קִרְב֧וּ אֵלַ֣י שִׁמְעוּ־זֹ֗את לֹ֤א מֵרֹאשׁ֙ בַּסֵּ֣תֶר דִּבַּ֔רְתִּי מֵעֵ֥ת הֱיוֹתָ֖הּ שָׁ֣ם אָ֑נִי וְעַתָּ֗ה אֲדֹנָ֧י יֱהֹוִ֛ה שְׁלָחַ֖נִי וְרוּחֽוֹ׃
“Come near to me, and hear this, From the beginning,
I have not spoken in secret, From the time that it was, I was there. And now, Adonai Hashem has sent me, and His Spirit.”
Isaiah 48:16
וְהָיָ֣ה ׀ עֵ֣קֶב תִּשְׁמְע֗וּן אֵ֤ת הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים֙ הָאֵ֔לֶּה וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֥ם וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑ם וְשָׁמַר֩ ה׳ אֱלֹק֜יךָ לְךָ֗ אֶֽת־הַבְּרִית֙ וְאֶת־הַחֶ֔סֶד אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבַּ֖ע לַאֲבֹתֶֽיךָ׃
12 “Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep His covenant with you and His faithfulness which He swore to your forefathers.”
Deuteronomy 7:12
13 And He will love you, bless you, and make you numerous; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain, your new wine, and your oil, the newborn of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you.
Deuteronomy 8:13
“Shema is one of the key words of the book of Devarim, where it appears no less than 92 times. It is, in fact, one of the key words of Judaism as a whole. It is central to the two passages that form the first two paragraphs of the prayer we call the Shema, one in last week’s parsha, the other in this week’s…”
“What is more: it is untranslatable. It means many things: to hear, to listen, to pay attention, to understand, to internalize and to respond. It is the closest biblical Hebrew comes to a verb that means “to obey.” In general, when you encounter a word in any language that is untranslatable into your own, you are close to the beating pulse of that culture. To understand an untranslatable word, you have to be prepared to move out of your comfort zone and enter a mindset that is significantly different from yours…”
“In English, virtually all our words for understanding or intellect are governed by the metaphor of sight. We speak of insight, hindsight, foresight, vision and imagination ...We say, “it appears that.” When we understand something, we say, “I see.” This entire linguistic constellation is the legacy of the philosophers of ancient Greece, the supreme example in all history of a visual culture. Judaism, by contrast, is a culture of the ear more than the eye… the Babylonian Talmud consistently uses the metaphor of hearing. So when a proof is brought, it says Ta shma, 'Come and hear.' When it speaks of inference it says, Shema mina, 'Hear from this.' When someone disagrees with an argument, it says Lo shemiyah leih, 'he could not hear it.' When it draws a conclusion it says, Mashma, 'from this it can be heard.' Maimonides calls the oral tradition, Mipi hashemua, 'from the mouth of that which was heard.' In Western culture understanding is a form of seeing. In Judaism it is a form of listening.”
R’ Jonathan Sacks, Listen, Really Listen, Chabad.org
“It is therefore a habitual saying of mine (not as a hypocritical flatterer, God forbid, for I am of the faithful believers of Israel, and I know well that the remnant of Israel will not speak falsehood, nor will their mouths contain a deceitful tongue) that the Nazarene brought about a double kindness in the world. On the one hand, he strengthened the Torah of Moses majestically, as mentioned earlier, and not one of our Sages spoke out more emphatically concerning the immutability of the Torah. And on the other hand, he did much good for the Gentiles (provided they do not turn about his intent as they please, as some foolish ones have done because they did not fully understand the intent of the authors of the Gospels.”
R’ Yaakov Emden, Seder Olam Vezuta
Ibn Ezra and Nachmanides interpret it in the sense of “in the end” (i.e., “in the heels of,” or in the sense that the heel is at the extremity of the body)—the reward being something that follows the action. A similar interpretation is given by Ohr HaChaim, who explains that true satisfaction and fulfillment comes at the “end”—the complete fulfillment of all the mitzvot, and by Rabbeinu Bechayei, who sees it as an allusion that the reward we do receive in this world is but a lowly and marginal (the “heel”) aspect of the true worth of the mitzvot.
Baal HaTurim gives a gematriac explanation: the word eikev is used because it has a numerical value of 172—the number of words in the Ten Commandments.
Tzemach Tzedek (the third Chabad rebbe) sees it as a reference to ikveta d’meshicha, the generation of “the heels of Moshiach” (the last generation of the exile is called “the heels of Moshiach” by our sages because: a) they are the spiritually lowest generation, due to the “descent of the generations”; b) it is the generation in which the footsteps of Moshiach can already be heard). This is the generation that will “hearken to these laws,” as Maimonides writes: “The Torah has already promised that the people of Israel will return to G‑d at the end of their exile, and will be immediately redeemed.” The Lubavitcher Rebbe says: Our commitment to Torah should be such that it permeates us entirely, so that also our heel—the lowest and the least sensitive part of the person—“hearkens to these laws, observes them and does them.” In other words, our relationship with G‑d should not be confined to the holy days of the year, or to certain “holy” hours we devote to prayer and study, but should also embrace our everyday activities. Indeed, this “lowly” and “spiritually insensitive” part of our life is the foundation of our relationship with G‑d, in the same way that the heel is the base upon which the entire body stands and moves.
All the mitzvah . . . shall you observe to do (8:1)
The simple meaning of the phrase “all the mitzvah” is the entire body of divine commandments—all the mitzvot. The Midrashic interpretation is: do the whole mitzvah. If you begin a good deed, finish it, for a mitzvah is credited to the one who concludes the task. Thus it is written: “Joseph’s bones, which the children of Israel took out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem.” Yet it was Moses himself who took Joseph’s bones out of Egypt (Exodus 13:19)! But since he did not conclude the task, and the children of Israel concluded it, it is called by their name.
Rashi citedat Chabad.org
“All the generations of history labored to bring Moshiach, and certainly their contribution is greater than ours. Nevertheless, we are the “generation of redemption,” since “a mitzvah is credited to the one who concludes the task.”
The Lubavitcher Rebbe cited at Chabad.org
“command you this day: [“this day” suggests] that [the commandments] should [always] be to you as new, as though you had just heard them on this very day. — [Sifrei 11:32]”
Rashi on Deut 11:13
“I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the Temple, where all the Jews congregate and I said nothing in secret.
John 18:20, NASB (Modified)
אָנֹכִי דִבַּרְתִּי בְּאָזְנֵי כָל־הָעוֹלָם וְתָמִיד לִמַּדְתִּי בְּבֵית כְּנֵסֶת וּבְבֵית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ אֲשֶׁר כָּל־הַיְּהוּדִים נִקְהָלִים שָׁמָּה וְלֹא־דִבַּרְתִּי דָבָר בַּסָּתֶר׃
13 On that day Jesus had gone out of the house and was sitting by the sea. 2 And large crowds gathered to Him, so He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach.
3 And He told them many things in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and they sprang up immediately, because they had no depth of soil. 6 But after the sun rose, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.7 Others fell [a]among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. 8 But others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty times as much.
The one who has ears,
let him hear.”
Matthew 13:9
מִי אֲשֶׁר לוֹ אָזְנַיִם לִשְׁמֹעַ יִשְׁמָע׃