rosends
Well-Known Member
I'll try to make this simple because you clearly don't know what you are talking about. You referenced the shma as " WHAT OTHER LAW was said to put on your porch and door, forehead and hand, recited twice a day and to teach your children"Waddya mean, MY Shema? You don't even know YOUR OWN Shema. Two parts and two parts only, Deut 6:4-5. NO add on apps, NO scintillating commentaries needed.
So let us talk about that. The text is Deut chapter 6. It starts by saying that " This is the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances that the Lord, your God, commanded to teach you,"
Note the plural.
Then 6:2 "In order that you fear the Lord, your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments that I command you, "
Note the fear
Then 6:3 "And you shall, [therefore,] hearken, O Israel, and be sure to perform, "
Note the Israel.
Then 6:4, the singular state of God's unity and rulership over Israel.
Then 6:5 begins a next discussion of laws and adherence, "And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart."
then 7-9 explain what one must do with these laws, "And you shall teach them to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for ornaments between your eyes. And you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates."
Now you have decided that what we have to teach, learn, inscribe and wear is just 6:4 AND 6:5. How do you come to that? Maybe it is because 6:4 is not written as a commandment that you can follow or "perform" as per the textual requirement ("Hear"? How do I do that today when I am alone?) and you are trying to find a "law." So you selectively include 6:5 which has another verb in the imperative, which sometimes signals a law. This gives you TWO laws! Two imperative formed verbs you have to follow so neither is a singular "first" law because you include both!
So you say "two parts only". You have invented 2 things here: 1, the requirement that "2 parts" is important and 2, that these verses are "2 parts". Pure fiction by you -- in fact, this is your personal interpretation which you ADD ON to the text!
Of course to do this, you ignore every other commandment and law in this chapter (let alone in any other place in the entire of the Torah) and you call everything else (beyond what YOU have included) as extra or added on. And then you ask what other law was said to be put on the doors and worn on the forehead and hand. I tried to answer that but you don't understand so you ignored it. What the Jew puts on his door is the entire of 6:4-6:10 which makes reference to more than one set of laws (the word "devarim" not "davar", but that's Hebrew and you have decided that you understand the text without being able to...um...understand the text) and Deut 11:13-21! And what does a Jew put on his forehead and arm? The two sections PLUS 2 others (13:1-10 and 13:11-16). So, to sum up: you invent a notion of the shma and its requirements and then wonder why I differentiate between the shma and "your shma." Because yours is not actually the shma, but a small bit of it that you have, arbitrarily decided to call the whole thing. I don't see any "add ons or apps" other than your interpretation -- in fact you are guilty of what you accuse others: creating a selective explanation/interpretation and adding your own law onto the text.
And, a separate question -- if you see the primacy of this law, do you inscribe it on your door posts and wear it on your arm and hand? Or have you decided that those laws don't apply to you -- oh, that's right, you cherry pick just 2 verses as that pretend "first law" and ignore what the text says about HOW you are supposed to follow them. Well done.
Be a military leader, the mandate of the messiah. Thing is, you don't know or understand the role of a messiah so you assume that the war was a bad idea. This just shows off how much you don't understand about Judaism.Start an ill-advised war with the Romans? Are you in your right mind? Or your usual wrong mind?
If you don't even know your FIRST LAW, then what do you know, oh sage? Listen up, I'm not the only one saying this, that the Great Law is the First one...what do you think most orthodox Jews want to say WITH THEIR VERY LAST BREATH? Are you one of them liberal Jews? SECULAR ones? Where you come from, the same country as Latka Gravas, in Taxi?
You keep calling it the "first law" but this is another invention of yours. It was not given first or in a vacuum. Saying the shma at death is not about its being the "first law" but about being defiant and accepting the unity of God and fulfilling the commandment to love him with all your life. A Jew also says confession and the Aleinu with his last breath. You really shouldn't rely on half knowledge (or less, in your case). So stop inventing terms like "first law" based on what you think you know. Admit your ignorance and ask questions so you can learn and not look so foolish.
Why are the Ten emphasized over any other of the 613? Because they were written "with the finger of God," Ex 31:18. Because they were written exclusively on Moses' stone tablets, and placed in the Ark. Ex 25:21.
and then destroyed and then Moses wrote them himself on the second set of tablets. And then he taught ALL the laws to the people and they were all binding. If the 10 were so important, why not include the shma in the 10? TO show it is even better? But then you can choose ANY other law and say that it was taught separately in order to be "over" those. But you have arbitrarily chosen 1 verse and decided that it is the "over" one. How random!
and what did you do? You subtracted from it! You start by ignoring every law which had ALREADY BEEN GIVEN and then, in particular, ignore 6:2 which demands fear. Then you say that no one had heard his voice when, not only had Moses, but all the people when they heard the first commandments at Sinai from God's mouth (if they hadn't, why did they ask Moses to pick up the narrative). Again, black letter text which you ignore.And what did wayward Jews do but add onto it with their own well-intended but lawyerish additions, being the thought that the more the merrier? Hint: the Shema was given when God deemed the Israelites could stand it, the most ABSTRACT and seemingly nonsensical Law up until this time. (To love God is not abstract or irrational, but to love God WITH ALL is). HE who no one heard his audible voice, or even seen His exact and thus abstract, but TERRIBLE form.
Last edited: