The Greatest Commandment

How the Sh'ma Leads to More Love in Your Life

Irene Lipson

• Publisher: Messianic Jewish Communications
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781936716081
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The Messiah said the Sh'ma was the greatest commandment. This book explains why.

CONTENTS

Foreword

The Sh’ma

Introduction—Introducing the Sh’ma

A CALL TO LISTEN

Chapter 1	Hear
Chapter 2	Isra’el
Chapter 3	The Lord Our God
Chapter 4	The Lord Is One
Chapter 5	Blessed Be His Glorious Name
Chapter 6	Whose Kingdom Is Forever And Ever

A CALL TO LOVE

Chapter 7	And You Shall Love The Lord Your God
Chapter 8	With All Your Heart
Chapter 9	With All Your Being
Chapter 10	With All Your Resources

A CALL TO DO

Chapter 11	Love Your Neighbor As Yourself
Chapter 12	On Your Heart
Chapter 13	Teach Them Carefully To Your Children
Chapter 14	Talk About Them
Chapter 15	Tie Them As A Sign
Chapter 16	Write Them
Chapter 17	Look, Remember, And Obey
Chapter 18	Bless The Lord Who Is Blessed

Final Thoughts—“Do You Love Me?”

Glossary of Hebrew Terms and Concepts

Bibliography

FOREWORD

It was a great pleasure for me to read this book on the Greatest Commandment by Irene Lipson. In the early 1980s I was privileged to meet Eric Lipson. He was a very unusual man; indeed way ahead of his time. For decades he had already put forth a clear Messianic Jewish theology and was committed to the importance of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Previously he had served as a Reform Rabbi. He was as dear a man as one could imagine. His combination of Jewish knowledge and Yeshua centered Jewish piety was deeply impressive.

What I did not know then, was that his wife Irene was in her own right a significant thinker and had deep understanding and commitment to the same values and perspective.

In this very wonderful little book, we find a very fine outline of both Jewish traditional teaching on the Sh’ma and re-application from a New Covenant perspective. The book yields good knowledge, but much more shows a deep devotional quality. It is a great example of what I would like to see as the Jewish expression of New Covenant commitment. We enter Jewish space when we open the pages of this book. We enter the power of the New Covenant as well. It is integrated.

This is not just a book on the commandment itself, but on the whole of what was accepted in Jewish tradition as part of the Sh’ma liturgical readings, Deuteronomy 6,11 and Numbers 15. The preliminary blessings before and the subsequent blessing after the Sh’ma are also included in her treatment. Thus we find helpful interpretation on the fringes, the tallit, and on tifillin. We find good material on the education of children, both in the family and in the community.

I have concluded that all who read this book will find blessing and will be glad for their effort.

Daniel Juster
Director, Tikkun Ministries International
First President, Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations

The Sh’ma

“Sh’ma Yisra’el! ADONAI Eloheynu, ADONAI echad.

Hear, O Isra’el, the LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4).

(Baruch shem k’vod malkhooto l’olam va’ed.)

(Blessed be his name whose glorious kingdom is forever and ever.)

And you are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, all your being and all your resources. These words, which I am ordering you today, are to be on your heart; and you are to teach them carefully to your children. You are to talk about them when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them on your hand as a sign, put them at the front of a headband around your forehead, and write them on the door-frames of your house and on your gates (Deut. 6:5–9)

So if you listen carefully to my mitzvot which I am giving you today, to love ADONAI your God and serve him with all your heart and all your being; then I will give your land its rain at the right seasons, including the early fall rains and the late spring rains; so that you can gather in your wheat, new wine and olive oil; and I will give your fields grass for your livestock; with the result that you will eat and be satisfied. But be careful not to let yourselves be seduced, so that you turn aside, serving other gods and worshipping them. If you do, the anger of ADONAI will blaze up against you. He will shut up the sky, so that there will be no rain. The ground will not yield its produce, and you will quickly pass away from the good land ADONAI is giving you. Therefore, you are to store up these words of mine in your heart and in all your being; tie them on your hand as a sign; put them at the front of a headband around your forehead; teach them carefully to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up; and write them on the door-frames of your house and on your gates–so that you and your children will live long on the land ADONAI swore to your ancestors that he would give them for as long as there is sky above the earth. (Deut. 11:13–21)

ADONAI said to Moshe, “Speak to the people of Isra’el, instructing them to make, through all their generations, tzitziyot on the corners of their garments, and to put with the tzitzit on each corner a blue thread. It is to be a tzitzit for you to look at and thereby remember all of ADONAI’s mitzvot and obey them, so that you won’t go around wherever your own heart and eyes lead you to prostitute yourselves; but it will help you remember and obey all my mitzvot and be holy for your God. I am ADONAI your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt in order to be your God. I am ADONAI your God.” (Num. 15:37–41)

Introducing the Sh’ma

God wants us to love him.

