Jewish Musings Wednesday, July 26

[hollygail]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Frieda
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[hollygail]

Frieda posted relatively late yesterday. She updated us on what's going on with her medical care (or lack thereof). Please take a look if you haven't yet. Frieda, I'm sorry you're having to deal with bureaucratic nonsense.

On Sunday I mentioned that the two "biggies" in this week's Torah portion are the repetition of the 10 Commandments and the sh'ma. Let's spend a little time on the shma today. Moses teaches that God is echad, translated merely as "one." As most scholars admit, it is difficult to figure out what this word really means (in fact, thousands of pages have been written on the meaning of this small word). Whatever it means, the sh’ma (regardless of how you spell it) has become “the watchword of Judaism,” and it has inspired Jews throughout history. And it can't be taken literally, because people who are deaf can't listen or hear with their ears, so it's bigger than its initial word, so maybe a better translation might be "understand" or something (please contribute your ideas).

The sh’ma is almost like a secret Jewish code. During World War II, there were many Jewish children who had been rescued by Christians and undercover Jews and who then spent the war hidden in monasteries. After the war, Rabbi Eliezer Silver went around Europe, looking for those children. He would visit monasteries and simply say, “Sh’ma Yisrael…” If a child completed the sentence, he would claim the child as a Jew.

But what does it mean when it says that “Adonai is one,” the echad word at the end? The possibilities are almost endless...

It could mean that there is only one diety, which is often how teachers teach children about the sh'ma. There is a problem with this interpretation because in that stage of the Bible’s development, the Torah itself seems to recognize that there are many nations that have many gods. Pure monotheism that insists that no other gods exist comes later in Judaism.

Another possibility is that it could mean that there is only one God, not numerically, but spiritually. Even though God seems “different” at different stages of Jewish history, God is always God. A midrash teachers, “I am Adonai your God — the same one who was in Egypt, the same one who was at the Sea of Reeds, at Sinai, in the past and in the future, in this world and in the world to come.”

Or, it could simply mean that Adonai is the only god whom Jews should worship. That increasingly accepted interpretation has led many, including the JPS TaNaKH to translate the end of the sh’ma as “the Lord alone.” [The literal translation of the Hebrew word "adonai" is either "lord" or "Lord" and the Hebrew word "adonai" is also used in ancient texts when someone is speaking about a person "higher" on the social scale than the speaker; think about English words like "M'lord" for when a peasant is speaking to a landowner perhaps in the Middle Ages, for instance; moreover this word exists in modern-day English too for the person to whom one pays rent on one's home or business space...]

I just recently learned this more controversial theory: The whole word may very well be a misprint! In ancient Hebrew, the letter chet could sometimes look like the letter hei. And the letter dalet could sometimes look like the letter bet/vet. The Torah text was written by scribes and passed down from generation to generation. It would have been easy to make a mistake in copying the letters.

Professor David Sperling contends that the word eched was originally ahav (love): “Therefore, the real translation should [according to Sperling] be: Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God — love Adonai.” This makes sense in that the very next words in the Torah are, “And you shall love Adonai with all your heart…”

The sh’ma may be the single most important line in Judaism, yet the debate on what it means goes on.

What does either the word sh'ma or the six words of "the" sh'ma mean for you?

[gazelle18]

Thank you, Holly, for this very interesting teaching! I haven’t thought about this topic in quite some time, and I love reading all the different interpretations.

It’s hard for me to imagine that “one” could have been a misinterpretation, and that the real translation should be “God is love..” it’s a lovely sentiment, but it doesn’t sound like something that would have been written centuries ago. Interesting!

[gazelle18]

Frieda, I hope you get through this next phase of your medical journey without killing anyone! I’d be tempted!

[peachymom1]

I just read Frieda's post from last night. It makes my heart hurt to know that you're going through such aggravation. Ugh, double-ugh and triple-ugh! Please come here and vent all you want to. I hope things work out for you soon.

[peachymom1]

I've never known any two people to have the same concept of God. I think each person has to understand God according to his/her own soul, heart, mind, experience, or whatever else you can think of. Even if you say you don't believe in God, you can't deny that we are all here and we are all alive, and you can't explain how or why life exists or continues, except through the lens of our own limitation. So some of us talk about God and wonder about God, some don't give God much thought at all, some deny God's existence, and so on. But as long as we continue to breathe, we are experiencing the source of life. One source. One God. Echad.

As for the "ahav" drash, it's lovely, but it doesn't hold up grammatically. Of course I'm not a rabbi or scholar, just a grammar nerd. But if the word is "ahav" instead of "echad," the phrase "Adonai ahav" would mean "God loves" (a statement), not "Love God" (an imperative). If it were an imperative, like "Sh'ma" ("Hear!"), it would say "et" before "Adonai," according to Hebrew grammar, just as indeed it does in the words following: "Ve-ahavta ET Adonai eloheicha..." ("Et" is a grammatical particle that occurs before a definite direct object, like a name.) But I'm actually fine with "God loves." I do believe God loves us, that God is the source of love, and that when we love, we are expressing our own spark of Godliness.

[brgmsn]

Frieda, I am so sorry for all this tsuris. You have enough going on without this nonsense. One thing I can suggest is get every.single.person's. name to whom you speak. That way sometimes you may not have to start from scratch each time. Quoting an actual employee helps, I've found.
The portals are a mess. Going paperless was supposed to make things easier, but with several hundred different systems, and many not speaking to each other, it deteriorates into what you are dealing with.
I have one word. Chocolate. Chocolate helps.

[lee058]

Good afternoon everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE!

Re today's topic: Wow. The Sh'ma was, I think, the first Jewish thing I learned. I had no idea there was controversy about it. Thanks for all the information; it is very interesting!

Have a peaceful rest of the day, Lee

[happysavta]

I finally got the paperwork for the bilateral breast ultrasound today. But the first available appointment is in December in a location about an hour's drive away. I said "Thank you, but no thank you. I'll try another radiology group." And then it's only for the diagnostic mammogram. They have to call you back on another date for the ultrasound and the biopsy. This rigamarole has echoes of Kafka's novel, "The Trial". I'm afraid I'm never going to be done with doctors and their convoluted health care systems.

[louise]

The shema is iconic for us and for me personally. I say the first paragrpah of the shema when taking off and landing on a plane. Has nothing to do with what's going on it just connects me to my inner self and to God.I thought that it came from a time when having one God was special, and also that that God was ours.