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Rabbinic Tefilla Colloquium II

The Current Study Unit -- by R.Kimelman (Unit 7)

THE SHEMA' LITURGY

Welcome back to our ongoing study of the liturgy.

(For those just joining us: there is no need to review the last semester's material. If you are inclined to do so, however, go to the archive and take a look at the units on the Shema in Colloquium I.)

Before we deal with the overall structure of the Shema liturgy in the next post, this post focuses in a more comprehensive manner on the meaning of the first parsha because of its significance in our religious life. Only with regard to it, or part of it, is there the Talmudic requirement for proper kavannah so that it need not be repeated. For some, proper kavannah implies intensified devotion or earnestness. For others, it implies proper understanding. It is because of the latter that it is important for us to engage in conversation on its meaning. It would also be helpful to get comments on how you have taught or preached the Shema, and suggestions for getting our congregants more involved in the substance of the Shema. One of the most effective liturgical ways I have observed is the teaching of the Shema followed by its Hebrew recitation according to the cantillation, and then singing it in English according to the tune frequently used in Reform synagogues. What has worked for you?

The Ve-ahavta

Maimonides divides the first section into three parts: The Shema verse -- "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4) -- sets forth the duty of acknowledging the Unity of God. The next verse – "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart/mind (or unreservedly), with all your soul/body (or desires) and with all your might/means (or utmost)" -- sets forth the duty of loving God totally. The remaining verses -- (6) "And these words that I command you this day shall be on your heart. (7) Review them with your children. Speak about them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. (8) Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead. (9) Inscribe them on the door posts of your house and on your gates" – which are all subsumed under the duty "of studying His words."

For the summary to be exhaustive, Maimonides must subsume the laying of tefillin of verse eight, as well as the affixing of the mezzuzah of verse nine under the rubric "of studying His words." Such an assumption can be supported by the biblical material contained in the tefillin (i.e., Exodus 13:1-10, ll-16, and the first two sections of the Shema -- Deuteronomy. 6:5-9; 11:13-21). and the mezzuzah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21). Elsewhere, Maimonides views verses six through nine as a means of coming to the love of God and/or as a means of its expression. According to the former, the constant involvement with the commandments leads to the love of God. According to the latter, the love of God leads to the fulfilling of the commandments out of love. The love of God thus serves as both catalyst and consummation, as both stimulus and achievement.

Accordingly, verse seven asserts that the love of God either generates and/or is generated by inducing others, especially one's progeny, to accept God's words and by being involved with them at all places -- at home or away, and at all times -- retiring or rising during the normal period of sleep and wakefulness. Both pairs of contrasting phrases serve as merisms which, by noting both poles of the spectrum, include everything in between. Thus the verse runs on the same path as Proverbs 6:21-22: "Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, it [they] will lead you; when you lie down, it will watch over you; and when you awake, it will talk with you."

Similarly, in verse eight the tefillin are signs which confirm the love of God, and/or devices for its stimulation. In either case, one's mental, physical, and emotional powers become wrapped up in a single, all-integrating love. Finally, in verse nine, the entrance mezzuzot either signify the commitment of the home to the love of God, and/or serve as a catalyst of such love by constant recall of the commitment.

Many commentators have sought to understand the meaning of the tefillin and mezzuzah within the context of love. For instance, Bahya ibn Paquda, a century before Maimonides, in his Duties of the Heart explained the love as the consummation of the whole-hearted service to God and the tefillin and mezzuzah as the means to "cause us to remember the Creator, love Him with a perfect heart, and yearn for Him." The tradition also developed various ways of grasping the tefillin as symbols of love. For example, RaSHBaM grasped them in terms of verse six of chapter eight of The Song of Songs, understanding it as "Set Me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm." Tiqqunei Ha-Zohar understood them in terms of bridal jewelry, with the head tefillin serving as the bride's golden wreath, and the arm tefillin as her armband.

Special attention has been given to the fact that the tefillin are placed on the head and on the arm facing the heart. Whether or not they were placed originally between the eyes and on the palm, the moving of the head tefillin from the eyes to the forehead shifted the emphasis from the visual to the mental, as the moving of the hand tefillin from the palm to the upper arm added the emphasis of the heart. In addition to preventing the straying after the heart or eyes, the tefillin now seek to get us to take its contents to heart and become mindful of them. Later commentators expanded this understanding. For instance, Maimonides saw the tefillin performing a double function. They ward off evil thoughts from entering our mind, and they direct our "heart to words of truth and righteousness." By the thirteenth century, this emphasis on the head and the heart led to the conclusion that the hand tefillin corresponds to the heart (levavkha) and the head tefillin to the soul (nafshekha).

