Shema: From child to adult, trust and faith

Many Jewish parents, tucking in their children at night, chant the bedtime “Shema Yisrael” (“Hear O Israel”) with them. In a situation of healthy parenting, the room is quiet and dark; the child is swaddled and safe, engulfed in a feeling of trust and wellbeing as the parent sits close by. The child knows that even when the parent leaves the room, it’s not to go far; one call or cry of alarm is enough to bring that loving presence hurrying back.

I want to suggest that this scene, these feelings, might also be being replayed as the child grows into an adult – with the same feelings now transposed onto the Transcendent Divine Parent. What are the rituals as we say the shema? We pause for a moment; the room is quiet. We place a hand upon our eyes, swaddling ourselves, creating darkness. God is close by. We make ourselves aware of that by declaring that God is one with everything, and hence everywhere. One in the mystical sense, that “there is nothing beside Him.” Even when we ourselves do not see or feel God, one call or cry is enough to connect us to the Presence.

The faith and trust that what we practice nightly in a healthy childhood emotional situation, is then in maturity applied to healthy faith emotional development. It is a daily affirmation of basic trust in the Creator and in our own worthiness as created beings. And even if the childhood situation was not healthy, there is still hope for the adult who intentionally creates healthy faith structures, that this may, we hope, actually rectify some of that childhood dysfunction.

(With thanks to Rabbi Dr Elie Holzer, in whose class on the Sefat Emet these insights arose.)