THE SHEMA - PART II
PART E. GOD IS ONE The Unity of God and His Oneness are concepts that are central to Judaism, and require elucidation due to their complexity. God’s existence was not affected when He created the universe and the forces that operate therein. The Four-Letter Name of God teaches that He remains alone and One in the universe just as before creation. This complete “Oneness” is not just a unity of two diverse elements, but rather a simple unity in which there is only One. This means that all that exists, although it may appear separate – even alien or opposed to God Himself – really exists only because God has willed it to exist and continues to will it to exist. If the Divine Power stops infusing His will into a created object, it will cease to exist. As long as God infuses His energy into the universe, it will continue. Oneness means that all of creation is really a manifestation of God’s will. 1.
Rabbi Shraga Simmons, Shema Yisrael, www.aish.com – The significance of the Principle of the Oneness of God Why is “oneness” so central to Jewish belief? Does it really matter whether God is one and not three? Events in our world may seem to mask the idea that God is One. One day we wake up and everything goes well. The next day everything goes poorly. What happened?! Is it possible that the same God who gives us so much goodness one day can make everything go wrong the next? We know that God is good, so how could there be so much pain? Is it just “bad luck”? The Shema is a declaration that all events are from the One, the only One. The confusion stems from our limited perception of reality. One way of understanding God’s oneness is to imagine light shining through a prism. Even though we see many colors of the spectrum, they really emanate from one light. So too, even though it seems that certain events are not caused by God, rather by some other force or bad luck, they in fact all come from the One God. In the grand eternal plan, all is “good,” for God knows best… When a Jew says Shema, it is customary to close and cover one’s eyes. The other time in Jewish tradition that one’s eyes are specifically closed is upon death. Just as at the end of days we will come to understood how even the “bad” was actually for the “good,” so too while saying the Shema we strive for that level of belief and understanding.
KEY THEMES OF SECTION III [[ The word “Shema” has the meaning of acceptance and understanding, internalizing and concentrating on these concepts. [[ Proclaiming “Shema” to “Israel” is a public declaration of allegiance to the Jewish people. It is also a reference to our forefather Yaakov who was also known as Israel. In that regard Shema is a reassurance to our forefather that we are going in his ways.
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