Shema

Sh'ma Yisra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One

Most Jews know this prayer and have said it countless times.

It was 3 nights after the election in 2016, a time when we were absorbing the fact that Hilary Clinton had lost the presidential election. I attended a ‘listening circle’ with Rabbi Bridget Wynn and she began with this prayer, and then went on to give an interpretation of it that intrigued me. To paraphrase, she said, ‘ Hear O Israel, you (person) who is always fighting with yourself and others, listen! Listen to yourself. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 

In the book Einstein and the Rabbi, Naomi Levy writes, “The Sh’ma isn’t our request, it doesn’t as anything of G-d. The Sh’ma is G-d’s request, G-d’s prayer. It is G-d crying out to use, echoing through time: Listen! Love! With all your heart, all your soul, all your might.”

I was intrigued by this. Listen to yourself, to the truth of who you are and what resonates. I turned this around and around until it became a smooth shell in my hands. Listen to the ocean, to the echo of your heartbeat, to the great one-ness, listen. Sh’ma.