Chapter 6
Good Monday Morning to this week 6 of 2022
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One Deuteronomy 6.4
Hear, O Israel, these the words of Moses, stirring up the people to attend to what he was about to say of this great and momentous article, the unity of God, The Jews oblige themselves to read twice a day, morning and evening the last letter of the first word in this verse, “Shema”, meaning “hear”.
The Bene Israel Jews of India, a shipwrecked ancestry with a rootless Identity. The history of Benjamin’s ancestors, has been disputed. Legend has it that they were shipwrecked in India, either fleeing the Assyrians in the eighth century. According to one version of the story, most of the refugees drowned, but a few swam to safety, where the local non-Jewish population welcomed them. The survivors, who lost their holy books at sea, remembered just the Shema prayer. Cut off from extra-biblical writings and Jewish customs, this community borrowed traditions from the native culture, yet kept this prayer.
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.
Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.
The remainder of the Shema prayer is taken from three biblical sources:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
When reciting the Shema during the regular morning prayer service, it is surrounded by three long blessings. The first two, which precede the Shema, thank God for creation and revelation. The third, which follows the Shema, thanks God for redemption.
Your teachings oh Lord are precious and abiding; they live forever. For our ancestors, for us, for our children, for every generation of the people Israel, for all ages from the first to the last, His teachings are true, everlasting. True it is that You are the Lord our God, even as You were the God of our ancestors. Our King and our ancestors’ King, our Redeemer and our ancestors’ Redeemer, our Creator, our victorious Stronghold.
Always a good and prayer in the morning and evening if such times with so many being or feeling shipwrecked!
You have always helped us and saved us.
Your name endures forever.
There is no God but You.
Wishing you a blessed start to this new week!
Philemon