Most parents and parenting
experts agree that children's bedtime
rituals are very important. For some, it may be reading before the lights go out. For some, it means reviewing
the next day’s schedule with the child. Some children will pray before they go
to bed. The bedtime ritual in Judaism is to recite the Shemah before one goes
to sleep at night. When our children were younger; we would read to them and
then we would say the Shemah and the first paragraph beginning with the words “V’Ahavtah
et Adoshem Elokechah…”By the time our children were saying their first words,
they would say this with us. I remember the feeling my wife and I had when we
would begin the ritual and they would say the entire paragraph by themselves.
Then I would whistle the song that I gave them when they were born, “Summertime,”
“Somewhere or the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World”. Then we kiss them
goodnight, and we hope that they will sleep through the night and not wake us up.
This
morning we read from Parsha V’Etchanan. B’nai Yisroel sits intently and listens
to Moshe continues his first discourse on the Law. Moshe re-iterates the
covenant, the punishment of exile and the constant possibility of return. Moshe
re-iterates the experience of revelation at Sinai as well as a re-statement of
the Aseret Dibrot, the Ten Commandments. Moshe teaches this new generation that
they heard the revelation, they witnessed the fire. And the fact that
they sit on the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River is a testament to that fact.
Moshe reminds this new generation that this Torah is perfect, one can interpret
but we cannot add or subtract words. Instead we must struggle and make sense of
every aspect of Torah. Moshe then introduces the lone piece of dogma in the
entire Torah: Shemah Yisroel Adoshem Elokeinu
Adoshem Echad Hear O Israel the Lord
is God the Lord is One. The Parsha concludes with Moshe strongly reminding
B’nai Yisroel that as part of the Covenant it must reclaim the land. Once in
the land, B’nai Yisroel is obligated to separate themselves from the other
indigenous tribes and uphold the obligations of the covenant that God made with
their ancestors.
The Talmud
in Tractate Brachot 61b offers the following Aggadah about the final moments of Rabbi Akiva’s life in order to
explain the Pasuk V’Ahavtah et Adoshem Elokechah,
B’chol Levavchah U’vechol Nafshechah U’ve’Chol M’odechah – You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and all your soul and with all your resources (Deut. 6:5). In
doing so, ChaZaL –Our Sages of blessed memory, intimated as to why we say the Shemah
before we go to sleep. ”When Rabbi Akiva
was brought for his execution, it was time to recite the Shemah. As the
executioners were combing his flesh with iron combs, he lovingly accepted the
yoke of God’s kingship. As he prepared himself to recite the Shemah, his
disciples asked: Our teacher, even to such a degree as this you prepare
yourself to say the Shemah? Akiva replied: All my days I have been troubled by
this verse “With All your soul” (Deut. 6:5), which I interpreted as meaning
“Even if he takes your soul.” But I thought to myself: When shall I have an
occasion to fulfill this precept? Now that I have the occasion, shall I not
fulfill it? So he recited the Shemah and he prolonged the concluding word of
the Shemah [the word “Echad”] until he died as he finished saying the word. A
divine voice went forth and proclaimed: Happy are you Akiva that your soul has
departed with the word “Echad!” With all the possible words and concepts
that the Torah teaches, why did Rabbi Akiva view these few Psukim (verses) as
the essence of Jewish belief? What are in these particular words that offered Akiva
a sense of peace as he made these words his final words? I don’t pretend to go
into the psyche of a dying man who is being tortured for teaching torah and
being a leader of the Jewish people.
When
we read these two Psukim Shemah Yisroel
Adoshem Elokeinu Adoshem Echad Hear O
Israel the Lord is God the Lord is One:
V’Ahavtah et Adoshem Elokechah, B’chol Levavchah U’vechol Nafshechah U’ve’Chol
M’odechah – You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your resources, we
should be in awe of the raw simplicity of the first statement, and we should
feel empowered by words of the second statement. Even as Akiva helplessly lay
splayed out on an altar with metal combs ripping his flesh, Akiva possessed
enough strength to declare Hear O Israel.
Akiva had enough faith to declare The
Lord is God. No matter what, no matter the joy or the sadness, God is the
ultimate source of energy, the ultimate source of all things. Rabbi Akiva
understood that “with all your soul” means in life and in death. R’Akiva
understood that in life and even as he lay dying, he was still able to engage
in a relationship with God. No matter where we are in life, no matter what is
happening in our life, we are all empowered to engage God. We are all capable
of having Torah and doing Torah.
Every
night our children go to sleep. Every night we go to sleep. Often time, bedtime
for children can be fraught with anxiety. Monsters are under the bed, mommy and
daddy are not there in the room. For the elderly, night time is also fraught
with anxiety, which is why it is quite common for older people to wake up so
early in the morning. I remember asking my grandfather why he would wake up so
early and he would say that he has plenty of time to sleep when he is dead (God
forbid). Yet his response was quite profound. Sleep, in a sense is the closest
thing to death, which we all experience. Our heart rate slows, our metabolism slows
and we are unconscious. So the final words on our mouths, the final thoughts in
our minds should be our relationship with God. That statement is the final
spoken thought before I go to bed. Although I always quietly add my own
personal addendum that my children should stay in bed and not wake us up in the
middle of the night.
Peace,
Rav Yitz
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