God desires, above all else, that his people should love him—totally, unconditionally, unreservedly. How, though, can we love someone we do not know? Love at first sight may be exciting, exhilarating, but it is built on a shallow foundation and may not last. It is as we get to know a person that we are able to build a relationship in which love may grow. The Bible describes the man-woman love relationship as “knowing” (Gen. 4:1).

God has made himself known to us in many ways. It is, however, in the first words of the Sh’ma that we find perhaps the most concise expression of who he is both in eternity and in relation to his people. Only after laying down the rich soil of that declaration does he command us to grow and nourish the flowering of love for him.

In these three passages from the Torah (Pentateuch) we see the God of Isra’el presenting himself to his people. He says, in effect, “This is who I am. Remember what I have done for you, how I have loved you. I want you to know me and love me in return. Soak yourself in my words so that you may know me better. This is how you will cultivate your relationship with me; and here are some things you can do to nurture your love, to guard against complacency, forgetfulness, and idolatry.”

In this book we shall explore the Sh’ma, not as a theological exercise, nor as an historical curiosity. I pray that together we may embark on a journey of discovery—about who God is; how much he has loved us; how we may learn to know and love him better. O that we may truly come to love him with all our heart, being, and resources.

Who, then, is this God?

The First Principle of the Jewish Faith

The first of Maimonides’ thirteen principles states:

I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his name, is the Author and Guide of everything that has been created, and that he alone has made, does make, and will make all things.

All the Jewish traditions agree on this one matter: that the Sh’ma (Hear, O Isra’el...) occupies the supreme place in Jewish thought, tradition, and theology. Maimonides, the great mediaeval philosopher, expresses in this, the first of his principles of faith, the primal and fundamental declaration of Isra’el’s faith. There is a God; he is unique; this God alone is the cause and fount of all Creation. The Sh’ma’s importance is reinforced by the fact that the Talmud itself opens with the question: “From what time may one recite the Sh’ma in the evening?” (Ber. 1:2a). The rabbis have taught that the opening sentence of the Sh’ma occupies the central place in Jewish religious thought. Everything else in Judaism springs from these words. Every belief, every practice, revolves around the hub of this proclamation that God is the Lord, that he has a special relationship with Isra’el, and that he is unique.

This credal statement is not only words for us to accept and believe. We are to speak those words—aloud. How else can anyone obey the command to “hear”? The opening sentence is the earliest prayer learned by infants, the last confession of the dying. It has been “the watchword and rallying-cry of a hundred generations in Israel” (Hertz, A Book of Jewish Thoughts 196). The rabbis have taught that a man is diminished if he fails to observe the commandment concerning the Sh’ma: “Who is an am ha’aretz (man of the earth, unspiritual man)?” Anyone who does not recite the Sh’ma evening and morning—this is the view of R. Eliezer” (Ber. 47b). Among adult men, only the bridegroom on his wedding night is exempt. Rabbi Gamaliel, however, who was the grandson of Hillel, a leading Rabbi of the first century C.E., refused to take advantage of this exemption, declaring, “I will not...remove from myself the kingship of heaven even for a moment” (Ber. 16a).

Affirmation of the unity of God and the requirement to love and obey him in response has been the throbbing life-force within Judaism. These words are “Judaism’s highly charged assertion of God’s oneness, of God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel, his people, and their commitment to him alone, followed by the recognition that he is also the One God of all creation” (Nanos, 180–81).

Declaration of the first line of the Sh’ma is also an act of testimony. It is usual to enlarge the first and last letters (‘ayin and dalet), which together form the word ‘ed. That is the Hebrew word for “witness.” As we say the familiar words we are bearing witness to the only true God. We are declaring ourselves to be his people. That is who we are. This is our “collective self-expression” (Hertz, Authorised Daily Prayer Book with Commentary 266).

Judaism’s Credo

The first sentence of the Sh’ma sums up the teaching of the first two commandments. These words are the nearest Judaism gets to a credal statement. There are some variations in the way they are translated. Rashbam, the twelfth century Bible exegete, favored “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone”; Hertz preferred “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Hertz, Deuteronomy 83). Hertz’s version is more commonly accepted today. This verse has been a watchword, a confession of faith, from very early times:

It [The Sh’ma] is said when one is praising God and when one is beseeching Him. The faithful Jew says it even when questioning Him. The Sh’m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• About the Book
• Testimonials
• About the Author
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents