The Mysteries of the Sh’ma

From when does one read the sh’ma in the evening?—Opening words, Mishnah and Talmud

“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

This simple sentence in the Hebrew Bible, known by its first word as the sh’ma (“hear”), is also the first subject addressed in the Talmud and the first biblical verse taught to Jewish children. It is, at once, the most famous affirmation of Jewish belief and the most misunderstood. To appreciate this paradox, we must begin with the text itself, two of whose three brief sections make up a key element in Moses’ string of passionate valedictory charges to his people in the book of Deuteronomy. Here is the first section (6:4-9), in which the greatest of prophets sums up Jewish theology: