We have an established evening routine in our
house. The timing of it may vary a
little bit, but once Gabby has brushed her teeth she chooses two books which
are read to her and then we sing her the Shema, after which she can request
another song or two. Each and every
night she hears the words of Torah as the Shema is sung to her before she goes
to bed.
Many people regard the Shema as our most important
prayer. For the Rabbis this was not the
case. They saw the Amidah, our standing
prayer, as the central prayer of our liturgy, so that they called it hatefillah – the prayer. But the
Shema has established itself as a central prayer and one that many
people know how to recite, some even refer to it as the “watchword of our
faith.”
We can imagine that the centrality of this prayer
comes from its opening words as we affirm the oneness of God: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad
- Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God,
Adonai is one. In this verse, from this
week’s Torah portion, we affirm the oneness of God and God’s dominion.
There is no fanfare before these words are recited
and it is unclear in the context that these words would establish themselves as
such a central prayer thousands of years later.
On the one hand perhaps this affirmation of God's oneness is why this
prayer is so important. But I actually
think the real focus of this prayer is aspirational.
As we say the words of the Shema we aspire as a
community to reach a point where we do love God “with all of our hearts, with
all of our souls, and with all of our might.”
It is hard to do, but then the Shema offers the necessary steps to
achieve this aim. We must take these
words and say them when we're at home, when we're on the way, when we lie down,
when we rise up; and then we should bind them on our hands, have them as a
symbol on our foreheads and inscribe them on the doorposts of our homes and on
our gates.
The Shema lays out these steps for us to achieve love
of God.
But I think the most important step, and the reason
why this prayer is so important in our liturgy, is because this is the prayer
within which we say “teach it to your children.” The Shema is not simply about us and our quest
to love God it is about the fact that we share that quest with the next
generation; we share that obligation with our children. The Shema is the prayer that we pass on from
generation to generation, and in so doing we bring those children into the
circle of love that is shared with God. In this way it is the perfect prayer to recite
when we rise up and when we lie down, going to bed secure in the love shared
between us and God.
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