Accordingly, a sixteenth century meditation for the donning of the tefillin, found in many Siddurim, underscores their function in subjugating the heart and mind to God. It states: "He has commanded us to lay the tefillin upon the hand...opposite the heart, to subjugate through it the longings and designs of our heart to His service...and upon the head over against the brain, in order that the soul which is in my brain with the other senses and powers will all be subjugated to His service." There is also the later opinion of Moses of Przemysl that the tefillin correspond to the five senses in that the hand tefillin corresponds to the sense of touch, and the head tefillin -- with its four parts -- to the four senses located in the head, namely, the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste. In sum, the tefillin became understood as a device for integrating the total human powers of heart, mind, and senses.

With regard to the unit as a whole, it can be viewed also as an integrated literary unit wherein the threefold demand to love God is followed by a corresponding threefold elaboration of how God is to be loved. The first demand, "love…with all your lev ("heart") corresponds to the next verse, "And these words that I command you this day shall be on your lev" (6). Since the biblical lev can also refer to the faculty of thought and attention, which is probably why the Septuagint translates dianoia ("mind") instead of kardia ("heart"), verse six bears a range of meanings from being totally mindful of God's teachings to taking them wholeheartedly or unreservedly. By using a single term for thought and feeling in verse five, both mind and emotion are enlisted in an all-consuming love. In this case, the choice of a particular word instead of its synonym is dictated by the desire to suggest both meanings simultaneously to the reader. The first serves as the primary or dominant meaning, while the other as the secondary concept, thus enriching the thought or emotion of the reader.

The second demand, "Love...with all your nefesh ("soul") corresponds to the next two verses: "Review them with your children. Speak about them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead" (7-8). The biblical nefesh can also refer to the body or desires and thus may be said to constitute the self or one's vitality. The self/vitality here comprises the total person, a personhood that includes progeny and body, the former to be instructed, the latter to be incorporated in the love of God as the bearer of the symbols of such love.

The third demand, "Love...with all your me'od," corresponds to verse nine, "Inscribe them on the door posts of your house and on your gates" (9). In the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac traditions me'od refers to "means", while the Greek renders it as "dynamis" (i.e., might). The parallels in II Kings 23:25, Ben Sira 6:26, 7:30, and Tobith 14:9 (see 13:6) cannot determine its meaning here as their usage is derivative of the verse here. Since neither tradition has biblical philological support, it is possible that they both grasped me`od literally as "exceedingly" or "with all your capacities." The former took that to imply "with all your physical resources," and the latter "with all your financial resources."

In any case, as "means," it links up with verse nine’s demand that the home be dedicated to the love of God, since the house is one's quintessential possession. As "might," it links up with the tefillin of verse eight, since the hand tefillin of verse eight epitomizes the harnessing of one's strength in the love of God, possibly on the model of Exodus 13:9 where the tefillin constitutes a memento of God's mighty hand. Although this link could shift verse eight from the second category of nefesh over into the third category of me'od, its double valence can keep it in both.

The threefold love of God is in each case designated by a polysemic term in order to extend the demands of love to embrace heart and mind, body and soul, economic and physical resources. Accordingly, one of the earliest interpretations of the threefold love of the Shema found in the Qumran "Rule of the Community" requires that members bring "their mind, their strength and their wealth" as expression of their full devotion to God. Apparently, both Qumran and the Rabbis saw the threefold demand as an expression of totality. Qumran took that to mean intellectually/mindfully, physically, and financially whereas the Rabbis took it to mean with all your psychic energies (be-shnei yetsarekha), with all your life (i.e., "even if He takes your soul" and with all your finances.

The result is the total mobilization of the human being toward a love of God that is unreserved, all-demanding, at all times, in every place, whatever the physical position. This may already be indicated proleptically in the understanding of me'od here as "exceedingly". Me'od thus functions to anticipate the conclusion of the rest of the section whose purpose it is to specify how to come to love God exceedingly. If this is kept in mind along with the two implications of me`od, the three-fold commandment to love God totally ends up not only including means and might, but also climaxing with the demand that the love of God be maximized with "all your very-ness," namely, to the utmost.

In sum, verses six through nine state what is entailed in the total love of God. Six accomplishes this with regard to all one's heart and mind, seven/eight -- with regard to all one's body and desires, and eight/nine -- with regard to loving God exceedingly.

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