What is the greatest commandment?

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,

Jesus took no more questions after that., as though he had ben waiting for someone to realize that we express our love for God be loving his children.