shema
(Hebrew, ‘hear’)Central prayer in the Jewish LITURGY. It is made up of three passages: Deut. 6:4-9; Deut. 11:13-21; and Num. 15: 37-41. It is recited twice every day, once in the morning and once in the evening. It should also be recited before death.

Deut:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one![b] 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 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.

Deut:13 ‘And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then I[b] will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’ 16 Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, 17 lest the LORD’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you. 18 “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.

Num:37 Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 38 “Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. 39 And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, 40 and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God. 41 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD your God.”

I found this while reading a weekly newletter from www.MyJewishLearning.com. I think it is important to understand the Jewish perspective to God, since they were originally His chosen, Jesus was a Jew, all the writers of the New Testament were Jews and the New Testament was based off a new understanding of the Old Testament.

In my opinion it is essential to understand the Jewish mentality, but to each their own.

Anyways, this article was about how to pick the Hebrew school for your child. I don’t have any children to send to Hebrew school, but since my childhood was devoid of education on God, I am interested in what others do.

I like how all three sections talk about keeping the Word of God close to them and in constant thought as not to stray. These verses are recited twice a day, everyday. It touches me that these hold true today.

We are sitting at our gate, watching the sun come up, wishing we could start the pilgrimage all over again. There are many things to report…

At the empty tomb

Before most of you dear readers went to bed on Sunday evening–after the glorious victory–we were already in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher.

We celebrated Holy Mass in the tomb of Christ itself, receiving the Lord’s Body and Blood in the very place where He rose from the dead.

…I neglected to mention earlier that some of us enjoyed camel rides by the Dead Sea…

…We visited the Mount of Olives:

At the top of it, the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven. On the slope of it, He taught His disciples the Our Father. He descended it on a donkey on Palm Sunday–we walked down the ancient pathway that He used.

At the bottom we prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In the Garden of Gethsemane

…We made the Way of the Cross right where the Lord Jesus made it…

…We visited the Pools of Bethesda. The Blessed Mother was born nearby, in the home of Joachim and Anne, near the Sheep Gate of the ancient wall of Jerusalem, near the Temple.

St. Anne, pray for us

…Schema, people: I have much more to tell. But it will have to await the gracious period of denouement after a holy pilgrimage.

We will board our flight home shortly. See you back in the homeland.

Saying goodbye to Jerusalem Regency hotel

This week, Rabbi Moshe Nechemia Reichman resumes his Gemara Brachot class, with a new course beginning from Daf 13A of Gemara Brachot.

In this Torah shiur (class) on Gemara Brachot, Rabbi Moshe Nechemia Reichman begins learning daf 13A, with a discussion of the halacha which states that one who is reading from a Sefer Torah fulfills his obligation to recite Kriat Shma daily if he reads the Kriat Shma from the Torah.

Have you ever asked yourself what is the “irreducible core” of Jesus’ teaching? Many commentators are asking that question today and there is a strong consensus that has developed. At its most basic and fundamental level Jesus calls upon us to fulfill what we know as the Great Commandment(s) and the Great Commission. These mandates are given in Matthew 22.37-39 and Matthew 28.18-20 respectively. Collectively, they lay out God’s vision for us, His people, as we look to the future. That vision is for us to live out our relationship with Him before others as we join Him in bringing His message of redemption and transformation to a world in need of hope and grace. Another pastor has said it this way: “It takes a great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to grow a great church.” And I would add…to transform the world, too.

What does God in these passages want from us? How are we to please Him in the living of our lives?

It starts with loving God above all else (Matthew 22.37-38). This was apparently a “hot theological topic” in Jesus’ day; not whether or not we should love God (we’ll return to that in a moment), but which is the greatest commandment of all (out of the 613 recorded in the Torah). At least three times in the record of Jesus’ public ministry He is asked about this, illustrating the on-going debate of His day. In each instance, Jesus points them to the Shema of Deuteronomy 6.5, which calls upon God’s people to live out a love for God that is “God’s kind of love (agape),” a kind we can only live because He had shared it with us. It is selfless, sacrificial and serving in nature. It is centered on others, not self. And it must be pervasive, enveloping the entirety of one’s being (heart..soul..mind); in other words, nothing in our being is to be held back for self in our love for God. He is to be the first (precedent) and greatest (priority) of our love and our life. The key is “all” belongs to Him; we must hold nothing back in our love for God.

Second, we are to love others as ourselves (Matthew 22.39). Jesus’ unique contribution to this on-going debate over the greatest commandment is that he attached this verse from Leviticus 19.18 as a corollary to the previous passage from Deuteronomy. In other words, you can’t truly love God as you should unless you love others as God also loves them. Note that we are to have the same kind of love (agape) for them as for God (though the original language had other words for the love of people toward each other). The love God has for us and that He gives us to offer back to Him is also the love we are to exhibit toward others. These “others” are called our neighbor here, a term Jesus explains in Luke 10 to mean anyone we are aware is in need (whether we actually are friends or neighbors doesn’t really matter). We are commanded to love them as we love ourselves (which we show as we are aware of our own needs, care for self, protect and provide what is needful, etc.). The key is that this love is to be “like” or “similar to” (not the same as) our love for God Himself. For too often it’s a pale imitation, at best.

Third, we are invited to join Christ in changing the world (Matthew 28.18-20). The Great Commission follows the Great Commandment in order; thus, Scripture argues that our “being” must be in order before our “doing.” In other words, it starts with the heart. Someone has said that before we have a Great Commission Resurgence we need to have a Great Commandment Resurgence. I agree. And when we do, we will go; no one will have to beg or cajole us. Our motivation will be pure and our burden deep for those around us. Notice that the command is to “go and make,” rather than have them “come and hear.” In other words, the burden is on the church to take the Gospel to the people, rather than on the people to come and find it. And we, the church, are commanded to take it to all peoples. Jesus’ reminds us in the process that He has all authority! He reminds us that He will never leave us! We go with Him, in His power and under His leadership. And as we go, we have the privilege of watching the Holy Spirit work His transforming change in the lives of people and communities to the glory of God.

What’s the future of our church you ask? What does God want us to do? While I will may never know what God will specifically lay on the heart of your pastor, I can tell you this: His mandate shared here is unchanging for you and me down through the ages.

• Love God
• Love Others
• Change the World

Will you join me?

Deuteronomy 6:4-5
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.

As I was reading the first two verses of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) in Hebrew yesterday morning, I was struck by the last word used in verse 5. The following is the Hebrew with my literal translation underneath:

וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ֥ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶֽךָ

“You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your very/exceedingly.”

What struck me about this word, מְאֹדֶֽךָ (me’od) is that it is almost always used as an adverb to qualify an adjective. For example, in Genesis 1:31, Moses writes, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very (me’od) good.” Yet, here we see this word being used as a noun: …with all your very/exceedingly.

BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs’ A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the OT) offers some definitions for this idiomatic use: muchness, force, abundance, exceedingly, might. TWOT (Theological Workbook of the OT) likewise comments: “They [heart, soul, and 'might'] were chosen to reinforce the absolute singularity of personal devotion to God…me’od accents the superlative degree of total commitment to Yahweh. The NT struggles to express the depth of the word me’od at this spot. In the quotation in Mk 12:30 it is rendered “mind and strength,” in Lk 10:27 it is “strength and mind,” in Mt 22:37 simply “mind.”

Are we not reminded of this kind of violent devotion and pursuit of the Lord from the Gospels and Paul?

Matthew 11:12
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

Luke 13:24
Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Luke 16:16
The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.

Philippians 3:12-14
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Do you think of your pursuit of God with these kinds of words: taking the kingdom by force, forcing your way in, striving to enter, pressing on, and straining forward? Is your Christian life characterized by these words?

You see, we must be violent in our devotion to Christ. We must be violent against sin and anything that seeks to steal and supplant our affections for Christ. We must be violent in confessing and repenting of our sin and constantly putting our faith in Christ. With all vigilance we must strive to enter by the narrow gate, because Jesus tells us in the passage above that some will try to enter and will not be able to. We must pursue total commitment to Yahweh by loving Him with all strength and might and we do this by following, obeying, and delighting in His law and commandments (cf. Psalm 119). With vigor and force, we must renounce all ungodliness in our lives, and violently pursue holiness, for the author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 12:14: “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

This is beginning to get at what it means to love Yahweh “with all your exceedingly.”

You see, one can recite Deuteronomy 6:4 and have a very Biblical and orthodox belief concerning God (just like the demons, cf. James 2:19), but at the end of the day, if Deuteronomy 6:5 is not a reality, if holiness is seen as optional, if pursuing Christ with every fiber of your being is extra or additional, if renouncing wickedness and ungodliness is not a priority, then perhaps while everyone is forcing their way into the kingdom, you are simply sitting back and relaxing, thinking, “Oh, there will always be room for one more later. I’ll try later when it’s not so busy.” Yet, it will always be crowded and busy, and the time will come when there is no longer time to force your way in.

Then what will you do?

“‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

I would say that Jesus added two things to the Shema:

1. You shall love the Lord you God with all your mind
The Greek word for mind is ‘dianoia’ and could be translated as ‘will power.’ We receive this will power when we are born again as the Lord at that moment puts the Law into our minds (Hebrews 8:10; 10:16). This addition matches the addition of the porch to Solomon’s temple to the original tabernacle. The porch represents the entrance or doorway between our life into our hearts, and thus determines which direction we take, ours or God’s.

2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself
This is echoed in John 13:34-35 where He says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The Greek word for new (kainos) here implies freshness rather than recent or different. It’s for instance also used in 2 Corinthians 5:17 (“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation“). It’s not that Jesus just invented this command, but that He presents it in a new and fresh way. So what’s so fresh about it? Whereas the Old Testament demanded that men should love their neighbors as themselves (Lev. 19:18), the New Commandment is that they should love the brothers better than themselves, and die for their friends. The command to love wasn’t new, but the extent of love just displayed by Jesus was new, as would be the display of the cross. Love was newly defined from His example.

To love as Jesus loved results in to serve as Jesus served. The key verse here is Galatians 5:13-14: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” Clearly, we can choose to use freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. That option (or danger) is open to us. We can take the glorious freedom Jesus has given us, spin it, and use it as a way to please ourselves at the expense of others. This is the antidote for using freedom as an occasion for the flesh. The flesh expects others to conform to us, and doesn’t care much about others. But when we through love serve one another, we conquer the flesh. This is exactly the pattern set by Jesus. He had more freedom than anyone who ever walked this earth did. Yet He used His liberty to through love serve one another. The idea is that as we naturally take care of ourselves, we should also take care of others.

I am, at least for a time, reordering my days.

This morning I slept in until 6:30. By the time noon rolled around, I’d checked in on the online world, been to the gym, sat still with the Father, read from A Praying Life, done dishes and laundry, vacuumed a day’s portion of mud from my living room carpet, attended a business meeting and talked to the outplacement folks.

I even saw my kids standing upright before they left for school instead of the hunched shapes that would grunt back from under blankets when I stepped into their darkened rooms to whisper, “Love you, Bud. Have a good day at school.”

