Talk:Shema Yisrael

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judaism Portal Shema Yisrael is part of WikiProject Judaism, a project to improve all articles related to Judaism. If you would like to help improve this and other articles related to the subject, consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Judaism articles.

Project Judaism To-do: edit purge watch Here are some tasks you can do: Requests: Jewish and Biblical Units of Measurement or some such name, to include material of Ancient Hebrew units of measurement but also Talmudic units and use in Halacha (a la the Hebrew Wikipedia article he:מידות ומשקלות תורניים) Collaboration of the week The current Orthodox Rabbinical Biography Collaboration of the Week is Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl. The current Judaism Collaboration of the Week is Zealotry. Translate Please note that in many instances, projects related to Torah study proceed much faster in Hebrew than in English. Mikraot Gedolot (rabbinic bible) at Wikisource in English (sample) and Hebrew (sample). Mishnah at Wikisource - Hebrew text with translation and commentary; there is also a Hebrew version. Shulchan Aruch at Wikisource - Hebrew text with English translation New projects Mikraot Gedolot Project at Hebrew Wikisource Megillot Mikraot Gedolot Eikhah Copyedit: see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Rival Biblical views Cleanup: Jewish mythology - needs to be rewritten to be inline with our other mythology articles. Expand: Wikiversity: School of Jewish Studies. Part of the new open content university, Wikiversity. Stubs: Category:Judaism stubs, Category:Tanakh stubs Update: Portal:Judaism is WikiProject Judaism's frequently updated portal. You can help make this the best portal on Wikipedia. Look at the talk page to see how you can help.

Contents 1 Disambig? 2 Yoke 3 Shahadah reference 4 Added key phrases 5 Translation 6 Translation of Echad 7 Haiku 8 Cleanup

[edit] Disambig?

For some bizarre reason, this was a disambig page where the Jewish article had been put in Shema Yisrael (Judaism) and a New Testament quote in Shema Yisrael (New Testament). Both are about the same principle, so I merged it back and took the opportunity to copyedit both. In my view, there is nothing wrong with having the "Christian" quote on the "Jewish" page. JFW | T@lk 14:44, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Anyone curious why I didn't put this (otherwise fascinating observation) in the External links? The Jewish Haiku. JFW | T@lk 14:00, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Yoke

OL means both yoke and burden. The meaning -here- is burden. Please find a way to express this. elpincha 18:57, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC) , who also knows OL means beer in Danish language

[edit] Shahadah reference

The parallel to Shema in Islam would include both the Shahadah and the takbeer. elpincha 18:57, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• I think I've improved the context.--Pharos 03:54, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Added key phrases

I added key phrases to understand the totality of the shema: "loving God with all one's heart, soul and might". And to "teach them (referring to these key words) diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up."

All this is a logical flow from the starting point that the "Lord is one!" or the "The LORD our God is one LORD". Marax 03:32, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Translation

The portion regarding the translation to English is troublesome. The Hebrew text in the 'Content' section is שמע ישראל אדני אלהינו אדני אחד, which is (correctly) transliterated as "Shma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad." The correct Shema (or at least the one I've always known) contains the tetragrammaton rather than אדני. The problem arises in that almost all transliterations of the Hebrew use Adonai, for obvious reasons to most Jews.

I changed the translation to English that used Y-H-W-H ("Listen Israel! Y-H-W-H is our G-d! Y-H-W-H is one!") simply because the Hebrew version of the Shema earlier in the paragraph does not contain the tetragrammaton, which was making the section internally inconsistent. I stopped short of changing the Hebrew itself because I wanted to avoid making a unilateral decision on how to translate the Shema to English, given the difference between the Hebrew and the standard transliteration. Thoughts on this would be welcome.

On a seperate topic, the phrase immediately following this, "Echad - can also rightly mean 'unity'" could be construed as POV. Christian belief dictates that this is the case so as to accomadate the concept of a trinity, but many Jewish sources contest this translation. A case can be made for either side, so either both interpretations should be detailed, or the phrase should be simply removed. Personally, I find it to be out of place and irrelevant, but I know that this is a strongly debated topic and deserves examination. 81.131.130.108 19:27, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Whoops, this was me. Damn cookies. Dbratton 19:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I think YHWH can safely be translated as God, and ellokeinu our "Our Lord" or such. Echad does not mean "unity", and to construe this is indeed POV. "Unity" in Hebrew is "achdut" or "yichud". "Echad" is sometimes used to refer to unity is a metaphoric fashion but never literally. JFW | T@lk 02:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

