Shema: You and You All

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Becoming a Bar Mitzvah takes a lot of hard work. There are speeches to write, Torah and Haftarah portions to master, mitzvah projects to complete, and of course prayers to learn. Amongst the prayers he led earlier in this morning’s service, Simon chanted and read the words of the Shema and V’ahavta.

The words of Shema and V’ahavta are amongst Judaism’s core prayers. They appear in every morning and evening service and are taken directly from the Torah, from Parshat Va’etchanan, which was read just last week.

The V’ahavta, as many of us will recall, begins with the instruction to love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your spirit. Additionally, it implores us to instruct our children in words of Torah, something we see, Bob and Joyce have succeeded in doing, and to speak of Torah at home and away, when you lie down and when you rise up. Finally, it contains the commandments for tefillin and mezuzot.

Towards the end of this morning’s Torah portion, parshat Ekev, we find a series of verses that offer almost identical commands. Like the V’ahavta, Deuteronomy chapter 11 verses 13-21 instruct us to love God, to teach our children words of Torah, to speak of them at home and away, in the morning and at night, to affix mezuzot to our doors, and to wear tefillin.

The verses from this week’s Torah portion, known as V’haya Im Shemoa, and the V’ahavta have so much in common that the ancient rabbi’s placed them in the prayer book one after the other. Today in Conservative and Orthodox prayer books you will find them, along with another Biblical paragraph taken from Numbers, all appearing together under the uber-title of Shema.

At present, the Vehaya Im Shemoa paragraph does not appear in Reform movement prayer books. This is in part because of the problematic theology of the conditional clause with which it begins, a clause that promises reward for following God’s commandments and explains suffering as the result of breaking those commandments, and in part because its echoes to the V’ahavta, which the ancient rabbis found so compelling, were viewed by the early Reform Rabbis as unnecessary repetition.

While I am not advocating putting the V’haya Im Shemoa paragraph back into our service, especially since more prayers would likely mean less time for the rabbi to talk, there is an important lesson that emerges when the two texts are looked at side by side.

Though it lists a number of very tangible commands, the focus of the V’ahavta is on its first and most abstract commandment, loving God. The commandments are to be followed because they lead to that end. Similarly, the V’ahavta addresses the reader in the second person singular which is most fitting as a personal relationship with God is something that we do individually.

In contrast, the V’haya Im Shemoa begins with the stated goal of following the commandments, a point emphasized by the repetition of the word Mitzvah in the first sentence. Additionally, though the commandments listed are identical to the V’ahavta, the language is not. In the V’haya Im Shemoa the reader is no longer addressed as “you” but rather “you all.”

The change in language to second person plural is necessary because as Nehama Leibowitz teaches in her work Studies in Devarim, , “Love of God is a matter for the individual who strives to attain it through self-perfection, while the acceptance of the yoke of the mitzvoth and their fulfillment is only conceivable in human society.” As Leibowtitz explains, if you or I lived on a deserted island, it would be possible for us to have a personal and loving relationship with God. But for us to follow the commandments, so many of which are not ben adam l’makom, between human and God, but rather ben adam l’chaveiro, between two human beings, it is necessary to interact with other people.

I’d add that not only do we need other human beings to literally fulfill commandments like giving tzedakah and caring for the widow and orphan, but that the support and guidance provided by a community are indispensable if we are to succeed in living the values and teachings of Torah.

And so Simon, while you don’t have to learn to read and chant anything new, I hope and pray that as you continue your Jewish journey as a Bar Mitzvah, both the teachings of the V’ahavta and V’haya Im Shemoa will be present. That you, and all of us, will hear the words of the V’ahavta speaking to us individually, calling us to have a personal relationship with God. But at the same time we will also hear the similar, yet different words of V’haya Im Shemoa, encouraging us to live a life of mitzvoth within the supportive embrace of community.