Where is your heart?
How an ancient Jewish practice can inform your everyday life
For the last several months, my book club has been reading N.T. Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God. The first in Wright’s four-volume Christian Origins series, the book provides exceptional detail on the world that Jesus lived in, detailing what Jews in the first century believed and what that means for modern Christians.
One thing that I’ve come to realize through reading is how inextricable ancient Judaism is from Christianity. This probably seems obvious, but I feel like I’ve gained a new understanding of what it really means here lately.
Time and culture have made it easy, if not inevitable, for modern Christianity to distance itself from its Jewish heritage. But the story of Christ followers doesn’t start with Jesus’ resurrection in AD 33…not really. If we take Jesus’ claims about himself seriously, then our story starts on page 1 of scripture.
To say our story starts with creation seems a bit obvious, so for the sake of illustration I’ll fast forward a bit and instead say that, though we may not have an ethnic claim to the Jewish lineage, we can actually trace our beginnings back to Abraham.
Often, when reading the Old Testament, I’ve kept the thought in the back of my mind that this isn’t really for me. As a Gentile Christian, my heritage begins later, with the story of Christ. But if that’s true, why study the Old Testament at all?
Jesus came to save the whole world—but he did so as a Jew, in a Jewish context, from a Jewish lineage.
In God’s grace, he allowed Gentiles (non-Jews) to be “grafted in” and included with his chosen people. Christians are not a replacement for Jews, but a new branch added to the same, ancient tree. The natural conclusion of Old Testament Judaism is New Testament Christianity, with Jesus Christ as the linchpin between the two.
With that being said, I’m curious about ancient Jewish traditions and practices, not simply as a novelty, but as a piece of my Christian heritage.
The practice of the Shema
A Jewish practice that I’ve been intrigued by since I first learned about it is the daily ritual of praying the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
For an example of how Jews throughout history have regarded the Shema as an essential practice, look no further than Jesus himself.
You’re likely familiar with the story about Jesus’ questioning by the Pharisees as to which command is the “greatest.” Rather than getting tripped up by their attempt to force him into error, Jesus responds by repeating the Shema:
“And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.’” (Matthew 22:37-38)
The same instance is also recounted in Mark 12:29-30 and Luke 10:27.
This week, I want to focus on one specific part of the Shema: the heart.
What is my heart?
To understand the commandment to love “with all your heart,” it’s important to understand what the word “heart” meant in the original text. Like much of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy was originally written in Hebrew.
The word that we translate “heart” is the Hebrew word lev. Classical Hebrew functions differently than modern English, so there’s not necessarily a one-to-one relationship between the two words—essentially, “heart” is the closest English word we can find to approximate lev.
There’s an important difference in the function of the heart in our modern conception and the function of lev in ancient Judaism. Now, we associate the heart with emotion, intuition, and feeling. If someone is “thinking with their heart,” the implication is that they’re following their emotions rather than the rational faculties of the brain.
In ancient Judaism, though, the heart encompassed more than just emotions. As the representation of an individual’s inner life, the heart was also seen as the home of wisdom and rational thought. In other words, the heart and the mind were viewed as one and the same thing.
How do I love with all my heart?
So, there are two essential ingredients to the heart as far as the author of Deuteronomy is concerned: emotion and intellect.
Personally, I kind of like the idea that these two essential aspects of the human experience are contained in the same part of the body. I think that we as modern people have been persuaded that we can somehow completely disentangle one from the other—and, likewise, that one is inherently better than the other.
This ancient conception seems to reflect reality quite well, though, at least in my experience. It’s completely normal for the intellect to influence emotions, but I’ve also found that emotional experiences can help me realize new truths and come to new understandings about the world.
So, how do you do it? There’s not one right answer, but the essence of the Shema’s command is that loving the Lord should be the essential activity of your life. Here are a few things I recommend that will engage your intellect and your emotion:
Read Scripture daily. You knew I was going to say this, didn’t you? It really is the best way to engage your mind and your emotions while learning more about God’s character. More detail here and here.
Learn about your faith. In the age of the internet, resources abound! Some of my favorite YouTube channels are BibleProject, Reasonable Faith, and (recently) Truth Unites. I’m still searching for a good church history resource, so if you’ve got one (preferably one available in podcast format), hit me up!
Pray regularly. Take note of the things you pray for, and then revisit those notes weeks and months later. Thank the Lord for his provision in your life.
Christianity is a lifestyle that demands control of the entire worldview of its adherents. That’s what is being communicated in the Shema: that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of Paul, St. Augustine, and C.S. Lewis—is worthy of all your affection, energy, emotion, and intellect. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” Jesus commands in Matthew 6:33, “and all these things will be added to you.”
Now, LMK!
What practices help you love the Lord with your emotion and your intellect? Let me know!
And a recommendation (or two):
For a more concise description of what lev indicates, look no further than this fantastic word study: