Thursday, 6/2/16
Jesus said the greatest commandment stated, “Hear. O Israel.
The Lord is God. The Lord alone.”
I have heard that hose words are as much of Jewish prayer
life as the sign of the cross is a part of our prayers.
A scholar told me that the firs word, “Hear!,” is a weak
translation of the Hebrew word that is “Shma,”
It really means, “Shut uo and listen.” That scholar told me that the whole phrase
in
Hebrew would be, “Shma, Israel, Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh acham!”
However, in ancient Hebrew the vowels were never written.
So, Yahweh would be printed just as Yhwh.
Let me complicate
this more. Because of the commanment against taking the Lord’s name in vain, the
Jews never pronounced “Yahweh.” Any time they came to YHWH In print, they would
substitute the harmless Canonite name for a lord, “Adonai.”
Jesus, In his words with the scribe, said there is a second
command that is important, namely the one telling us to love our neighbor as
ourselves. But, in summing up the answer Jesus gave, altered it a bit. Rather
than calling the precept of loving our neighbor a second commandment, he made
it par of the first, as though we love God by loving our neighbor,
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