Parashat V’etchanan is a literary masterpiece! We so often isolate the various passages, the Rabbinic method often encourages us to do so, analyzing the Ten Commandments, the Shema passage that has entered our liturgy, Moses' opening description of his ineffectual plea to God, the appointment of cities of refuge. The Rabbinic method so often demands that we seek what is hidden. In many of our Torah portions, such an analytical approach is required in order to make sense of the varied contents. Our Torah is far from an orderly document. The pre-canonized editing that took place often confounds contemporary comprehension, so we strive to read meaning into the minutia. Yet occasionally such a study method prevents us from seeing the bigger picture – when the peshat, the simple understanding of the narrative arc of the text can provide the most useful lessons.
In V’etchanan, Shema is key. Not simply the familiar passage to which we are so easily drawn due to its placement in the siddur, but the verb, Shema. We see it at the start of chapter 4, towards the beginning of the portion, after Moses retells of his attempt to change God’s mind about letting him enter the Land,
ועתה ישראל שמע אל החקים ואל המשפטים אשר אנכי מלמד אתכם (Dev. 4:1). Now, Israel….Listen! I almost hear Moses imploring the Israelites not to repeat mistakes, even his own, that were made in the past. The temporal “v”, so often translated as “and” indicates an attempt to move forward, onward to the next stage: Now it’s time to pay attention Israel to the rules that have been taught! The rules have been laid out, now it’s time to Shema! As contemporary commentator, Robert Alter, notes this letter “vuv” stands out to mark the start of a “grand sermon.”
At the start of Chapter 5, Moses again summons the entire Israelite community with Shema,
שמע ישראל את החקים ואת המשפטים אשר אנכי דבר באזנכם היום ולמדתם אתם ושמרתם לעשות (Dev. 5:1)
Listen up Israel – pay attention to the laws and precepts that I’ve proclaimed (literally) into your ears today - study and do them!
Shema has become a refrain to the narrative, a narrative which now proceeds to lay out the basic outline of the law again as Moses re-iterates those basic commandments revealed on Sinai and as we will read aloud in a few moments. This is the instruction, Moses reminds the masses. Then, again:
שמע ישראל יי אלהינו יי אחד ואהבת את יי אלהיך... (Dev. 6:4…)
"Listen up Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One; and You should love Adonai with all of your heart, soul, and being..."
In case you weren’t listening, Listen up! God is one, and you are supposed to honor God by doing all of these instructions AND -- here is what is new – you are to teach it to your children, so that they too can follow the rules that accordingly will assure prosperity and safety.
I’m always struck that it is this final Shema of our portion that gets held up as “the watchword of our faith.” Sure it makes a good poetic sound bite, and it reinforces the rabbinic idea that it is the first commandment – the "I am the Adonai You God… and there are no other Gods besides me" from which the rest flow forth. But, taken by itself, it has the least substance. This final Shema of V’etchanan never quite tells us to study or do the commandments. It says were are to hold onto them as symbols – literally לטטפת- and to teach them to our children, but how on earth can we, with any integrity that is, pass on an instruction without observing it ourselves? It isn’t enough to just hold onto symbols.
The last Shema of V’etchanan, the one that has been incorporated into our liturgy, is fully dependent on the first two Shemas of our parasha. ישראל שמע, we must first listen up to those who have come before us. We must hear what they have to say about the mistakes they have made and the lessons, the chukim u’mishpatim. Notice – these aren’t mitzvot, religious commandments, these are basic rules viewed as vital to the functioning of society. שמע ישראל , we must then pay attention to what has been place before our ears. We must study – learn - and take action in order for us to keep our community in shape. It takes a bit of attention and effort! Finally, שמע ישראל , only once we have absorbed it and made it a habit for ourselves, can we pass it on to those who will follow us. To do any less makes all of the symbols that we make – those on our doorposts, synagogues, and home, no matter how beautiful, thoroughly hollow.
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Comment about Haftarah:
Nachamu, nachamu …. First of the seven Haftarot of consolation that lead us in our calendar cycle form Tisha b’Av to Rosh Hashanah. Historically, Reform Jews have had an ambivalent relationship with Tisha b’Av, a day of mourning over the destruction of the First, and later Second, Temple in Jerusalem, as we don’t even feign to seek a return to such a centralized notion of civil and religious power. At the same time, we must recognize the amount of devastation and trauma these events brought to the Jewish community and their neighbors during this time. Isaiah’s moving poetry compels us to remember these painful episodes in our history and mourn the losses that ensued. Our modern sensibilities require us to celebrate the strength of those who were able to continue building upon traditions that would serve as a foundation for modern Jewish life. The very fact that we are here to remember is a testament to those who survived and worked to restore that which was most important.
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