August 16, 2024 / 12 Av 5784
Unity? What might it look like? Can it be achieved? In this polarized, fragmented moment, I’ve been thinking a lot about the shape and possibility of unity.
Va’etchanan brings us Judaism’s most important and best known affirmation of the value of unity: Sh’ma yisra’el, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai ehad. God is One, Unique, the picture of Unity.
A delicious Talmudic passage dramatizes the point:
It was taught in a baraita, Sumakhos says: One who extends her/his intonation of the word One [eḥad]while reciting Shema, is rewarded that his/her days and years are extended. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said:This is only true if s/he extends the letter dalet, so the word eḥad is sounded in its entirety. Rav Ashi said: This is only so long as one does not pronounce the letter ḥet hurriedly. The Gemara relates that Rabbi Yirmeya was seated before Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba who saw that he was greatly extending his pronunciation of eḥad. He said to him: Once you have crowned God in your thoughts over everything above, in Heaven, below, on earth, and in the four corners of the heavens, you need not extend any further. [Bavli Berakhot 13b]
God’s unity covers not only earth but also all four corners of the heavens. It’s expansive, capacious, infinite, eternal. Human ‘unity’ … not so much; if achievable at all, our ‘unity’ is fleeting, fragmented, narrow.
Our encounter with the Shema this week serves to remind us of the possibility of unity within ourselves, among our people, in the world. Even if short-lived and contained, we could use a dose of unity right about now.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi David
