Chark: Sperling looks for diqduq rather than for
meaning. Jewish liturgy is neither organised nor presented that way. The Shem
Hamiforash (Yhvh) is an impossible verb, so Shma is an impossible verse, and so
wherever Yhvh occurs.)
Here are few other shorter
comments:
$
Marjorie Yudkin, in an essay entitled AThe Oneness that Allows for
Otherness@ emphasizes the links
between her feminism and our traditional masculine and hierarchical language,
as follows (100):
Feminism has enabled me to expand my concept of
God, by enriching my store of images for God.
Even as my faith has been challenged by the teachings of feminism, the
definition of God as One has grown to accommodate the challenges.
$
Michael Wyschogrod says that the essence of the
Sh=ma is that it commands Jews
to worship only this one God. Though
most pagan gods did not mind the worship of other gods so long as their own
needs were met, AThis is precisely what the
God of Israel will not tolerate.@ (97) (Chark: Wyschogrod
is not entirely correct: The sedra clearly says "When you look above and
see the sun, the moon, the stars, do not prostrate before them -- this is for
the other nations, it is their portion, but you are Mine...")
$
Aaron Jacob Wolf says that the ambiguous words
of the Sh=ma reminds us that we don=t really know all that much
about our God: AThe truth is that we do not
know the truth about God.@ (92) All we know is what
we are commanded to do.
$
Malcolm Stern notes the huge divisions within
the Jewish community and says that the Sh=ma points to an ideal B AA God who is Ehad.@ (90)
$
Lawrence Hoffman suggests that we look at the Sh=ma not so much as a
philosophi-cal statement as an artistic one, a vision of art that encompasses
so much within a few brush strokes or words or sounds.
$
Leonard S. Kravitz says that the unity of God,
as contained in Echad, implicitly refers to the unity of all humankind and all
human conceptions, as well as Athe role of Israel as
guardian of the notion of unity.@ (43)
And many more.
Let=s bring this d=var to a close, as I like
to, with a lighter point. If one looks
closely at the Hebrew text for verse 6:4, the ayin, which is the last letter of
the first word, and the dalet, which is the last letter of the last word, are
in a larger font (if in a book) or larger script (if in a sefer Torah). I have found three midrashic explanations:
1. The
two letters are large to ensure we pay special attention to this text.
2. The
yud-dalet spell the Hebrew word for witness and they indicate that we ourselves
are standing witness to our affirmation.
3. The
dalet is exaggerated to ensure that we don=t
confuse $(!,
one, with 9(!,
which looks almost the same but means Aother,@
which would be blasphemous. As for the
large ayin at the end of sh=ma, it is allegedly there so one does
not confuse 3/:, listen or hear, with !/:,
which also looks somewhat the same but means Aperhaps@
and would be equally blasphemous.
Finally,
in lieu of the usual set of questions that the author of a d=var
typically poses to those attending Shabbat services at Or HaNeshamah, I will
pose just one question, and it is the obvious one: What does the Sh=ma
mean to you? What visions / thoughts /
words does it invoke for you. No thought
is beyond the pale. For me the meaning
of oneness, Echad, merges my environmental profession with my Jewish
soul; both are elements of Echad and each nourishes the other. What works for you?
Shabbat
shalom,
Addendum
At
the time of publication of the book edited by Rabbi Borowitz:
$
Lawrence Hoffman was Professor of
Liturgy at at the New York School of HUC-JIR.
$
Leonard Karavitz was Professor of
Midrash and Homilitics at the New York School of HUC-JIR.
$
Lawrence Kushner was Rabbinic chair of
the UAHC Commission on Religious Living
$
Harry Orlinsky was Emeritus Professor
of Bible at the New York School of HUC-JIR.
$
David Sperling was Professor of Bible
at the New York School of HUC-JIR.
$
Malcolm Stern was Emeritus Director of
Placement at the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
$
Aaron Jacob Wolf was Rabbi of KAM
Isaiah Israel in Chicago.
$
Michael Wyschogrod was Professor of
Philosophy at Burch College of CCNY.
$
Marjorie Yudkin was Rabbi of Temple
Covenant of Peace in Easton, PA.