By the way, the text here is not actually correct. Instead of אדני we should indeed be having the Tetragrammaton, which is the correct Hebrew version of Deut 6:4. JFW | T@lk 02:31, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Glad that you agree. Now we just need to find someone who is comfortable typing out the name of G-d to change it. I know I'm not. ;) Dbratton 13:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Translation of Echad

The translation commentary I added respecting the word Echad was not intended to be a NPOV violation. I felt the existing translation / commentary was incomplete, because of the different ways in which Echad has been known to be used in Scripture. For example, in Genesis 2:24 the word is used to refer idiomatically of sexual union between husband and wife. This passage especially colors my perception of the term.

My persional theological biases not withstanding, it wasn't my intention to shift the nutrality of that section toward one linguistic (or theological) interpretation or the other. I can, in retrospect, see how Dbratton (by whom my edit was reverted) could take my edit the way he did. I also agree with 81.131.130.108: The exact meaning of Echad is the subject of some controversy in both Jewish and Christian circles. Therefore, I'm going to link the term Echad to an article that documents the controversy and gives it the attention it deserves. —Wikijeff

There is no Jewish controversy on the meaning of Echad, and I am more than a bit suspicious of your suggestion that there is. It means one, as in Genesis 1:5, as in the song "Echad Mi Yodea" (who knows "one"?) etc etc. Do not misrepresent matters please. JFW | T@lk 22:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jeff. 81.131.130.108 is me, having forgotten to log in.

I do agree with JFW in that there really is no controversy in Jewish circles as to the meaning of Echad. That said, I do recognize that there is a lot of christian support for an alternate translation of the term. As I mentioned above, the best option is to either detail both cases, or to remove the contention altogether - this article isn't the place for it. To that end, your creation of a new article specifically for the term is probably the best approach. I look forward to seeing it developed, and I will definitely be interested in contributing! Dbratton 03:49, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

There should not be a seperate article to cover this! That is in complete breech of WP:NPOV. Firstly: where are those Christian sources? In the absence of them, this debate is completely pointless. JFW | T@lk 14:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I was making the assumption that Jeff would be providing such sources in the new article he seemed to be creating (although it's been a few days now). If he finds good, non-biased sources supporting his claims I won't have a problem with linking to an article discussing the difference in translations, but unless and until he does so, I agree that there's no reason to change the Shema article. I personally have never seen a convincing argument that echad in this context can be taken to mean unity, so we'll see. Dbratton 15:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Creating a new page to deal with a POV is called a "POV fork" and strongly discouraged by policy. Wikijeff has a fairly strong Christian agenda, so if he wants that viewpoint represented we can work on a section here called "Christian interpretation", because the trinity flies in the face of monotheism and hence calls for a reinterpretation of Echad. If there are no serious sources I will consider the discussion closed. JFW | T@lk 15:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Haiku

I mentioned the Haiku above. An anon actually inserted this in the article, but it was removed[1]. I'm open to persuation, but I thought it would add a nice dimension to the article. Aish.com is an outlet of serious articles[2]. JFW | T@lk 22:17, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed it mainly because it was smack in the middle of the important Content section, where it seems quite out of place and irrelevant. It's a fascinating coincidence and I wouldn't mind seeing it elsewhere on the page, but it's not really important enough to be stuck between word definitions and the meaning of the prayer. The best I can come up with is at the end of the Content section, but it's hard to say where the best fit is. Dbratton 22:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

There must be other cultural references. JFW | T@lk 23:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I've tagged this article for cleanup due to its bizarre inclusion of patches of text in JPEG format. I don't know who on Earth thought it would be a good idea to enclose some of the text of this article in image files (one of the most intensely annoying design blunders on the web), let alone JPEGs which are intended for photographs and the like and are wholly unsuitable for text, resulting in either huge files (161KB for a short paragraph!) or ugly compression artifacts. This really is a terrible embarrasment to Wikipedia. What in יהוה's name were you thinking?! 86.136.92.195 14:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The photograph is of the contents of a Torah scroll. Judaism has many requirements for the appearance of a Torah scroll beyond the text itelf, including special calligraphy, and regards these other elements as essential. Thus, the implicit assumption in your criticism -- that the only thing encyclopedic about this image is its text as text -- is inconsistent with central beliefs of the religion that the article is concerned with. If you believe that this particular image has properties that make it different from and more problematic than other images typically found in Wikipedia articles, these issues could be discussed separately. --Shirahadasha 17:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)