From rising late to leisurely reading in the daytime, this takes some serious reordering. I didn’t even drink my coffee until nearly 9:30. This is not how I am accustomed to spending my days.

Not that I’m complaining.

With the exception of the housekeeping, I relished the morning.

But at 9:00 this morning, I jumped.

(Just a little.)

And then I remembered: God still calls at home.

This part of my day, while all else changes, this part remains the same.

::

About many things, I am not a natural.

I do not spontaneously remember God. He is not always my first thought. I do not always readily recognize the divine.

I need to be reminded.

Last winter, I asked God to do just that. To remind me.

Now, every day at 9:00 and noon, He calls.

On my phone.

Oh, we spend our time together during the day. We talk; we listen. I open the Word; He opens my heart. But once that time passes, life distracts me and I forget. I set Him back down in a worn out box and go about my business. And sometimes, I’ll admit, I forget where I left Him.

And so, I’ve asked Him to call.

I’ve asked Him to interrupt me.

::

Today, at 9:00, He did. Just like He always does.

And it startled me. My routine had changed. Things were out of order. Way out of order.

And yet, He knew when to call. He knew when to interrupt.

He knew when to remind me.

This routine we do, this morning call, it fills me up. I remember Who He is. And who I am. And why I’m here.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad.

Shema – Hear

Yisrael — Israel

Adonai – Lord

Eloheinu – Our God

Adonai – Lord

Ehad – One

It’s what He told His children to do way back in Deuteronomy, because they were prone to forget just like me. He told them to paint this on doorframes and gates, to write it on hands and bind it to foreheads, and to talk about it all day long.

I have reminders on my wrist, hung on my wall, stacked on my desk. And sometimes I still forget.

But God? God still calls at home.

He still knows my number. And I guess that surprised me today.

::

When the sun hung straight overhead today, He called again. He always calls at noon, too.

This time, He didn’t startle me. When I heard Him buzzing, I was ready for Him.

I knew He’d be calling, reminding me of this truth I am so slow to believe.

Though my days are reordered, some things remain the same. Tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m. Central Standard Time, He will call me again.

At home.

He will tell me Who He is, who I am, and why I’m here.

He always does.

What time will He be calling you?

::

Lessons designated by the Common Lectionary include: Ruth 1:1-8,
Psalm 146, Hebrews 9: 11-14 and Mark 12: 28-34

“At the Heart of our Faith”

“One of the scribes came near and…asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “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 mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 28-31)

In our lection this week, we hear Jesus quoting from the Shema (Deut. 6:4-5) Mark, however, adds the phrase “with all your mind” thus making the commandment an even greater single-minded commitment on the part of those who would follow the path and teaching of Jesus. The commandment is intended, according to my commentary, not for the general public but for that community choosing to follow Jesus. Our lection this week is at the heart of our faith and its challenge is humbling to the bravest and smartest and most talented among us.

We’re to treat others as we ourselves would be treated. That command is more than a hint about getting along with others we know. Rather, it is intended to go way beyond individual “making friends and influencing people” kinds of interaction in isolation from the larger national and world community. One recent insight into this truth came to me during a visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Hundreds of thousands of visitors travel to this remote New England town to savor the work of this profound illustrator and artist as he tells stories in the work he has created. From 1916 through 1967 his art framed the covers of “The Saturday Evening Post” and the hundreds of them give great insight into the history of our nation. But the room of the museum that especially attracted me was devoted to Rockwell’s paintings illustrating the “Four Freedoms” articulated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941 at a time of increasing national anxiety. Belgium, Holland and France had been impaled by Nazi Germany and Norway just invaded. Japan was threatening. In an address to the congress, Roosevelt laid out some objectives that he hoped might arise from building a lasting peace. He called for “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms: The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear — which translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.” These are words that can hardly be considered out of date.
So that when our nation thinks seriously about “nation building” in places like Afghanistan today, one of my first questions is this: If we can’t build our own nation, “securing economic understandings which will secure …a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants,” how can be build one whose culture and history we know so little about?

Let me quote from Bob Herbert in his recent (10/13/09) column in the New York Times. He writes: “Whether it’s Newark, Detroit, parts of Chicago, Camden, N.J. — take your pick — we’ve looked the other way for decades as the residents of hard-core inner-city neighborhoods struggled with overwhelming life-threatening problems and a chronic shortage of resources, financial and otherwise.”

Herbert continues: “We’re having an intense national debate over whether to move ahead with nation-building in Afghanistan and to continue protecting the population in places like Kabul and Kandahar while all but ignoring the violence that is consuming the lives of boys and girls in Chicago, America’s third largest city…While mulling the prospect of sending up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan we’ve stood idly by, mute as a stone, as school districts across the nation have bounced 40,000 teachers out of their jobs over the past year.”

You get the idea. As a nation, we’re doing a great job in violating the basic challenge of Jesus to treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves. We sit passively as our congress awards itself a magnificent health care plan while so many in that body seem willing to capitulate to the special interest moneyed lobbyists of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. We watch while our military representing a tiny and unrepresentative portion of our population fights wars in places and among people they clearly do not understand. And with a tired army supplemented by career mercenaries paid by “for profit” corporations like Blackwater, a name that became so infamous and sinister its name was changed to something abstract and innocuous. All of this does make one wonder whether we’d be engaged as we are if there were a universal draft and a more representative military. But our society no longer has the stomach for that. Too many of us allow an increasingly desperate job-despairing and disappearing middle-class or the easily hooked by promises of adventure inner-city youth fight these battles! Not exactly the message and command of Jesus, is it?

Still, we come again to the “heart of our faith” and its command not suggestion that we are to treat our neighbor as we would like to be treated ourselves. It’s our “impossible possibility” as well as our eternal task!

Ralph Ahlberg

Hi folks

Been reflecting on this Sunday’s gospel: Mark 12:28-34.  As I’ve done so, I’m drawn back to the great words from Deuteronomy 6 – the Shema, which Jesus quotes from, as well as from Leviticus 19:18. I remember, in Old Testament Pentateuch studies almost 10 years ago back at college, doing a decent-length assignment on the Shema.  Its imperative for all of us in Christian Education with not just kids but all ages never leaves me.  Have I been brilliant at it, including with my own now-adult kids.  I’m sure not.  But the words of scripture don’t call me to attain the heights of a VHA with all of this, or a High Distinction.  The call of God is to love God with all of our being; but then to not leave it at that – to express this love relationship in our daily encounters and relationships in the world and to be intentional about teaching this to our children of all ages.

So … I’ve just written a somewhat-reflective song.  Couldn’t find an appropriate song to end my sermon this Sunday night. Didn’t want to use the old, hand-clapping round from the 1970s. So, as so often happens, the Spirit inspires me to write something.  Still a bit of a work in progress.  I’ll post a lead-sheet later today, but for now, here’s Draft 1 of Love the Lord your God (with all your heart)

Love the Lord your God (with all your heart)

• each line is echoed/repeated; either using the cantor – congregation pattern OR a male/female thing.  Your call.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart
Love the Lord your God with all your mind
Love the Lord your God with all your strength
and with all your soul

Love your neighbour as you love yourself
Love your neighbour as you love yourself
Love your neighbour as you love yourself
with the love of God

Teach it to your children through each day
Teach it to your children through each day
Teach it to your children through each day
and your whole life long

Love the Lord our God with all our heart
Love the Lord our God with all our mind
Love the Lord our God with all our strength
and with all our soul
and our whole life long
… as the Kingdom comes

David MacGregor
© 2009  Willow Publishing
Inspired by Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Mark 12:29-33

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (NRSV)

A minister told his congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read in advance Mark chapter 17.”

The following Sunday, as he prepared to deliver his sermon, the minister asked for a show of hands. He wanted to know how many had read Mark 17. Every hand went up. The minister smiled and said, “Mark has only sixteen chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.”

I think we would all agree that lying is wrong.  We were probably all taught early on in life that lying, and many other things are bad things to do.  Now as adults we might say that these things are unethical.  Ethics are described as a set of moral principles.  We as Christians adhere to a certain set of moral principles referred to as Christian Ethics, that is, ethics that are Christ-like.

But where do we learn our Christian ethics?  And more importantly, how do we develop into the kinds of people that live out what we believe when we get right down to the nitty gritty of things?  Today I hope to show you that Christian ethics are best learned and developed within the gathered body of believers that we commonly refer to as the church.  Let’s begin by looking at our scripture for this morning.

            Our text for today is a very well known section of scripture often referred to as “The Shema”, named for the first word of verse 4 in Hebrew.  Shema means hear.  Most of us probably know at least part of this scripture because when Jesus was approached and asked which of the commandments was the greatest, he lifted out verse 5 as the most important command out of all of the commandments.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 

To the Jewish person, living today or living two thousand years ago, the Shema was a daily part of their lives.  A devout Jew even to this day still repeats the Shema twice a day; once when they wake up and once before they go to bed.  Some would even recite it more often than that!  But the minimum of two times a day comes from the end of verse 7 which says to recite these words, among other times, when you lie down and when you rise.  Recite these words, time and time again, until they become more than just words to you.  Recite these words until they become a part of your life and a part of your in-most being.

            They say that practice makes perfect.  I don’t know that this is true, because obviously you can practice something in the wrong way and it will not be perfect.  But it will be ingrained in your skull in a particular way.  That is why some people have taken to the saying, “Practice makes permanent.”

            For instance, I don’t have a lot of experience in construction.  I may have other gifts that I am to pursue, but I am not overly gifted at erecting buildings.  But I like to get outside and swing a hammer every now and then.  So I was very quick to offer my assistance a week ago in helping a friend frame a barn.  I quickly realized that I was out of my league.

            You can tell how much experience someone has by a few basic criteria:  How many swings of a hammer does it take them to pound in a nail, do they know the right name for parts of the building like fascia, top plate, and bird’s mouth.  The crew that I worked with was skilled, they were proficient, they knew what they were doing.  And they didn’t get to that point by reading magazines or watching “This Old House” on PBS.  As we sat around the table at lunch I noticed that mine were the only fingernails that were pink at the beginning of the day and now had hints of a deep purple, and I realized that these guys had done this before.  Swinging a hammer to them was like second nature.  Swinging a hammer to me was…well…painful!  I probably hit as many finger nails as I hit framing nails.

            Verse six from our scripture says, “6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.”  How do you get them into your heart?  Verse 7-9, “7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

            Devout Jews today obviously take this very seriously.  Like I said, twice a day they recite the Shema.  Some do bind these words on their hands and on their foreheads in the form of phylacteries.  Some do write them on the doorposts of their homes and of their gates in the form of mezuzahs.  The point in doing this is not so that you have the words close by in case you ever forget them and it isn’t because these words possess some kind of supernatural power to protect you from evil and harm.  The point is that the words of God that are to shape our life, to shape our very being need to be ever-present.  They need to be on the tips of our tongue, they need to be at our fingertips, they need to be on our minds at all times, and they need to be in our hearts.  And by immersing ourselves in a culture where the word of God is so prevalent, the teachings of God will manifest themselves in our lives.  Like driving in a nail, practice makes permanent.

