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1. Jesus quoted the Shema in response to what question?
What is the greatest commandment?
2. When would Jesus have prayed the Shema?
Jesus would have prayed the Shema at the beginning and end of each day.
3. What does “Shema Israel” stand for? “Hear, O Israel”
4. What are the two key beliefs within the Shema?
The Shema expresses the beliefs that 1) there is only one God, our God and 2) we respond to God’s love by loving him with all our hearts, souls, and strength.
5-6. Answers will vary.
The Meaning of Shema in the Bible
When Jesus Christ was asked to name the greatest commandment, he quoted a well-known verse from the Old Testament:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
This verse is called the Shema, which is short for “Shema Israel,” referring to the first words of the prayer “Hear, O Israel.”
Another way of translating the opening words of the verse really summarizes the primary Judea-Christian truth:
“Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one.”
There is only one God. He is not distant and unknowable. God is our God. He is in a relationship with us.
Which is why the next part of the phrase is so important. We respond to the one God’s love for us by following the commandment to love God with all our hearts, souls, and strength.
This verse was so important to the daily life of the Jews of Jesus’s day and remains so today. It was and is recited in the morning and evening after waking up and before going to bed. These were the instructions in Deuteronomy: “Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise” (Dt 6:7)
People even took the following verse literally (”bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead”) by keeping the words of the prayer on a tiny scroll inside of box on their arms and heads called a tefillin. They also put the words in a tiny box called a mezuzah above their doors to fulfill the commandment to “write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”