The whole of Y’shua’s message and ministry

Parasha Va’etchanan

Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11

Isaiah 40:1-26

Matthew 23:31-39

Applying the Portion to Life Today

The greatest commandment in the entire Bible is found in parasha Va’etchanan, Devarim 6:4-9.  It is this Torah passage that Y’shua quoted when he was asked what is most vital in the Scriptures. It is this Torah passage that should be central to all lives of Bible believers.  The whole of Y’shua’s message and ministry, indeed the whole of Torah can be summed up in these few verses.  Jews for thousands of years have repeated this passage twice daily as a constant reminder of what really matters.  Let’s take a few minutes and consider in the original Hebrew terms what Y’shua said was the first and primary mitzvot.

The word “Shema” is an ancient Hebrew word which means to “listen attentively and obey.”  To Shema is to not just “hear” but to “listen and be provoked to action.”  There is a difference between “hearing” and “listening.”  To “hear” means to just allow what is being voiced to pass through the eardrum.  While to “listen” and “Shema” is to mentally take in what is being communicated and do something about it.  “Yisra’el” is the second word, expressing who is being told to listen up.  The scriptures teach that Yisra’el was chosen to bring the Light of YHWH and Torah to the nations of the world.  Other verses in the current parasha speak to the set-apart status of this nation.  The heathen nations were not given the revelation of YHWH that this chosen nation was.  Yisra’el literally means “those who rule and reign with El.”  Yisra’el is the physical descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya’acov and those who have attached themselves to the whole through identity.  Yisra’el is to listen, mentally understand, and be motivated to act when YHWH speaks.

YHWH is THE name of the Creator.  It is His unique descriptive moniker, which separates Him as the ruler of the universe.  YHWH is the name given to Moshe at the burning bush and expressed to all mankind as “a memorial unto all generations.”  The four-lettered sacred name of YHWH is to be used and studied.  It is not to be put upon a shelf as too holy.  Translators in English Bibles have wrongly hidden the sacred name behind capitalized substitutes and manmade titles.  YHWH is His Name.  The Shema acknowledges this and so should all believers.

The term “Eloheynu” is the phrase for “our Elohim.”  Eloheynu describes association – He is OUR Elohim not just our fathers or our ancestors or someone else’s.  “Elohim” is a plural Hebrew word for “mighty one” or “spiritual being,” often translated as “g/d.”  When we say “YHWH Eloheynu” we are saying that YHWH and YHWH alone is our subject of worship and adoration.  YHWH is our Elohim, the Elohim of am Yisra’el.

Again the name “YHWH” is being used – two YHWH’s!  YHWH the Father and YHWH the Word are “Elohim” and “Echad!”  The two are one.  The mystics of the Zohar wrote, “In Devarim 6:4, we first read YHWH, then Eloheynu, and again YHWH, which together make one Unity.  But how can three Names be One?  Are they verily one, because we call them One?  How three can be one can only be known through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, and, in fact, with closed eyes (closed when reciting the Shema)…thus YHWH, Eloheynu, YHWH but One Unity, three Substantive Beings which are one.”  The idea of YHWH being “Echad” could lend itself to hundreds of pages of study.  Instead of a huge discourse over trinity and unity and the like, let’s just settle for the basics.  “Echad” is a special Hebrew phrase which according to Strong’s Exhaustive Dictionary literally means “united, i.e. one; or first: alone, altogether, the one and the only.”  The word itself teaches that YHWH is a plurality in divinity, a type of greater and lesser YHWH.

To say that YHWH is “Echad” is to say that He is not divided, that He is unique, that He alone is Elohim, that within Him is no changing or division, that He alone is worthy of worship.

To love YHWH is to “ahava YHWH.”  The primitive root word “ahava” means to “have affection, sexually or otherwise, love, like, to befriend, to be intimate.” It brings to mind the idea of longing for or breathing for the Creator.  Hebraically love is connected to appetite.  To ahava YHWH is to crave Him and His Word.  Ahava is related directly to Torah.  “O how I love your Torah!” wrote David in Tehillim 119:97.  Ahava is the force that brought forth creation, sent Moshiach, and is restoring Yisra’el.  “When you and your children return to the YHWH your elohim and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then YHWH your Elohim will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you…YHWH your Elohim will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live,” Devarim 30:2,6.

The Scriptures state that when you ahava YHWH that it is to be done with all of who you really are: with all of your heart or “lev;” with all of your being or “nefesh;” and with all of your strength or “meod.”  This is the sum of Torah and the essence of who Yisra’el really is.

When Y’shua gave the Great Commission He was in a sense reminding His talmidim of the Great Commandment.  The problem is that most groups have gotten the two mixed up.  Most churches spend more time on “preaching the Gospel” than loving the Creator through devotion and desire.  Great Commandment love is who Yisra’el should be and carry out the Great Commission (going into the Diaspora and making talmidim) is what Yisra’el should do.

Written by Daniel Rendelman