Staircase to Heaven

It’s Judaism’s most famous verse — yet it’s rarely, if ever, properly understood.

The opening words of the Shema prayer, found in Deuteronomy 6:4 in this week’s Torah portion, Va’etchanan, are usually translated: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Yet, as the scholar Judah Kraut has noted in a learned academic article, the original Hebrew wording is not reflected perfectly in this commonly used version. A more exact translation of the final clause, which in Hebrew reads “…Hashem echad,” would be the clunky “…the Lord one.”

The difficulty in properly representing the Hebrew has led interpreters to add the English word “is,” which Biblical Hebrew lacks, to arrive at “the Lord is one.” While that makes that part of the sentence read more smoothly, it leaves us with what seems to be, after the introductory bit explaining that Israel should listen, an incomplete thought – “the Lord our God.” The Lord our God is what, what wonders. We then have the verse’s final phrase, “the Lord [is?] one.” 

Why does the verse not just say “the Lord our God is one,” then? Why the seeming purposeful stutter in attempting to complete the clause?

Kraut suggests that the verse is purposefully poetic. In fact, it utilizes a sentence structure common in the ancient world, and in the Bible itself, called “staircase parallelism.” Sequenced in an ABAC matter, with “the Lord” being A, “our God” being B, “the Lord” as A again, and “is one” as C. This type of style appears numerous times in some of the Bible’s most commonly recited parts, including the Song of the Sea. There, in Exodus’ 15th chapter, Moses and the Children of Israel praise God, who has just led them out of Egypt and across the miraculously dry land amidst the sea, “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power; Your right hand, O Lord, dashes the enemy to pieces.” Here, “Your right hand” acts as A, repeated twice in the sentence. 

As the medieval sage the Rashbam notes, “This verse is like . . . [Psalms 93:3, 94:3, and 92:10, in that] . . . the first phrase makes an incomplete statement; then the second phrase comes and repeats and then finishes the statement.”

Other verses in the Song of the Sea, “Who is like You among the gods, who is like You majestic in holiness,” and “the Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name,” follow the same style. 

The key to understanding this poetic device then, is that in all instances, including the opening line of the Shema prayer, the second “A” element should be treated as if it’s not really there – it’s decorative, reflective of the heightened oratory of the context. The meaning, and proper translation, should reflect this. Thus, “the Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name” really means to say “the Lord, Man of War is His name.” God’s right hand? Well, it’s glorious in power, dashing the enemy to pieces. 

These verses don’t contain two distinct statements – they are one succinct idea, dressed up by a stylistic flourish.

That opening verse of Shema, then, is correctly understood as stating, in no uncertain terms: The Lord our God is one. 

As Kraut puts it, “staircase parallelism here, at the outset of Moses’s epic speech — as in other cases — serves to frame, heighten, and emphasize the content embedded within the verse itself, and to reinforce the importance of the message that is to follow.”

As Kraut puts it, “staircase parallelism here, at the outset of Moses’s epic speech — as in other cases — serves to frame, heighten, and emphasize the content embedded within the verse itself, and to reinforce the importance of the message that is to follow.”

Launching into his epic final address before dying on Mount Nebo, Moses urges the Israelites to stay loyal to the covenant their ancestors committed to with God. Primacy of place is given to God’s unified nature, a monotheistic contrast to the multiplicity of pagan deities believed to be prevalent in ancient times. As the late Lord Jonathan Sacks has elaborated:

“[Shema] means something like: ‘Listen. Concentrate. Give the word of God your most focused attention. Strive to understand. Engage all your faculties, intellectual and emotional. Make His will your own. For what He commands you to do is not irrational or arbitrary but for your welfare, the welfare of your people, and ultimately for the benefit of all humanity … then you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your might. In God’s unity you will find unity — within yourself and between yourself and the world — and you will no longer fear the unknown.’”

“The Lord our God is one” is a core Jewish principle of belief we can now properly translate, in words as in deed.

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”