"Hasidic Interpretations of the First Verse of the Shema" From Norman Lamm's "The Shema: Spirituality and Law in Judaism."

According to the mystic tradition as expressed in the Zohar, the beginning verse line of the Shema represents the Higher Unification and the sentence now following, which is non found in the Bible at all, indicates the Lower Unification. This variety arose out of the need to connect the non-biblical verse to the first verse and harmonize it with the phrase, the Lord is One. Within the hasidic tradition, there plume two fundamentally different interpretations of the Zohars higher and lower concerning the public opinion of divine unity. The Lubavitch interpretation of Zalman takes the first verse of the Shema literally. For example, immortal is One, to a greater extent(prenominal) than denying the existence of early(a) gods, indicates that nothing outside of theology butt be said to truly exist. It is for this reason that Zalmans view is referred to as acosmic, a term which describes the complete denial of the cosmos. Accordingly, mans reality must be written off as nothing to a greater extent than Gods dream. To Zalman, this is the correct interpretation of Higher Unification. However, as Lamm points out, the acosmic view seat potentially pose serious threats to the halakhic realm of Jewish sustenance which relies on the assumption that the world is real.

If everything is merely an illusion, then how does the lawful Jew differentiate between right and wrong behavior, kosher and non-kosher foods, or any separate laws found within the Torah? Further, what then would be the meaning of being religious at all? Zolman explains that God wills man to behave as if the world he lived in were in fact real and not an illusion. In other words, halak hic life still has meaning because God ordai! ned that it be respected in his divinely willed reality. To clarify this highly restrain and confusing formulation, Zalman applies the Cordoveran notion that the... If you want to get a richly essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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