"Hear O Israel" - יִשְׂרָאֵל

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Parents, Grandparents, Guardians of kids,

One of the most widely read, famous, and essential prayers in the Bible is one that the Hebrew people recite repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. It is a mighty prayer and contains a HUGE amount of meaning for their lives and for our daily lives as well. The truths that we find in this scripture can have eternal meaning for our families as we truly live it out in our "Stay at Home" times.

This prayer is called The Shema, which is the Hebrew word for "listen,". This vital prayer is the centerpiece of the last speech Moses gave to the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land. After entering the Promised Land, the Shema became a prayer that the Israelites recited twice daily. It is still prayed twice daily by Orthodox Jews because of its importance in one’s life. It can be viewed as central to our lives, and it has the capacity to keep a person or family centered on what is MOST important. It starts Shema, Israel…

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

What is it that we should hear, grab hold of, or pay attention to? It quickly becomes clear that what we should listen to or hear is that there is only one "Lord"... only one "God.” He becomes the centerpiece of the prayer as His name gets repeated five times in the first two sentences….and we are to love Him!

The next part of this prayer reminds us to love Him with different parts of ourselves. Here, it is good to note that the original language in which this text is written gives more meaning to the words describing different parts of us. Let’s take the three words individually. We are to love the LORD with all of our…

Heart

The Hebrew word for this part of us is “Levar” or “Lev - לב” for short. Although lev is frequently translated as “heart,” it really could also be translated “mind”. This word does not refer to the organ that pumps blood, but rather it has a Biblical meaning that most often refers to the control center of our lives. Today, we might refer to the mind as the place where decisions are made. In the Bible, "Lev" literally means the inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, and understanding. It is where we apply our knowledge and understanding, along with our thoughts and feelings, to distinguish right from wrong. It is where in Psalm 119:7 it says...

"I will praise you with an upright lev, when I learn your righteous rules.

Lev also refers to emotions such as joy, sadness, happiness, and love. At times, we make decisions based on these fleeting parts of us. In Psalm 139:23 it says..."

Search me, O God, and know my lev! Try me and know my thoughts."

So to love the LORD with your "lev" means that He wants to be central in helping you decide and discern what is best, right, or wise in your life.

Our daily question from this word could be...Do I love the LORD my God with the inner control center of my life?

Soul

This Hebrew word is Nephesh - נֶ֫פֶשׁ. This shows up 700 times in the Bible. We might think of the soul more in terms of Greek thought, which has a more spiritual connotation, referring to the part of us that leaves our body when we die and goes to heaven. Biblically, Nephesh means “Throat”. Interestingly, this word more deeply means what we hunger and thirst for. It is what gives life, and at the same time, represents the whole physical human body — the entire physical living and breathing being. In Psalm 42:1, we see it like this…

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my nephesh for you, O God."

A great question for each of us to ask ourselves daily is...Does my body and my life “long” or “pant” for the LORD?

Might

This word in Hebrew is sometimes translated "strength". It was a hard one to translate into English as Me’od – מְאֹד literally means “muchness, force, abundance”. This word appears in the Bible 300 times and intensifies the meaning of many other words. One time in Genesis, we see that the word was translated as "very" when we read Genesis 1:31...

"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was Me’od good."

We could say Me’od love, Me’od hate, Me’od money, Me’od of anything, and it means much or very much of it. To love the LORD our God with all your muchness has actually some great meaning for our lives each day. Do you love the LORD your God with your muchness or to “infinity and beyond” like Buzz Lightyear? Do you infinitely love God? Your family depends on you, especially in these anxious times, to decide to daily love the LORD your God with your heart and mind, to thirst for Him, to infinity and beyond. Let’s do that.

It could be that during this season of being at home more, you could choose to say the Shema in the morning and night individually or as a family. It serves as an excellent reminder of what is truly important in life…

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Then, as the text goes on to say…

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Use your daily rhythms to decide to love the LORD your God with all of you. The LORD our God is telling us in today's text that we should be diligent in teaching this truth to your children. Ultimately, their spiritual lives depend on us, as parents, grandparents, leaders, and spiritual guardians, to do so.

(*pictures are from https://bibleproject.com)