We are saying, ‘It appears to be like that …’ once we comprehend whatever, we are saying, ‘I see. ’ The Babylonian Talmud, in contrast, continually makes use of the metaphor of listening to. while an explanation is ready to be introduced, it says Ta shma, ‘Come and listen to. ’ whilst it speaks of inference it says, Shema mina, ‘Hear from this. ’ while somebody disagrees with a proposition, it says Lo shemiyah leih, ‘He couldn't listen it. ’ whilst it attracts an inference it says, Mashma, ‘From this it may be heard. ’ Maimonides calls the oral culture Mipi hashemua, ‘from the mouth of that which was once heard’. In Western tradition, realizing is a sort of seeing. In Judaism, it's a kind of listening. it's a topic that runs throughout the Bible. Moses reminds the folks that at Mount Sinai: The Lord spoke to you out of the hearth. You heard the sound of phrases yet observed no shape; there has been just a voice. (Deut. 4:12) Even obvious counter-examples end up to not be. So, for example, Moses starts one in all his addresses with the note Reeh, ‘see’. but if we attend to the passage as an entire, we recognize that it's approximately listening, now not seeing: See, i'm atmosphere earlier than you this day a blessing and a curse—the blessing in case you hearken to the instructions of the Lord your God that i'm supplying you with this day; the curse should you don't take heed to the instructions of the Lord your God. (Deut. 11:26–7) for this reason one of many key phrases of Torah, and the 1st observe of Judaism’s maximum prayer, is Shema, ‘Listen’. The nuances of this complicated and multifaceted note provide upward push to 1 of the strangest positive factors of the Hebrew Bible. The Torah is, between different issues, a e-book of instructions. culture enumerates them as 613. but biblical Hebrew has no be aware that implies ‘to obey’. How can this be? Obedience stands to command as fact stands to statement. you can't have one with no the opposite. but if Hebrew was once revived nowa days because the language of the nascent nation of Israel, there has been a transparent desire for a verb which means ‘to obey’: a military relies on squaddies obeying the orders in their officials. looking for and never discovering this sort of note, the architects of recent Hebrew needed to borrow one from the Aramaic: letzayet. The note the Torah makes use of rather than ‘to obey’ is the foundation sh-m-a, this means that (1) to pay attention, (2) to listen to, (3) to wait, (4) to appreciate, (5) to internalise, (6) to reply in motion, and therefore (7) to obey. it is a truth of the top importance, since it tells us that the Torah isn't what Spinoza, Kant and Hegel concept it used to be: a chain of heteronymous (Other-given) instructions that decision for mere obedience. the numerous meanings of the verb sh-m-a sign that the divine command isn't really an arbitrary important yet person who God matters within the expectation that we'll comprehend, internalise and act for that reason. it truly is on the center of what David Weiss Halivni calls Judaism’s ‘predilection for justified law’, legislations that speaks to the brain and to human knowing. Judaism isn't really a faith of seeing yet of listening. That—not sexual wish or any of the opposite fanciful factors which were given of it—is the genuine drama of the sin of Adam and Eve in consuming the forbidden fruit.