Читать книгу The Jewish Religion, Ethically Presented - Henry Pereira Mendes - Страница 14
ОглавлениеLOVE FOR GOD IN ACTION AND THOUGHT.
Sixth verse of the Shema’:
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand and
they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
1. We are to bind the words “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy might” upon our hands and between our eyes.
2. This means that love for God must influence what we do with our hands and what we think with our brains.
3. Frontlets, in ancient times, were ornaments worn upon the forehead.
4. This and the last verse together teach us that our love for God must make us speak, do, and think what is right.
*5. Wearing the Shema’, etc., as a frontlet thus becomes a reminder of Right Conduct through love of God.
6. This verse is the origin of the use of the Tephillin or phylacteries.
7. The Tephillin contain four sections of the Law, which set forth all that is dear and holy in the Jewish Religion. See chapter xlvii, No. 9 (Part II.)
8. They are worn, therefore, because of what they teach and because of their influence when rightly understood, upon conduct, just as the High Priest wore on his forehead the inscription “Holy to the Lord,” to teach holiness as the ideal of human conduct.
9. Hence the ancient meditation, recited when about to wear Tephillin, “Through the influence of this command, the Tephillin, may we be blessed with sacred impulses and hallowing thoughts, with no thought of sin or iniquity. May evil imagination have no power to allure us and lead us astray, but may we be led to worship the Lord as it is in our hearts to do.”
BIBLE QUOTATIONS.
2. God cometh to prove you, and in order that His fear may be before your eyes, that ye sin not.—Exod. xx, 20.
4. For thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all His commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord.—Deut. xiii, 18.
Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile.—Psalm xxxiv, 13.
I will meditate upon Thy precepts, and I will discern Thy ways.—Psalm cxix, 15.
May my heart be perfect in Thy statutes, so that I be not shamed.—Psalm cxix, 80.
Lead me O Lord, in Thy righteousness.—Psalm v, 8.
Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.—Psalm cxliii, 8.
