Parashat Eikev: Hearing The Silent Shema

(delivered by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on August 19, 2022)

 It’s so wonderful to be with you all once again after a meaningful summer break in Israel. While Rosh HaShanah is over a month away, this begins my second year as the student rabbi at Am HaYam.

While I was away, we began the book of Deuteronomy, the bulk of which is an address from Moses to the Israelites on the eastern banks of the Jordan. Deuteronomy often repeats things that we heard in earlier books. One of the things Moses repeats to the Israelites is the Ten Commandments.^[1] But the Ten Commandments were not the only thing that we missed last week. We also missed the opening words of the Sh’ma, followed by the V’ahavta.^[2] These words are not found in earlier books.

The Sh’ma is a prayer taken directly from the Torah, but the writers of the Torah never intended for those words to become a prayer. The three paragraphs of the Sh’ma are not consecutive. They come from three very distinct places in the Torah. While the first paragraph, the V’ahavta, was found in last week’s Torah portion, the second paragraph is found in this week’s Torah portion: parashat Eikev.

While many Jews can chant the V’ahavta, either by heart or with the siddur, most of us aren’t used to reciting the second paragraph of the Sh’ma together. That’s because it is recited silently. The Reform movement doesn’t even print the second paragraph of the Sh’ma in their siddur. In the Conservative movement, some people don’t enjoy reading it. And I understand! Its contents do not bring a smile to our faces! Still, it’s in this week’s parashah, so now more than ever, it’s time to discuss it.

This paragraph, the second paragraph of the Sh’ma, is in essence, a contract! It says that if we follow the mitzvot, then our land, the land of C’na’an (Israel), will be blessed with rain and an abundant harvest. We will eat and be satisfied. Our lives will be good.

But if we don’t follow the commandments and, in particular, if we worship other gods, then HaShem’s wrath will be upon us. HaShem will close the heavens and hold back the rain, and nothing will grow. And we will disappear from the land.

Well G!d, did we do something bad? Because here in California, it’s as dry as can be!

But, no! In the Torah, Moses meant these words only for the inhabitants of Israel. But we don’t live in Israel! We could if we wanted to, but we live in the Diaspora by choice! But this is not reason enough to skip the paragraph, because when the words were lifted from the Torah and put into our siddur as part of the collective Sh’ma prayer, the context became universal, and more figurative.

In the Torah, the verse before this paragraph,^[3] states that G!d’s eye is always watching Israel. In essence, G!d pays special attention to the events in Israel, and the actions of Israel’s inhabitants.

As our Christian brethren like to sing:

He (sic) sees us when we’re sleeping!

He knows when we’re awake.

He knows if we’ve been bad or good!

So be good, for goodness sake!

Is this the kind of god that inspires love? Many people say no. Again, it just doesn’t go down very easily. There’s too much doom and gloom for some of us to enjoy reading it regularly. The idea that G-d knows all of our actions, and will reward and punish us accordingly for them, is also central to the High Holy Day liturgy, and yet we only read those prayers for several days a year. But this paragraph, which is part of the Sh’ma, is supposed to be read every day, twice a day, actually! It makes sense that we read it silently!

The first paragraph of the Sh’ma, the V’ahavta, which we read aloud, tells us to love G-d with all our heart, soul, and being, to teach the mitzvot to our children at all times, and to put reminders of the mitzvot on our hands, above our eyes, and upon our doorposts and gates. And it says all this without any negativity!

In fact, the second paragraph of the Sh’ma actually repeats many of these same details, often word for word! The second paragraph of the Sh’ma has almost everything the V’ahavta has, but the context is different! It adds reward and punishment! Moses tells the Israelites these things to scare them into obedience. But, as the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

Negative consequences may scare you into obedience, but even so, this can only make you obey G!d, not love G!d. If the goal of the second paragraph is to get us to love HaShem, then the V’ahavta does it better. But that’s not what the paragraph is trying to impart to us!

