Start here · day 10 of 14 · How to live near other people
שְׁמַע
Hear
Deuteronomy 6
First, read it
Deuteronomy 6
Read it before the notes below. They are worth more once you have your own impression of it.
Open Deuteronomy 6Then, the idea
Six words that Jewish children learn first and many Jewish people say last: Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Notice that it starts with hear, not believe. It asks for attention before it asks for agreement.
What follows is not a temple ritual. Teach these words to your children. Talk about them at home and on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Put them on your door. The whole thing is designed to live in an ordinary house.
One word of Hebrew
שְׁמַע
shema — hear, listen, obey
One Hebrew word does all three jobs. In this language, really hearing something and acting on it are not separable.
And one question
What would change if the first thing asked of you were attention rather than agreement?
Nobody is marking this. Sit with it on the way to work.
If this one landed: The alphabet, and words worth knowing.