            Some people have argued that ethical training, knowing what is right and what is wrong, comes from logic and education.  The theory goes, “If you know what is right and what is wrong, you will choose to do what is right.”  Well, I’m not so sure that I agree with that.

            The apostle Paul writes in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” and picking up in verse 19, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

            Paul is saying that even though he knows what is good and what is evil, he still often does not do the things that he knows he should do, but instead does the very things that he knows that he should not be doing.

            I would say that we must first know what is right and what is wrong in order to do what is right and not do what is wrong.  But just knowing right from wrong is no assurance that we will always do what is right.  It’s like this.  I could read all of the books ever written about how to build a barn and I could watch a million swings of a hammer by a million different carpenters.  But none of these things would keep me from hitting my finger with the hammer when I try to drive a nail.  The thing that will keep me from hitting my own finger is practice and real-life experience.

            So how do we develop ethical Christians; ethical children and ethical adults?  How do we get the words of God within our hearts?  How do we foster within one another a desire to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, and might as well as loving our neighbor as ourselves? 

            John Roth, professor of history at Goshen College, has written a wonderful book titled Practices: Mennonite Worship and Witness that I borrowed from the library recently and I love the way he connects worship with the ethical development in Christians.

            Roth brings his readers’ attention to a story that is all too familiar to many of us: the West Nickel Mines Amish School shooting that took place now over three years ago.  Charles Roberts bound and shot, execution style, 10 Amish girls ranging in age from 6-13.  Five of the 10 girls died from their wounds, as did Roberts, who turned the gun on himself after the shooting.

            We all know what we should do in that situation.  If we were the parents of one of the children that was shot and killed, there wouldn’t be any doubt in our minds as to what we should do.  We all know that we should forgive the killer and care for his family.  The thing that strikes so many of us is that the Amish community did just what they knew that they should do.

            Nobody expected that of the Amish community.  Our society would not hold it against the parents of Naomi Ebersole, the youngest girl shot and killed, if they held a grudge against Roberts and his family.  Our society would not hold it against the family of Rosanna King, the six-year-old that has been forced to live out her young life in a wheel chair and severely disabled, if they hated the man who did that to their daughter.  But they didn’t.  They forgave.

            This act of forgiveness is not rational to many of us modern-day thinkers.  It is not rational because that is not a part of the society in which we live.  If someone doesn’t shovel their sidewalk and we slip and fall in the winter time, we do not forgive them.  We sue them.  When someone calls us a bad name behind our backs and word of it gets back to us, we don’t forgive and forget.  We retaliate.  It even seems to be a competition among some people to see who can say the worst things about another person.  Forgiveness is not a part of our society.  But forgiveness is a part of the counter-cultural community that meets regularly to worship our risen Lord.  Forgiveness is essential to the life and livelihood of the church.

            Those in the Amish community of West Nickel Mines meet regularly for worship and to hear stories of God’s forgiveness for his people and how we are to forgive others because we have been forgiven.  Those in the Amish community of West Nickel Mines not only heard these teachings, but they saw them being lived out in the daily lives of their fellow believers.  Forgiveness is a part of the society in which they live.  So when they were faced with the option of holding a grudge against Charles Roberts and his family, or forgiving them, there really wasn’t a question as to which they would do.  Forgiveness was so engrained in their understanding of the lifestyle that they were called to live as Christians that it became second nature.

            Our ethical decisions do not simply come from knowing right from wrong, they come from being in, living in, residing in a community that talks about and demonstrates these kingdom ethics every day of their lives.  Our ethical decisions as parents in our own homes influence our children and they influence our spouses, and even the neighborhood children.  Our ethical decisions in the church form each and every one of us into people no longer conformed to the ways of the world, but transformed into the image of Christ.

            Imagine if you will, looking at a church service through the young eyes of John Harvey Cassel (who was dedicated earlier in the service).  We begin by singing praises to God, the creator of heaven and earth.  Then we have a time for announcements.  As we look at the announcements we see what is important to this church: fellowship, retreats, sharing with those less fortunate than ourselves, leadership, and stewardship.  As we move on in our service we have a call to worship, focusing our attention on why we are gathered today.  There is then a children’s time, showing that we believe that we are called to teach the younger generation the ways of God and that everyone, no matter how old or young they might be, is important.  Then we spend more time praising God through music, which forms us theologically as we sing about God and to God.  Then we take up an offering, saying, “Times might be tough, and though I would love to keep this money and spend it on myself, I am giving it to the church to fund the kingdom work set before us.”  Then we share in one another’s joys and concerns and bring these things to the Lord in prayer.  Then there is a time of reading the Scriptures together, hearing the word of God, followed by a time of explaining what we have just heard and how to apply it to our daily lives.  We sing some more, and we close with a blessing and a charge to manifest the kingdom of God in our lives and through our lives in the rest of the world.

            John Harvey may not know it now, but these things are shaping him into a follower of Jesus Christ.  Even this morning, when his parents decided that they were not going to stay in bed late or do something that might be considered more fun, but instead would come here, John saw choices being made, priorities being lived out.  So while I hope that John Harvey never is put in a situation like the Amish community in West Nickel Mines, I believe that his parents and we as a church are taking the right steps and doing the right things so that if he is faced with such an ethical decision he will not have to ponder whether or not to forgive, but rather he will instinctively follow Jesus because he has grown up in a community that does just that.

