Last, Lasting Words
“I’m writing this down because I realize that the deadly battle we just got through isn’t the last.” This, from one of forty-nine final letters from soldiers who fell in the war Hamas started with Israel on October 7th. The collection called If you’re reading these words, felt fitting for yesterday. It helped me personalize the historic procession of catastrophes that we faithfully mourn on our calendar’s saddest day.
Omri Schwartz’s words, penned on December 2, 2023, two weeks before he lost his life at age 21, feel current and close.
The deadly battles we’re going through, aren’t the last. Yet we keenly know how to resist the traps of despair and victimhood. From where did these life-lessons originate? This week’s Torah portion provides an important hint.
Moses begins the portion in personal pain. After pleading with God for a change of heart, to permit him to enter the Land, God declines, “Enough, never speak to me on this matter again” (Deut. 3:23). Yet he ends the portion by introducing our most enduring love-prayer to God of all time. The Shema. Pledging our love with the fullness of our hearts, minds, and beings, to the Lord our God (Deut. 6:4-9).
A student recently asked, when did the Shema become so central? My first response was to recall Rabbi Akiba’s uttering them, which established the lasting practice of making the Shema as a person’s last words. Then it occurred to me, the real answer is in the text itself. We’re taught to say it daily, when we rise and lie down, on our errands, when we venture forth and return home. To teach and learn regularly, faithfully. The Shema is the only text that is so prescriptive. So it became prominent because it asks to be.
And it asks to be for some good reasons. It’s about love. It’s about life. Getting prayed thousands of times long before its end-of-life final utterance. And it’s personal. It’s intimately between you and your God.
Our current battle “isn’t the last” as Omri lamented. Still, our way is to just get stronger through it all. And the signpost along our way invites us to listen, to learn, and to love with everything we have to offer is “Listen, O Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is One.”
