Shema

“And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, ‘Hear, O Israel…’” – Deuteronomy 5:1

Listening is complicated. There what you think, then what you say, then what the other person hears, then what they think about what they hear. Any step of that can get muddied up by bias, expectation, mood, tone, concurrent noise, and, in the case of young children, more important questions like can I have ice cream? We talk a lot at home about what tends to help the other person listen (direct eye contact, a touch to get attention) and what doesn’t (raising your voice, which alienates the listener and makes you mad if you weren’t already). We talk about how it helps to give a verbal sign that you heard, like “coming” or “okay,” even if you can’t do what is asked right away. All things I need to work on as much as the kids do.

But in the Bible, listening is about even more than all that. Did you know that there is no Hebrew word for “obey”? The word translated “obey” in our Bibles is Hebrew shema, which is the same word translated “hear” in this passage. Shema is about a lot more than acoustics. It means to focus on, to understand, to respond. It is used by Leah, who names her son Simon (Shim’on) “because the Lord has shema that I am unloved.” It is used at the beginning of many Psalms to ask God to act (“shema my voice when I call, O Lord,” Psalm 27:7). It is used by God twice, for emphasis, in Exodus 19:5 when he asks us to “shema shema my voice, and keep my covenant.” To hear is to obey; they are one and the same. 

True listening, listening the way God means, requires attention and action. This is so important that it became the name of the prayer Jews have recited twice a day for thousands of years. In a world of push notifications and banner ads, where multi-tasking is the norm, what do you stop to focus on? What do you give your attention to? Do we hear the summons of God’s word, understand it in a way that changes how we live?