Drasha
While Torah reading might be prime sleeping time for many, every once in a while there’s a Passuk or paragraph so famous or gripping that it wakes up the room. Undoubtedly, in our Parashah, even the sleepiest Stantonite must have been jarred awake earlier when Mordecai read out loud perhaps the most liturgically well-known verse in the entire Torah: Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Achad. For those who were jarred awake and are missing out on that Kriyat HaTorah nap, worry not, for thankfully there’s always the Rabbi’s Drashah. But for those who are stilled gripped, I want to try and understand the centrality of the Shema as it appears in our Parashah.
We just read over Tisha BAv how Rebbe Akiva established the tradition of reciting Shema on one’s death bed– a clear statement of it’s significance as a mantra and centering theological statement. In our Wednesday night Tefillah class, we discussed from a Halakhic perspective how Shema fits into the structure of Tefillah, and the important role it plays in our structured prayer. But in terms of the lived experience– the cultural place Shema has taken outside of formal prayer, as we see in Rebbe Akiva’s story, for example– I don’t think the significance is obvious.
On the flip side of things, Rav Tzadok MeiLublin, in the first piece of his commentary on Mesechet Brachot, Tzidkat HaTzaddik, has a sharp observation about our early indoctrination into the importance of the Shema. Rav Tzaddok points out that, given that in Judaism, the calendar date begins at night time, then upon halakhically turning 12 or 13 the night of their Bar or Bat Mitzvah, the first Mitzvah any Jewish boy or girl fulfills in their life as an obligated adult is that of the nighttime Shema. In other words, while Rebbe Akiva shows us that Shema might be the last thing many Jews say in their adult life, Reb Tzaddok points out it’s also the first. Being a Chasidic master, Rav Tzadok assumes that everything, even the uncodified and seemingly unintentional lived experiences that Judaism creates, must be a meaningful part of the divine mission. Thus, Rav Tzadok assumes that it is not mere coincidence, but rather, by design that Jewish children become initiated into adulthood, and the obligations that carries, via their recitation of the Shema. While Rav Tzaddok gives his own explanation as to why that’s the case, I want to go in a slightly different direction.... continued here.
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