The spirituality of listening. It's one of the most important words in Judaism and also one of the least understood.

Its two most famous occurrences are in last week's Parasha and this week's Shmae Israel, hear,

O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Byaim Shama, it shall come to pass if you surely listen to my commandments,

which I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and all your soul.

In other words, the openings of the first and second paragraphs of the Shema.

It also appears in the first line of the parasha via Aikiv Tishmu and it shall be

if you listen to these laws.

The word of course is Shema.

I've argued elsewhere that it's fundamentally untranslatable into English,

since it means so many things to hear, to listen, to pay attention,

to understand, to internalize, to respond, and to obey. It's one of the motif words of the

book of Devon where it appears, no less than 92 times, more than in any other book of the Torah.

Time and again, in the last month of his life, Moses told the people,

Shma, listen, heed, pay attention, hear what I am saying, hear what God is saying,

listen to what he wants from us, if only you would listen.

Judaism is a religion of listening, and this is one of its most original contributions to civilization.

The twin foundations on which Western culture was built were ancient Greece and ancient Israel.

They couldn't have been more different.

Greece was a profoundly visual culture.

Its greatest achievements had to do with the eye, with seeing. It produced some of the greatest art sculpture and architecture the world has ever seen. Its most characteristic group events,

theatrical performances and the Olympic Games were spectacles, meaning performances

that were watched. Plato thought of knowledge as a kind of depth vision, seeing beneath

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