Spirituality

TORAH PORTION

The Lord Is One

Shabbat
Vaetchanan:
Deuteronomy 3:23-
7:11; Isaiah 40:1-26.

Efrat, Israel

T

his week's Torah portion contains
two of the most celebrated pas-
sages of the entire Bible: the 10
Commandments and the Shema.
The latter is difficult to understand and is
open to many translations and explanations:
Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
One.
"The Lord" implies eternity, the ground
of existence, ultimate redemption and love.
Eloheinu, translated as "our God:' implies
power and creativity. The combination of
Divine names makes interpreting the verse
a difficult task.
Indeed, I believe that each of these pas-

sages is linked to the other in
every human to be free and to
an extricable bond; once we
serve Him and only Him; the God
understand the linkage, we will
who took the Israelites out of
likewise understand one of the
Egypt expressed by that liberation
deepest meanings of the Shema,
that He detests any human being
who "lords" over another. Just as
which is also the most impor-
tant message in Judaism.
God championed human free-
The very first of the 10
dom, so, too, must we champion
Commandments informs all of
human freedom.
From this perspective, we can
Israel that He is the God who
Rabbi Shlomo
frees, who liberates the enslaved
well understand the last five inter-
Riskin
and oppressed. Apparently this
personal commandments. After
Special to the
God definition, as it were, is not
all, if every human being is creat-
Jewish News
meant for Israel alone. Had the
ed in God's image, if every human
Almighty merely wished to free
is intrinsically free, then every
the Israelites, He could have airlifted them
human being is inviolate and dare not be
"up and out" of Egypt. The only justification compromised: not by murdering him, not
for the plagues and the splitting of the Red
by stealing from him — neither his goods
Sea had to be in order to convince Pharaoh
nor his spouse — not by framing him in
false testimony and not by desiring what
— and through Pharaoh all the future pha-
raoh-like tyrants of subsequent world histo- he has. These are also universal commands
ry — that the Lord God is the only Creator
that ought to apply to every human being.
Let us now turn to the Shema. When we
and, as such, the only "being" to whom we
creatures throughout the world owe homage declare that our Lord is one, we are really
and service.
saying the He is the God, not only of the
Israelites, but rather of the entire world. The
The God who created the world wants

prophet Zachariah speaks of the time when
the entire world will unite in peace and
fealty to the God of freedom and justice.
Our prophets never demanded universal
conversion to Judaism. Indeed, the prophet
Micah describes the "end of dines" as a
period when "nation will not lift up sword
against nation and humanity will not learn
war anymore ... for all will go forth — each
person in the name of his/her God — and
we will walk in the name of the Lord for-
ever."
I would suggest that built into the
magnificent and majestic theme of tik-
kun olam a world united in morality
— expressed by the Shema is the message
that the Lord our God — expressed in
many ways by many people — is the one
God of creation and freedom in whom we
believe. As long as those who call upon
their gods do so from the center of moral-
ity, these gods are an expression of the one
God on the universe.

—

❑

Shlomo Riskin is head of Israel's Ohr Torah

Stone Institute and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.

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August 14 2008

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