I’ve been meaning to purchase Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s recently published prayerbook. So far, I like everything I hear about it (read: what Gil Student writes about it). The conventional translation of the first verse of the Shema begins with “Hear O Israel.” R. Sacks translates it as “Listen, Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Rabbi Gil has been kind enough to quote from R. Sacks’s explanation of the translation choice.
Shema means not only to “hear” but also “to listen, understand, internalise, respond and obey.” It is translated here as “Listen” because listening is active, while hearing is passive. This, the most famous line of Jewish prayer, is a call to action on the part of the mind, emotion and will. It asks us to reflect on, strive to understand, and to affirm the unity of God. God speaks in a “still, small voice”, and to serve Him is to listen with the totality of our being.
Secular terms for understanding are permeated with visual images. We speak of insight, foresight, vision, observation, perspective; when we understand, we say “I see”. Judaism, with its belief in an invisible, transcendent God, is a culture of the ear, not the eye. The patriarchs and prophets did not see God; they heard Him. To emphasie the non-visual nature of Jewish belief, it is our custom to cover our eyes as we say these words.