The second paragraph of the Shema emphasizes that we have a communal responsibility to help. It is not enough that we are personally spiritual but that we are communally spiritual.
The Shema and the Strength of Community
Now for a quick Devar Torah.
This week, in Parshat Eikev, we encounter the second paragraph of the Shema. And there is an interesting difference between the first and second paragraphs.
The first paragraph speaks primarily in the singular: you shall love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
But the second paragraph shifts to the plural. Moshe is no longer speaking simply to the individual. He is speaking to us as a community.
That distinction is especially important when we remember what the Book of Deuteronomy is about. Moshe is preparing the Jewish people to enter the Land of Israel. After forty years in the wilderness, we are going to build a society. And a society cannot survive on individual spirituality alone.
We certainly have obligations as individuals. But we also have obligations to the people around us. If we want to create a holy society, each of us has to understand that what we do affects everyone else.
That reminds me of something Alexis de Tocqueville observed when he visited the United States in the 1830s and later wrote Democracy in America. Tocqueville was fascinated by the way Americans formed voluntary associations. When people wanted to accomplish something, they did not necessarily wait for the government or some aristocrat to do it for them. They organized themselves. They created religious congregations, charities, civic organizations, and associations of every kind.
People understood that they were part of a community and that when the community needed something, they had a responsibility to pitch in.
Tocqueville saw this habit of association as one of the great strengths of American democracy. Freedom did not mean simply being left alone. A free society depended upon people voluntarily accepting responsibility for one another and working together for the common good.
And that fits beautifully with the second paragraph of the Shema.
The Torah is telling us that spirituality cannot be only about me. It must also be about us. Yes, there are exceptional individuals who can maintain their spiritual lives entirely on their own, but most of us need a community. We need people around us who encourage us, challenge us, and remind us of the values by which we are supposed to live.
If everyone around us is doing the wrong thing, eventually it becomes much harder to keep doing the right thing. But when we build a community committed to certain values, we strengthen one another.
And then the Shema gives us another responsibility: teach these values to your children.
If a community wants to survive, its values cannot end with one generation. Our children have to learn that life is not simply about me—my wants, my success, my happiness. It is also about my family, my community, my society, and my nation.
Moshe is preparing the Jewish people to build a new society, and he is teaching us that holiness is not achieved only through private spiritual experience. Holiness is also created through the way we live together, the responsibilities we accept for one another, and the values we pass on to the next generation.
The first paragraph of the Shema teaches us about the commitment of the individual.
The second reminds us that the individual must become part of something larger.
Because if we want to build a holy society, it cannot just be about me.
It has to be about us.
Something to think about.
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