Professor Marc Brettler points out a key difference between the two paragraphs: The Hebrew words of the V’ahavta often end with the suffix “cha,” the singular for “your.” It is addressed to each Israelite individually. But in the second paragraph, the words end mostly in “chem,” indicating that the paragraph is directed at the entire people (“your,” plural). Everyone loves in their own way, as individuals, but the second paragraph is actually less about how you should feel as an individual, and more about how the Israelites as a whole unite. Professor Brettler also highlights words what these two paragraphs have in common; phrases that are not found anywhere else in the Torah but these two places. Words about teaching.^[4]

To me, the first paragraph tells us to love, and to teach. The second paragraph tells us why we do these things.

The real consequence isn’t drought, famine, or exile. It’s the threat of Judaism dying out! If we don’t teach Judaism to our children, then we as a people won’t endure!

Why do we even bother teaching these things to our children, if not to endure? If all we want is to love G!d during our lifetime, then why would we be asked to wear tefillin or tzitzit? Why would we be asked to put up a mezuzah? We don’t need these reminders to remember that we’re Jewish! In fact, a mezuzah on your entrance doorpost labels your Judaism so overtly that you may even fear that people will target the inhabitants of your home for being Jewish.

But we do it anyway! To teach these things to our children, to instill Jewish pride!

These symbols mark us as different. To those who aren’t familiar with them, they look strange. We know they look strange. This is teaching 101! Because of these strange symbols, our children will be curious. We want them to be curious. Curiosity leads to questions. And questions lead to people who are eager to learn.

As a Hebrew school teacher, and also as a young person, I have seen that in newer generations, telling kids that they should be Jewish simply because their ancestors were, doesn’t work as often as it used to. Just because you send your children to Hebrew school doesn’t mean they will live active Jewish lives, or teach Judaism to their own children one day. And they don’t have to! The way they choose to live their lives is up to them, and nobody can force them!

Religious living isn’t for everybody, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But, if enough people decide that it’s not for them, then Judaism will die out. And so, if the continuity of Judaism matters to us, then we need to be the most inspiring teachers possible! And being a teacher doesn’t require you to have kids in your household anymore, or at all! Sometimes it’s as simple as being a Jewish ambassador, someone who isn’t afraid to show their love for Judaism. That is a lesson that can sometimes be taught without any word at all! It’s as simple as putting up a mezuzah, and kissing it accordingly.

Sometimes, in teaching Judaism to our children, we choose to only highlight the good, and we hide the parts we fear they won’t like. That works well for young children, but as children get older, particularly when they train for their b’nei mitzvah, they often learn things that make them question their Judaism. What happens when someone who has never seen the second paragraph of the Shema, finds it in their siddur, and reads it alone without anyone to explain it to them? When people read negative prayers and liturgy without a guide, it can really hurt their sense of Jewish pride. I’ve seen it happen many times before.

If someone doesn’t like this paragraph, then teach them to question it! Teach them that questioning things is a very Jewish thing to do! Say, “I’m so proud of you for asking that question!” Encourage it! I do this with my students all the time, and it makes them prouder Jews!

Imagine if you taught your child to be a proud American, but because you only wanted to teach them about the parts of American history you liked most, so you neglected to mention slavery? It’s not responsible to neglect slavery. You don’t have to like it, but you still need to know that it happened!

Similarly, we have the 2nd paragraph of the Sh’ma. It’s part of our history as a people! And it serves a purpose! Unlike the Reform movement, we keep it in our siddur! In fact, even some Reform congregations are now putting it back in their siddur!^[5] Tomorrow morning, we are going to do something unusual. We will read this paragraph aloud together, in English, as part of the Sh’ma. And then later in the service, we will hear it in Hebrew, as I chant it from the Torah.

It is a gift to hear it. You don’t have to love it all. You don’t have to agree with it all. But I hope you can find meaning in parts of it. Reward and punishment may not always be fun to read about, but it teaches us what we might have to lose, if we don’t teach. May we always keep teaching, and may we never lose the Jewish people.

Am Yisrael Chai!

Shabbat shalom!

^[1] Deuteronomy 5:6-18.

^[2] Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

^[3] Deuteronomy 11:12, not part of the Sh’ma.

^[4] Brettler, Marc Zvi. “The Shema’s Second Paragraph: An Inner-Biblical Interpretation.” The Torah.com, https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-shemas-second-paragraph-an-inner-biblical-interpretation.

^[5] For example, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills has reinstated the Sh’ma in their siddur, A Prayerbook for Shabbat & Festivals.