When I was 10, there was a television miniseries called “The Holocaust”. I have not seen this show for over 40 years, but I clearly remember one particular scene. When the brave fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising could hold out no longer, they surrendered. As the Nazis lined them up against a wall to execute them, they joined hands and their leader recited a prayer called the Shema. The scene was as thrilling and inspiring as the La Marseille scene in Casablanca (if you don’t know what I am talking about, stop reading, watch Casablanca and then come back to the blog!).
For Jews, the Shema is a prayer and our central statement of belief. When we die, particularly if we are to be martyred, we try to recite the Shema. The Shema is not a prayer of thanks or praise, but an acknowledgment of God’s oneness and dominion over all of the earth and all of us. “Here o Israel! The Lord is God. The Lord is one.” This prayer is actually a quote from Deuteronomy 6:4. The Shema can refer to a larger prayer that encompasses Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41. The Shema is recited by observant Jews twice daily and it is also the most important part of prayer services in synagogue. Many Jews will cover their eyes when saying the prayer so they are not distracted by anything around them.
What does all of this have to do with the Talmud? Our Talmud study on Sunday commences with a set of questions about when and how do we say the Shema. The questions derive from that second section, which states:
And these words, which I command this day, shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9
What does it mean to say these words when I “liest down”? Do I have to say them when I lie upon the ground to look under my car? What are “frontlets between thine eyes”? Don’t think that the confusion is merely a bad translation of the original Hebrew. The statement in Hebrew is just as lacking in details as the original. The Talmud will try to derive the substance of the commandments and will try to derive general principles applicable in other cases from those details. Along the way, there will be stories interspersed from the lives of our sages, a comparison of the angels Michael and Gabriel and other non-legal meditations on the nature of the universe.
One postscript to this post – When I was ten, two television miniseries came out that really changed me as a person. One was The Holocaust which I discussed at the opening of this post. The second was Roots. I am not sure why 1977/78 was such a watershed year in great and meaningful television. That question is a little outside the scope of this blog and perhaps is nothing other than coincidence. I only hope that 2020 is as good a year for television as 1978.
I liked it. I do not think the Shema is considered a prayer by all Jews but a statement. There are 3 paragraphs that constitute the Shema in my siddur. The first 2 paragraphs I seem to recall are what is written on parchment in a mezuzah. I could be wrong and I should have looked it up before I commented
Brad, your notion of TV, film and reading is always impressive and quite reminiscent. I can remember like it was yesterday watching both of those series with my parents. The notion of matyrdom especially runs through both in ways that lift up these horrific moments but also place them in a historical context that may be truly only meaningful if indeed one believes things have changed drastically. I think that, for me, is what is so powerful about the Shema. Yes, it is a prayer that is referred to as the last words a martyr should say before he dies, but its also a regular every day prayer we are to recite regardless of what the day has had in store. Perhaps reciting it every day is what makes it that much more powerful if God forbid we must say it one day.