Listen Sh’ma Yisrael How should I listen? What do you want me to hear? Adonai Eloheinu What are you? Who are we to call you ours? Adonai Echad You are One. Why do you seem so Other? V’ahavta… v’hayah… vayomer… Love. The rest will follow. Enough said. © 2022 Alexander Massey
This translation of the second paragraph of the Sh’ma intersperses close reading of the original Hebrew with meditative interpolations to expand on multiple meanings and ambiguities in the Hebrew, as well as in the translation itself. The reader is invited to use this as a starting point for personal meditation on the deep power and
Love and Follow (Sh’ma #2) Read More »
The Rabbis juxtaposed the three separate paragraphs of the Sh’ma, because they touched on so many themes and layers of meaning central to Judaism. Reading the Sh’ma therefore enables us to fulfill the commandment to study Torah (Berachot 60b). For about a year and a half, I have studied the Sh’ma closely, as well as
Seven Triptychs on the Sh’ma Read More »
Hebrew has a structure of correspondences between words by their root (shoresh) that provides layers of subtlety and multiple meanings. Comparison of passages that use words similarly or in special ways gives scholars opportunity for a range of interpretations. In kabbalistic thought, the letters themselves have meanings, and gematria (numerology) provides another relatedness between words and phrases