Jesus summarized the whole of the Old and New Law in the command that we love God, and love our neighbor as ourself.

Wednesday, 3,2/ 16

In Matthew, Chapter Five, Jesus says he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.Then, in Chapter Twenty-two of Matthew, Jesus summarized the old Law, going on to briefly tell us how he fulfilled it. Listen:

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your soul, with all your heart, and all your mind.”

This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."    

Jews utter the first part of that profession of faith as frequently as we make the sign of the cross. In Hebrew it begins something like this: “Shema Israel, Yaweh Elohim, Yahweh Ehud.”

While we translate that first word, shma, as “Hear, “ it is more like, “Be quite, and listen.”

Then, while the third word is Yahweh. The Jews, for fear of taking the Lord’s name in vain, substitute Adonai for it.