            Swinging a hammer is an easy thing to do.  Most people can do it.  All it takes is the ability to grasp and lift it and allow it to fall back toward the earth.  However, hitting the nail on the head takes practice.  That is what we are doing here today, we are practicing.  We are practicing kingdom ethics within the church so that we are formed in the image of Christ and will instinctively choose to follow him when we find ourselves in a situation that requires that we make a difficult decision.

            We do not recite the commandments of God throughout the day or bind them on our hands, foreheads, and doorposts for any reason other than to train ourselves in how to live for God.  It is my prayer today that we will be so immersed in God’s will throughout our days, in our churches and in our homes, that when we are challenged to do what is right, we will instinctively know what it means to follow our risen Lord.  We live in the word so that we might live out the word.

Recently my Mom was visiting with us and it was pure torture for my wife. Not because she does not love my Mom, she does dearly. But between my Mom and I we were driving her nuts with “ugh?”, “What did you say?”, “I didn’t hear you.”  Apparently, my mom’s hearing is getting as bad as mine and we were pushing my wife to the edge.

I’ve had poor hearing for several years and gone through at least three sets of hearing aids. Yes, the hearing aids improved my hearing, but they drove me crazy with the itching and repeat ear infections so I stopped wearing them. Consequently my wife puts up with having to constantly repeat herself, I miss bits of conversations with friends, and I must ask my co-workers to repeat themselves once, twice, or three times before I understand what they are saying. Not a good thing for sure.

Right now I have my hearing aids in. I hear the keys on my keyboard, the whirl of the hard drive, things I don’t normally hear. There are a great many other things I don’t normally hear without my hearing aids. You could expect the normal things like kids playing in the yard next door and birds chirpping. But there are everyday sounds that many of us don’t really process until we can’t hear them. For example;  the shuffle of my feet on the carpet, the rustle of unwrapping a Pop-Tart, the splash of pee in the toilet, wind rustling past your ears, the fridge running or the soft sound of your spouse breathing as she sleeps next to you and more. In fact, for me, with my hearing aids in the world is a very noisy place.  Sounds that are commonplace for regular hearing folks have become a distraction to me.

There is a spiritual side to this as well. I don’t hear God as well as I used to either. It’s not because I don’t listen, it’s because I don’t always hear. Or if I do hear, I don’t always like what I hear. It can be a distraction from my routine and so I tune it out.

Jesus was asked by one of the scribes in Mark 12:28, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered with the Jewish Shema from Deut. 6:4, “Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” 

The emphasis in this phrase is not so much the love or the heart, soul, mind or strength. The key to this verse is shema – “listen” or “hear”. Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord in the garden, God heard Israel’s cry of oppression under Pharoah’s thumb. David cries out to God, “hear my prayer O God.”  If we do not hear or will not listen, we miss  what God is attempting to say to us. Naturally, God speaks today through his word – that involves reading. But if we do not hear the words or listen to the instruction we are simply doing the exercise of flipping pages.

Just like sounds I’ve forgotten, my heart and mind often fails to hear the words of scripture. I miss the intimacy of prayer because I speak and seldom listen.  Perhaps it is time to put my spiritual hearing aids on and become tuned in  to the sounds of God’s presence, the power of his word, and the joy of his salvation.

an artistic rendering of the hebrew shema, from deuteronomy

this sunday, we’ll get into brian mclaren’s book, the secret message of jesus. before sunday, as we gear up for our discussion, we should think through a few things together.

“is the gospel good news for christians only?” this is one of the questions that mclaren poses fairly early on in his book, and it’s not a very difficult to see why one might wonder. in the most basic meaning of the word, the gospel is understood as “good news”; in greek it is the euangelion, which is derived from the same terminology for an announcement, or public address. anyone with a background in marketing knows the progression of thought from here all too well: once you have a message, you have to figure out who it’s for. who’s listening?

bring that thought into contact with what the prophet jeremiah writes about the hebrew exile:

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

why in the world would God tell the people of israel, God’s chosen people, to “seek the welfare of the city” of babylon? those of us who have been involved in christian circles for a good period of time might be a little more familiar with the very next thing that jeremiah says:

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord. For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

recognize that? i know that i do: jeremiah 29:11 was the “theme verse” of my high-school graduation ceremony. in that context, though, nobody was talking about exile. nobody mentioned anything about seeking a city’s welfare that often seems to have nothing to do with God’s plans. to confess the truth, i delivered the valedictorian speech, but it took me a long time to see the bigger picture. i would be willing to bet that i’m not the only one who has heard this particular verse in a setting like that before.

what was missing for me as a high-school senior is that it seems like a big part of God’s plan for the welfare of his people includes how they treat their neighbors, their actual neighbors, even the ones that have brought them into exile. part of israel’s confessional identity that speaks directly to this point. in leviticus, we find commandment “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”; this command concludes an entire section of the scripture that talks about how one should interact with one’s neighbor, it is the summation of the relationship.

brilliantly, and with tremendous implications, Jesus pairs this command with one that would go off like a bombshell in the minds of his jewish listeners. in deuteronomy we find the hebrew shema (which means “listen”), the most basic confession of faith: “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.” this is like the “Jesus-loves-me-this-i-know” of the hebrew world; it’s the most basic, core statement of what it means to be part of God’s people.

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” and he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. this is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. on these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

now come back all the way around to our initial question: “is the gospel good news for christians only?” the gospel message is about loving God and loving our neighbors. it seems that the more we allow our actions to coincide with our love, the better off our neighbors will be. right?

but that opens up a whole new set of questions. jeremiah points us toward a possible answer, but what does it mean to “seek the welfare of the city”? what are the actions that exhibit a love for one’s neighbor?

what do you think?

see you sunday.

Yesus, pernah hidup lebih kurang 33 tahun sebagai manusia di dunia ini.
Walau Perjanjian Baru menjelaskannya dengan baik, tetapi kisah-kisah sejarah tentu lebih disenangi orang-orang tertentu, sehingga kelihatan lebih universal. Kisah yang hilang dari suatu umur tertentu sampai genap ke umurNya ke-30 juga turut membuat keramaian.

Konsep-konsep tentang Yang Kudus terkurung di dalam daging tentu sangat salah.
Konsep-konsep tentang Roh juga salah, sebab dijelaskan, Ia adalah manusia. Ia menjadi manusia, punya daging, punya roh dan punya jiwa.

Selama 33 tahun Ia adalah manusia.
Tetapi manusia yang bagaimana? inilah pertanyaannya.
Awam mungkin sangat bingung dengan pembacaan Perjanjian Baru, sebab dituliskan Tuhan, Tuan,.. Yesus adalah Tuhan. Bagaimana mungkin Yang Maha Kuasa menjadi lemah, terlalu munusiawi.
Bingung karena tidak dapat menerima bahwa Perjanjian Baru sudah ditulis setelah kebangkitan YESUS atau tepatnya setelah YESUS sudah naik ke sorga. Penjelasan dan theofani yang Agung telah dituliskan di dalam peristiwa penampakan-penampakan YESUS setelah kebangkitan dari kubur. Ia bisa makan makanan manusia, daging, dan Ia bisa berada di mana-mana, Roh. Terlebih Ia terangkat ke atas, yang digambarkan sebagai sorga, ya sorga digambarkan di atas, bukan di bawah, di bawah adalah kematian.
KebangkitanNYA adalah, Ia sudah tidak merasakan penderitaan, sudah tidak merasakan sakit, Ia sudah tidak merasakan kematian lagi, sebab IA sudah dalam keadaanNYA yang berkuasa, Ia hidup sampai selama-lamanya. Daging yang bangkit itu bukan lagi daging yang 33 tahun sebelumnya.

Terlebih para pendahulu iman kita adalah manusia yang ber-shema :”Shema Yishrael, Adanoi Eloheinu, Adonai Echad”, mereka akan menjadi pembangkang-pembangkang, perusak, jika mereka menyembah ALLAH selain Sang Adonai. Tetapi pahamilah mereka-mereka ini meluruskan pandangan, mewariskan ajaran, kepada kita, bahwa Sang Adonai-lah yang telah mereka lihat, yang telah mereka saksikan, yang tadinya mereka ragu, sekarang sudah nyata Kasih-Nya. Theofani yang luar biasa, Theofani yang dirindu-rindukan oleh para nabi.
Yaitu penampakan SANG KUASA dalam rangka memperdamaikan seluruh manusia dengan ALLAH.

Dan karena Yesus adalah Sang Adonai, maka kepada DIA-lah segala hormat dan kemulian dari sekarang sampai selama-lamanya.

Hati-hatilah terhadap pengajaran-pengajaran, ujilah segala sesuatu.
Ini ada beberapa contoh pengajaran itu,
1. bahwa Yesus yang lain sudah ada, yaitu Mesias, Penolong buat bangsa yang bukan Israel, karena Yesus yang pertama tadi hanya utusan bagi Israel, maka inilah Yesus buat dunia yang lain.
2. pengakuan Yesus telah datang ke dua kali.
3. dan lain sebagainya, rupa-rupa memperilah orang-orang yang dianggap kudus.

Ya, Yesus telah pernah menjadi manusia, 33 tahun, karena IA harus menjadi manusia untuk menebus manusia.
Tetapi tambahkan jugalah dengan rendah hati ke dalam perbendaharaanmu, bahwa Yesus yang sekarang yang kita kenal adalah YESUS yang HIDUP sampai selama-lamanya.

DIA adalah Yang Awal dan Yang Akhir.

9|20|2009

El Echad means “The One God” and reminds us of the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).  I put an egg (whole, raw) in the Treasure Box to pique everyone’s interest. After examining the egg (and determining whether it was a bird egg, or, possibly a dinosaur egg), we recited the Shema together:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

I asked the children to recite the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme with me. Then we headed outside for a quick science experiment. One of the children dropped the egg into a bowl, breaking it. Two of the other children attempted to put the egg back together — just like Humpty Dumpty.  They were unable to successfully put the egg back together, and we all determined it was an impossible task.

Back inside I told the story from Genesis 3 of Adam and Eve sinning and breaking their perfect union with God. We talked about how things we do that are wrong are called sin, and those sins break us just like the egg was broken. Also, there are things others do to us that hurt us, and break us. Just like we couldn’t fix the egg, no amount of trying on our own will put us back together after we’ve been broken. But, the good news is that God can put us back together. He even has a name, El Echad, which means one or whole and complete. God wants us to be whole so badly that he sent his Son, Jesus, to put us back together by dying on the cross for us. All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put Humpty together again, but God, our King has a man, Jesus, who can put broken Humpties together again. We thanked God for sending Jesus to put us and the whole world together again.

El Echad puzzle banner

The banner was a puzzle to continue the emphasis of putting broken pieces together. It was a lot of fun to do!

In our world (the Earth and the people of Earth) evil very seldom goes unchallenged, by someone. Our history books tell of those who rose to power and abused that power to bring about great evil, yet there is always a hero if you will, or someone who rises up out from among the sons of men to bring down the harbringer of ‘Evil’.
Yet evil manages to surface time and again, reminding us that it is not yet finally vanquished.
Though we may wonder why it is that evil is still allowed to continue, even after what Jesus went through in his battle against the personification of evil, namely the ‘Devil’ ?

