The Ansche Chesed blog is a place where you can find enriching material to read about God, Torah and the Jewish People.
The recitation of קריאת שמע/Keriat Shema is built from three bible passages: Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the Shema+Ve’ahavta itself; Deuteronomy 11: 13-21, which begins והיה אם שמוע/Vehaya im shamoa; and Numbers 15:37-41, which includes the command of wearing tzitzit and the memorial of the Exodus. Why do the texts come in this order? According to Mishna Berakhot… Read more »
It’s Tuesday again, and the autumn holidays are passed, so it’s time for Tefillah Tuesday, once again. Let’s turn to the second “paragraph” of the Shema, Deuteronomy 11:13-20, which begins: והיה אם שמוע תשמעו אל מצוותי/ve’haya im shamo’a tishme’u, “now, if you will indeed heed my commandments …” This verse employs a common Biblical Hebrew… Read more »
In May, at the Hebrew Union College commencement, the novelist Michael Chabon encouraged the new Reform rabbis on a revolutionary path. They should “knock down the walls” that confine Jewish community in self-built ghettos, “eruvim of intolerance.” Not just ethnic distinctions between Jew and gentile, but the whole system of sacred boundary-drawing must go. No… Read more »
The third modifier in the first line of the ואהבת/ve’ahavta is בכל מאדך/bekhol me’odekha, that you should love God with … what exactly? In biblical as in modern Hebrew, מאד/me’od, typically is an adverb meaning very or exceedingly. This Shema passage from Deuteronomy 6 is a very rare case – there is only one other, 2 Kings 23:25 – where it takes a pronomial suffix and refers to a person’s capacity for “muchness.” Hence the King James version, and all… Read more »
Contemporary American Jews reject martyrdom. If you asked me to imagine a martyr I would probably think of a shahid, a Hamas suicide bomber, or a tortured Christian saint, whose eager pursuit of suffering seems creepy and masochistic. Judaism is a life-affirming religion and mistrusts any impulse to venerate death. We hold that “these are the mitzvot… Read more »
