Their knowledge, their existence, everything that they are is to love God with action, obedience, and covenant faithfulness. But the prayer continues, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” In other words, the people are to love God with all of their beings. This prayer is about listening to and loving God. This is why the words “listen” and “love” are so tightly connected and repeated through these opening speeches of Deuteronomy. If an Israelite loves God, they can more easily listen and respond to his teachings and guidance. Obedience to these laws is not about legalism or trying to earn God’s favor-it’s about love and active listening. Those terms are the laws and commands that will make up the body of the book (Deut. For Israel, loving means faithful obedience to the terms of their covenant relationship with Yahweh. You ahavah someone when you act in loyalty and faithfulness. Much like listening, biblical love is about action. Ahavah is not about the warm, fuzzy, emotional energy we feel when we like someone. What we translate into English as “love” here is the Hebrew word ahavah. The next instruction in the prayer is to love the Lord your God. In Hebrew, hearing and doing are the same thing. Here, the word shema means to allow the words to sink in, provide understanding, and generate a response-it’s about action. The opening line, “Hear, O Israel,” does not simply mean to let sound waves enter your ears. Let’s look closer at the powerful words of the Shema to understand why it was so important for Jewish people and how modern Christians can also find wisdom in this ancient prayer. But to do so, the people must learn to listen to and love God fully, above all else. He is urging them to not repeat the mistakes of their parents’ generation, wanting them to experience the full blessing of the promised land. In the opening section of Deuteronomy where this famous prayer first appears, Moses is addressing the new generation of Israel as they prepare to enter the promised land. This prayer has been one of the most influential traditions in Jewish history, functioning both as the Jewish pledge of allegiance and a hymn of praise. 15:37-41) and prayed these words every morning and every evening. Ancient Jewish people combined lines from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 with other passages from the Torah (Deut. The Shema gets its name from the first Hebrew word of the prayer-”hear” or “ listen”, a translation of the Hebrew word shema.
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