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Welcome to Torah Class: 24-25! It is a joy to have you with me on this Torah-study journey this year!
We are starting off our Torah studies this year with a more in-depth look at the Shema. Here are a few highlights from class today:
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 “Hear (Shema), O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yah: And thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 is known as the Shema, which is the Hebrew word translated as “Hear” at the start of the Passage. Shema means: “hear, listen intelligently (with a desire to understand), obey, live by, and proclaim it to others as a witness”
· The Shema is the heart of the Torah
– and the center of all Scripture. All Light (Truth) radiates out from this
center point, which is the epicenter of all Scriptural Truth. We may know this
because:
o
Isaiah 8:20 – says the Law is the Light-test of all
teachings (Scripture included)
o
Mark 12:29-31 – Yahshua said the Shema
was the first and greatest of the Torah Commandments, clearly
indicating its supremacy and central status in the Torah.
o
Paul declared that “love is the fulfilling of
the Law” – Romans 13:10. This indicates that when we truly and fully love Yahweh,
as commanded in the Shema, we will be living in full compliance
with the whole Torah.
o
Because of its central position in Scripture-Torah
included, the Shema is to be the center of our thoughts
in morning and evening worship times, in travel time, and moments of relaxation.
While
the Shema is the heart of the Torah (and all Scripture), the heart of paganism is its
opposite: the Trinity doctrine…
