Hevrutah:
1. Study sources 2 and 3. Why do you think the rabbis chose not to quote Isaiah in full? Is this censorship or artful (appropriate) liturgical editing?
2. Study the Rabbi Akiva story (source 4). What does it teach us about the meaning of oneness?
3. Read Primo Levi's poem. Does it relate to your reading for today-- "Prayer is Part of the Protest"? How so? Does this poem connect to the Rabbi Akiva story? How so?
4. Read the Kavannah (text 6). Does this Kavannah for the Ve'ahavta speak to you?
5. Does the piece by Art Green (see excerpt in text 7) relate to the notions of oneness and The Shema?
5. Read Marcia Falk's rendition of The Shema. How does it elaborate on the meaning of oneness?
(ז) יוֹצֵ֥ר אוֹר֙ וּבוֹרֵ֣א חֹ֔שֶׁךְ עֹשֶׂ֥ה שָׁל֖וֹם וּב֣וֹרֵא רָ֑ע אֲנִ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה עֹשֶׂ֥ה כׇל־אֵֽלֶּה׃ {פ}
(7) I form light and create darkness,I make weal and create woe—I the LORD do all these things.
(א) בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם יוֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חֽשֶׁךְ עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא אֶת־הַכֹּל:
(1) Blessed are You, Adonoy our God, King of the Universe, Former of light, Creator of darkness, Maker of peace, Creator of all things.
בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁהוֹצִיאוּ אֶת רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא לַהֲרִיגָה זְמַן קְרִיאַת שְׁמַע הָיָה, וְהָיוּ סוֹרְקִים אֶת בְּשָׂרוֹ בְּמַסְרְקוֹת שֶׁל בַּרְזֶל, וְהָיָה מְקַבֵּל עָלָיו עוֹל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם. אָמְרוּ לוֹ תַּלְמִידָיו: רַבֵּינוּ, עַד כָּאן?! אָמַר לָהֶם: כׇּל יָמַי הָיִיתִי מִצְטַעֵר עַל פָּסוּק זֶה ״בְּכָל נַפְשְׁךָ״ אֲפִילּוּ נוֹטֵל אֶת נִשְׁמָתְךָ. אָמַרְתִּי: מָתַי יָבֹא לְיָדִי וַאֲקַיְּימֶנּוּ, וְעַכְשָׁיו שֶׁבָּא לְיָדִי, לֹא אֲקַיְּימֶנּוּ? הָיָה מַאֲרִיךְ בְּ״אֶחָד״, עַד שֶׁיָּצְתָה נִשְׁמָתוֹ בְּ״אֶחָד״. יָצְתָה בַּת קוֹל וְאָמְרָה: ״אַשְׁרֶיךָ רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא שֶׁיָּצְאָה נִשְׁמָתְךָ בְּאֶחָד״.
The Gemara relates: When they took Rabbi Akiva out to be executed, it was time for the recitation of Shema. And they were raking his flesh with iron combs, and he was reciting Shema, thereby accepting upon himself the yoke of Heaven. His students said to him: Our teacher, even now, as you suffer, you recite Shema? He said to them: All my days I have been troubled by the verse: With all your soul, meaning: Even if God takes your soul. I said to myself: When will the opportunity be afforded me to fulfill this verse? Now that it has been afforded me, shall I not fulfill it? He prolonged his uttering of the word: One, until his soul left his body as he uttered his final word: One. A voice descended from heaven and said: Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, that your soul left your body as you uttered: One.
Primo Levi
Shema
You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to rememberEyes empty and womb cold
As a frog in winter.
Consider that this has been:I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house,
when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.
--- from If This Is a Man (tr. Ruth Feldman and Brian Swan)
V'ahavta (Rabbi Stephen Cohen, Congregation B'nai B'rith Santa Barbara)
We humans tend to fray at the edges. We become distracted and conflicted, desiring many things at once, torn between ideas, thinking and feeling chaotically, and suffering from our own disintegration.V'ahavta is a call to integration and wholeness, three times insisting on b'chol: "with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might."The Talmudic sages further developed the theme of integration with their explanation of the unusual double vet of the word levavcha, "your heart." Love God, they interpreted, with both of your hearts: with your yetzer tov or "good heart," of course, but also with your yetzer ra, the dark chaotic heart. This heart is not to be denied or destroyed, but befriended, and brought to the love of God. [Mishnah Berachot 9:5]
The way to whole-heartedness, we find in the v'ahavta, is through regular, simple expressions of love: daily recitations, conversations, bindings, and inscriptions. With these acts, taught a Hasidic sage, we set the words "love your God" upon our heart, and there they sit patiently, ready to enter when the doors of the heart swing open. [Menachem Mendl of Kotzk, quoted by Buber, Tales of the Hasidic Masters]
From Art Green reading:
What, then, are we doing in the act of prayer? It cannot be that we are just acting to pleasure ourselves! “No,” he would answer. Prayer is what the great mystics always told us it was: bringing together the cosmic forces, uniting the blessed Holy One and shekhinah, the indwelling presence, restoring the wholeness of a broken cosmos. We do so, however, not by the complex mental gymnastics prescribed by the Kabbalists, but by the simple devotion of our own hearts. This becomes possible when we truly realize that we too are a vital part of shekhinah, along with everything else. Our souls are the energy-channels through which all the world is uplifted to become one with its Creator. The division between God and world is only superficial. The great gift of mind or awareness that makes us human is a vehicle we can train to see through to the underlying oneness of all that is. That insight, carried forth by our devotion and our deeds, actually makes the unity real. But that act of unification is also the fulfillment of a deep soul-longing, a desire implanted within us, hence the source of our pleasure as well.