28 | JULY 29 • 2021 

I

t is one of the most important 
words in Judaism — and also one of 
the least understood. Its two most 
famous occurrences are in last week’s 
parshah and this week’s: “Hear O Israel, 
the Lord our God, the Lord 
is one,” and “It shall come 
to pass if you surely listen 
to My commandments 
which I am commanding 
you today, to love the Lord 
your God and to serve Him 
with all your heart and all 
your soul” — the openings 
of the first and second paragraphs of the 
Shema. It also appears in the first line 
of the parshah: “It shall come to pass, if 
you listen to these laws.”
The word, of course, is shema.
I have argued elsewhere that it is 
fundamentally untranslatable into 
English since it means so many things: 
to hear, to listen, to pay attention, to 
understand, to internalize, to respond, 
to obey. It is one of the motif-words of 
the book of Devarim, where it appears 
no less than 92 times — more than in 
any other book of the Torah.
Time and again in the last month of 
his life Moses told the people, Shema: 

listen, heed, pay attention. Hear what 
I am saying. Hear what God is saying. 
Listen to what He wants from us. If 
you would only listen … Judaism is 
a religion of listening. This is one 
of its most original contributions to 
civilization.
The twin foundations on which 
Western culture was built were ancient 
Greece and ancient Israel. They could 
not have been more different. Greece 
was a profoundly visual culture. Its 
greatest achievements had to do with the 
eye, with seeing. It produced some of the 
greatest art, sculpture and architecture 
the world has ever seen. Its most 
characteristic group events — theatrical 
performances and the Olympic games — 
were spectacles: performances that were 
watched. Plato thought of knowledge as 
a kind of depth vision, seeing beneath 
the surface to the true form of things.
This idea — that knowing is seeing — 
remains the dominant metaphor in the 
West even today. We speak of insight, 
foresight and hindsight. We offer an 
observation. We adopt a perspective. 
We illustrate. We illuminate. We shed 
light on an issue. When we understand 
something, we say, “I see.”

WORDS OF GOD
Judaism offered a radical alternative. It 
is faith in a God we cannot see, a God 
who cannot be represented visually. The 
very act of making a graven image — a 
visual symbol — is a form of idolatry. 
As Moses reminded the people in last 
week’s parshah, when the Israelites had 
a direct encounter with God at Mount 
Sinai, “You heard the sound of words, 
but saw no image; there was only a 
voice.” (Deut. 4:12). God communicates 
in sounds, not sights. He speaks. He 
commands. He calls. That is why the 
supreme religious act is Shema. When 
God speaks, we listen. When He 
commands, we try to obey.
Rabbi David Cohen (1887–1972), 
known as the Nazirite, a disciple of Rav 
Kook and the father of R. Shear-Yashuv 
Cohen, chief rabbi of Haifa, pointed out 
that in the Babylonian Talmud all the 
metaphors of understanding are based 
not on seeing but on hearing. Ta shema, 
“come and hear.” Ka mashma lan, “It 
teaches us this.” Shema mina, “Infer 
from this.” Lo shemiyah lei, “He did not 
agree.” A traditional teaching is called 
shamaytta, “that which was heard.” And 
so on. All of these are variations on the 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

Spirituality
The

of Listening 

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

