Hear the Oneness

 

To experience life on this earth is to experience opposite extremes. There are moments of love, creativity, joy and meaning and then moments of anguish, pain, sadness and confusion.

What advice does Judaism offer on how to manage these tensions…how do we find light in the darkness? In this week’s Parsha Vaetchanan, Moses speaks the phrase which perhaps more than any other, captures Judaism’s heart and soul.

‘Hear, O Israel: The L-rd is our G-d; the L-rd is one.’

The Shema שמע…starting with hear and ending with one…the simple yet profound message that despite the tension we feel every day, despite the world being divided and fractured, the true essence of our existence is oneness.

It is only in stillness that you can hear…only by quieting your mind and listening more deeply we can find oneness.

How can we practice listening more deeply? How can we truly take in another point of view? How can we listen with our hearts?

During a month in which we move upward from the brokenness of Tisha B’Av, to the love of Tu B’Av and onwards to the auspicious month of Elul, it seems to suggest that our pathway to connection can be found in cultivating this quality. Listening is an act of receiving, it’s integrating, it’s the process toward compassionate understanding and it’s essential for growth.

Our central prayer, שמע, continues to direct us back to this. It urges us multiple times a day to focus on the practice of deep listening.

 This is our direction. This is where the magical connection will occur - with ourselves, with another, with the Divine.

 Love Nicolene