The Wonder of The First Two Words of The Shema/Deut 6:4

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises, but the stars never fall?

Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? The idea of the very first word of this particular prayer, which is here, as in to hear something, is Shema. And so that's that one word. And interestingly, this particular prayer is commanded to the Jews as an actual mith for a law that they were to recite this at least every morning when they get up and every night when they go to bed. In other words, the first thing on their mouth in the morning and the last thing, you know, that they would speak at night before they close their eyes, which or they still do it to this day.

It's a pretty spectacular thing. And so as you study these words, and I've had a chance to study them with some rabbis that really enlighten me because, you know, in the 119th Psalm, it talks about all being our teachers. And these folks, since they've said this prayer for centuries, obviously have said these words in great detail.

And I think there are some tremendous treasures in the whole idea here. But just in the first two words, which are here, oh, Israel, right? Or if you were to say that in Hebrew, you would say Shema Israel. And so if we break that down a little bit and the idea of scripture so much is not unlike eating in that when you chew on some words, you get a lot more nourishment.

Right. And the more you chew, sometimes like you would be a clean animal that you would chew on these things and chew on them and chew on them. And you can imagine how the Jews have chewed on them. So that idea of Shema or to hear. It's a three letter word, and it's taught by the Jews that it's actually an acronym beautifully, amazingly for this idea that's explained in Isaiah 40, of all places. And so but just to go into the three letters, it's a shin and a mem and an ayin. And again, if you were to see this, I say again because I mentioned this in my show Saturday, if you were to see this in a Torah scroll, that last letter ayin, which is the last letter, by the way, in Yeshua, in Jesus's name, that letter ayin is enlarged in a Torah scroll. It's very big if you were to see it because it's going to connect to the last letter in the first verse, which is ahad, which is the word one. But that ends in a dalit. And so you have this giant ayin and this giant dalit, which means witness.

And so isn't that fascinating to me? It's more than fascinating that it would connect to Isaiah 40, because if there's a passage in the Bible that talks about a witness, it would be Isaiah 40. And the witness it's talking about is the one that John would go on and on about in John Chapter 1, the witness of John the Baptist. But looking at this acronym in Isaiah Chapter 40, when it gets to verse 26, it says, Lift up your eyes on high and behold who have created these things that bring them out by their hosts by number. So when you use those first three words, it's like an acronym, you know, not unlike 119 Psalm or Proverbs 31, that every letter is meaning something else. And so the very first word in that lift up, you know, lift on high, it starts with a shin.

And the second word, which high starts with a mem. And then your eyes, as you might imagine, starts with an ayin. And so you get this idea that what we're doing here with the Shema is literally chewing on everything.

Right. That when you're thinking and looking and processing, you're to lift up your eyes, because that would be what is going on up in the heavens. In other words, in heaven, as it is on earth, however you want to look at it. In other words, to see God in everything is the idea of a had, the idea of the end of the verse, which is God is one with, essentially, it's His idea.

And when you really process that out, if you stand with a good military posture, right, you're going to be looking up. And when you look up, you can't help but to see that the heavens declare the glory of God. But actually, every single thing, as you begin to really think about things, they reveal God in some way.

It's like the Prego spaghetti sauce verse, right? Everything has God in it. And when you see God in it, right, doesn't that lighten up your world?

And so, as a witness, this is what Israel believes is their task in the world, is to be God's witness, that He is one with everything. And the idea that God is involved in everything, and if we can see God in something, then what does that do for us over if we don't see God in something, right? And so, the second word—again, we could spend a lot of time on Shema, because the way it's normally translated is here, but the Jews would tell you, and I would agree with them, that the idea is better to understand, right? And to understand something, honestly, you've got to chew on it some. You've got to think through it.

You've got to process it in order to be able to truly grasp what's going on. And so, as we think about all things, even as we begin to wake in the morning and as we go to bed at night, to see God in something is absolutely spectacular. And then the second word is Israel, Israel, as they would say it. And interestingly, it doesn't say Shema, Jacob. And the way I love the Jews teach this is that when you see the word Israel, it's a higher form of Jacob. And Jacob himself, you know, when you take that word, that word is heel, right? That Jacob got his name because he grasped his brother's heel.

And so, when they think of the lower form of Jacob, then obviously they think of that heel. But here, God is saying to look up, right? And so, to look at the higher form of Jacob, which is Israel, right? And that idea of literally the yud, but the idea of wrestling with God in everything. In other words, God is in everything. And here, it's telling you to understand this idea and wrestle with it so that you can see God in every single thing.

That's the idea of the Shema, in my view, in a lot of different ways. But the other beautiful thing when you think about it, as I began to process this when it comes to Jesus, is that if the lower form of Jacob is the heel, right? You might recall that in the original prophecy of Jesus that happens in Genesis, right? Chapter 3, it said that, you know, he will bruise his head, but he will bruise his heel. That idea of the heel being bruised is the lower form of Jacob.

In other words, those that stayed connected to the ground, that's what the heel does, right? But Israel is, you know, the idea of that is to look up, not to look down. And the idea of that is those of Israel that looked up saw Jesus. Unfortunately, those who were thinking about themselves and thinking about earthly things didn't get a chance to see the Messiah when he came. So, you know, the obvious, you know, if we just take these two verses, right?

And we process, you know, can you see God in everything? And the idea is to chew, especially where you can see God is in the Scriptures, right? And I'm hoping you're seeing with me that all you have to do is chew, chew, chew on a couple of words, and you'll get phenomenal understandings just in Shema Israel, right?

And of course, we're going to probably spend some time on the rest of these words that are in this Deuteronomy 6.4, but just to spend a little time chewing on Shema Israel, and there's much, much, much more nourishment we could spend if we spent more time chewing on it. But interestingly, God has had me on this diet for the last, I don't know, my wife will tell you 53 days because she's counting on them. Because she's been doing it with me, and the idea was the seven foods of the Promised Land diet, which has to do with the wheat and the barley and the grapes and the dates and the olives and the figs and pomegranates.

And so, you know, that's what we've been primarily eating for, like I said, we originally started to do it for 40 days, but we both were getting so much healthier, we've decided to do it, continue to do it. But part of what I've been doing is what I call the Chewfest breakfast, which is to try to get those foods in the grapes, the dates and the pomegranates and the barley, which, oh, barley makes some wonderful breakfast cereal, by the way. But my Chewfest breakfast includes my wife's bread, which includes wheat and barley. And then I like to put celery and carrots because they make me chew. And I also put in, this is unusual, I know, but I love it, I put sauerkraut together with arugula.

And of course, you can chew, chew, chew on those things. And then, of course, you use olive oil and olives and pomegranates and figs and dates and grapes. All are in this salad. And I have a great big bowl of it in the morning quite often, like I did yesterday. And actually, I ate three different salads yesterday. And it's an amazing thing as you chew, like, I bet I used to eat my breakfast in maybe five minutes.

But there is no way in the world you can eat a Chewfest salad in less than 30 that I've been able to do. But it's a fascinating thing that not only am I chewing on it, but I'm thinking about God and all the different ways that he made all these different wonderful foods. And what's fascinating about it is I've actually seen blood sugars like I've never seen in the 80s and 90s.

I haven't seen those actually since I've been not waking up with those kind of blood sugars. But apparently, as we chew, chew, chew, it makes us healthier. But also, you can be so thankful for all the delicious, wonderful foods that God gives us just through the ground. And I, you know, I love to sit there and have my Chewfest and think about Deuteronomy 6 and actually think about Isaiah 40 and think about Jesus, John Chapter 1. Oh, my goodness. It's just like an unbelievable Chewfest. So I hope you've enjoyed chewing on all this with me. Again, thank you so much for listening.