The reason is actually quite simple, the battle is not yet ended; though the battle has been won, the final end of wickedness has been held back to allow the true sons and daughters of the living God to be born from among the sons and daughters of men.
Some mistakenly teach a Kingdom Now! and forget that Jesus said that only the Father knows the time of that event. Yet men and women still bury their heads in the Scriptures in an attempt to either insist upon such a thing as concluded, or give an actual date. Both ideas are bad mistakes and ignore the fact that Jesus is supposed to return to put and end to the reign of Satan, and those whose hearts belong to him.

The only question on my mind right now is … Are you ready ?

After some years of posting to a Theological Forum, which has a small Apologetics sub-forum, I decided to ‘pop the question’ to those who are still ’sitting on the fence’.

‘Are you ready?’ “click here”

It is still a new discussion, but it will hopefully represent the thoughts of those who still think that there is a good enough reason not to. Those who contribute are from quite a wide cross-section of belief systems so it should be worth a read. Please remember it is a casual forum, so there is always a degree of one-line humour but hopefully someone might be right where you are now, and maybe you are thinking about what it means to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself’ ?

( These very words Jesus used when answering the age old question, ‘what is the most important thing for us to do ?’ What is it that pleases our Maker ? )

“Are you ready ?”

So, I started looking for the single premise from which everything else comes.  That may not seem like the right question for you, but it seemed right to me — and in fact, still does.

Eventually, I settled — likely to no one’s surprise on the following passage from Matthew 22:34-40 (quoted here from The Message)

The Most Important Command

34-36 When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

37-40 Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

After all, we’ve got Jesus saying everything in God’s Law comes from these two commands.  It seems pretty clear.

One of my personal guidelines is that the simplest answer is generally the best answer.  Answers cannot always be simple, but those are still the best ones.  And this passage seems to fit that requirement.  Although I confess, I’m continually a little amazed how many believers seem to refute that these are the most important commands.  They both seem to, and often admit to, placing other, more detailed commands ahead of these.  But ultimately, each of us is accountable for what we individually believe — so, to each his, or her, own.

After finally settling on these, I began contemplating what they really mean.  They are such fundamental principles that they may be simple to quote, but they are very difficult to fully apply to life.

My contemplations resulted in two dilemmas, which I could not easily resolve:

• What does it really mean to love God?

Now, I get it that my love for God should be all consuming — at least that’s how I understand the implications of the heart, soul, strength and mind references.  But what can I really do for God.  Sure, I can worship him, as I should.  But I also have no illusion that God does not need my love in order to be God.  God is not changed by my love for him.  Much more likely is that I am changed by my love for God.  So, I didn’t know exactly the implications of loving God so completely.

• What does it mean to love my neighbor as myself?

Some folks get preoccupied with the “who is my neighbor? question, but the story of the Samaritan, to me, pretty much clarified that, at the very least, my neighbor is anyone with whom I come into contact, anyone, anytime.

But the other question is what does it mean to love someone the way I love myself?  I mean, I know some people who really treat themselves poorly.  And what would this verse mean about how they treat others.  Surely, it’s not a basis to treat other poorly, just because I have a bad attitude about myself, or whatever.

So, I struggled with what the standard is for loving.

And a related question is the question of what is even means to love.  There are six different Greek words for love, but us English speakers are stuck with just one.  Got to find a better word for love, too.

Chapter 1 of Berachot is focused on technical issues realated to the Shema (i.e. proper times and disposition of  Blessings).  Chapters 2 and 3 continue the discussion of the Shema.

Mishna: Zeraim, Berachot, 1:5

Summary: The Mishna discusses the requirement of mentioning the Exodus from Eqypt each evening.

Conclusion(s): The Exodus must be mentioned each evening.

Observation(s): The section on Tzitzit is included in the evening prayer as part of the Shema even though there is no requirement to don the Talit at night.  This entire Mishna is included in the Haggadah.

Mishna: Zeraim, Berachot, 1:4

Summary: The Mishna discusses which blessing should be recited before and after the Shema.

Conclusion(s): Morning: 2 before and 1 after.  Evening: 2 before and 2 after.  Also the Mishna concludes that the blessings as established by the Sages cannot be changed.

Observation(s): The Mishna does not specify the blessings.  It just assumes that they are known.  I assume the order is as follows:  Morning: Ahava Rabba, Yotzer Hamaoros, Shema, Emes V’yatziv. Evening: M’Ariv Aruvim, Ahavas Olum, Shema, Emes V’emunah, Hashkivenu.

Mishna: Zeraim, Berachot, 1:3

Summary: The Mishna discusses the appropriate position to be in when reciting the Shema, standing or laying down.

Conclusion(s): Whatever position one happens to be in at the correct time (Beis Hillel)

Observation(s): This Mishna is the first instance of the preference for the rulings of the School of Hillel over those of the School of Shammai.  The Mishna relates an interesting anecdote about Rabbi Tarfon who is accosted by thieves when they find him reciting the Shema laying down is accordance with Shammai.  I assume the story is meant to illustrate how universal the Hillel preference was if even criminals are aware of it.

Mishna: Zeraim, Berachot, 1:2

Summary: The Mishna discusses the appropriate time window for recitation of the morning Shema.

Conclusion(s): Start time: When colors can be distinguished (white vs. blue or blue vs. green. End time: The third hour (R. Eliezer says sunrise).  Saying the Shema later is not prohibited as it is considered Torah study.

Observation(s): I am wondering whether the end time of dawn for the evening Shema can overlab with the start time of the morning Shema.