Heart to Heart: Parashat Va’et’hanan/Shabbat Nahamu

 Parashat Va'et'hanan 2016

Parashat Va’et’hanan/Shabbat Nahamu
Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11

Two texts that are central to Judaism are found in our Torah portion this week. One is the Ten Commandments and one is the Sh’ma – its first verse and first paragraph (of three). Of these two texts, one has gained almost universal acceptance, at least in the Western world. That text is the Ten Commandments, which is seen by many as the very backbone of Western society. The Sh’ma has not gained the same degree of acceptance.

It may be surprising, therefore, to review how our Tradition has approached these two texts as it strove to find their appropriate places in Jewish life. There is a huge imbalance between how much we focus on one of these two texts as compared to the others.

Think of it – the Sh’ma is recited morning and night. It’s recitation is seen as a hallmark of our heritage and identity, celebrated in our morning preparatory prayers, which anticipate the recitation of the Sh’ma later that morning. We also recite the Sh’ma before going to sleep at night. On Shabbat we include the Sh’ma in our Torah service and in our Mussaf service. The Sh’ma is included in the tefillin we wear and in the mezuzah that we place on every doorway of our homes.

Now try to recall the last time you recited the Ten Commandments. Yes, they are chanted from the Torah scroll – by the Torah reader and not by the congregation – when we reach that appropriate Torah portion. And we chant them from the Torah scroll on Shavuot, when we celebrate receiving the Torah. We also sometimes use the representation of the Two Tablets, upon which the commandments were written, as a symbol in or on our synagogues. (Notice, however, that we invariably reduce the texts to a couple of words, or to Hebrew letters, or, even, Roman numerals!) But, publicizing them in any other way has largely been taken over by right-wing Christians. The Rabbis, on the other hand, gave the matter much thought and determined to keep the use of the Ten Commandments as a sacred text to a minimum.

Why is that?

When we compare these texts we come up with an important contrast. The Ten Commandments are included twice in our Torah. The first time they are miraculously revealed to us as God’s words. The second time Moses remembers their original revelation and repeats them. But the Sh’ma is only found once, here in our portion. It is not a record of God’s words. These words are Moses’ original exhortation to his brothers and sisters: “Listen, O Israel!” These words are drawn from the deepest wellsprings of the human heart. They lovingly call out to us to draw deeply from our own hearts and declare, like smitten lovers, “with all our hearts, all our souls and all our might” that God is the One.

The Rabbis insisted that the Ten Commandments, although they were revealed in unique circumstances, were actually no more nor less important or unique than any of the many other commandments of the Torah. Not so the Sh’ma. The Rabbis just couldn’t get over how special it was. The unique heart-to-heart call of Moses expressed and gave expression to a faith in the unique capacity found in the heart of each one of us. So the tradition sought to make sure that we were surrounded and immersed in that upsurge of love, to be swept away with it, whether we found ourselves “at home or going on the road, awake or asleep.”

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein

 


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