Bahá’í World/Volume 7/Hear, O Israel
HEAR, O ISRAEL
BY DOROTHY K. BAKER
THE theme song of the Jews, the singleness of God, has lived through four thousand years. Where can history match this?
The term Israel, Ferdinand Isserman asserts, means Champion of God. In Ur of Chaldea, the Semitic people first championed this Cause, led by Abraham, son of Terah, maker of idols. Abraham is reputed to have been born in a cave and kept in hiding through his early years, because of the wicked designs of the idolatrous king, Nimrod, who was warned by the stars of the coming of a Great One, whose power would encompass heaven and earth. To Abraham, as to the Prophets long before him, it was given to know the indivisible nature of God. A story that is something of an allegory comes down to us concerning his childhood. Coming forth from his cave one day and seeing the sun, he said: "This is surely the Lord of the universe. Him will I worship.” But the sun set and night came, and seeing the moon with her silver radiance, he said: "This then is the Lord of the world, and all the stars are His servants; to him will I kneel.” The following morning, when moon and stars had disappeared, and the sun had risen anew, Abraham said: "Now I know that neither the one nor the other is the Lord of the world, but He who controls both as His servants is the creator and ruler of the whole world.”
One day Terah found his gods burned, and going to Abraham, he asked: “Who has burned these?” Abraham replied: "The large one quarreled with the little ones and burned them in his anger.” "Fool,” cried Terah, "how canst thou say that he who can not see nor hear nor walk should have done this?” Then Abraham made answer: "How canst thou forsake the living God to serve gods that neither see not hear?”1
Nevertheless, Abraham was given charge of his father’s idols to sell them. One day, tells the Talmud, a customer came, and Abraham asked: "How old art thou?” "Lo! So many years,” replied the man. "What!” exclaimed Abraham, "is it possible that a man of so many years should desire to worship a thing only a day old?”2
Then Abraham again destroyed the idols and was arraigned before Nimrod, who said: "Knowest thou not that I am god and ruler of the world?” Abraham said: "If thou art god and ruler of the world, why dost thou not cause the sun to rise in the west and set in the east? . . . Thou art the son of Cush, and a mortal like him. Thou couldst not save thy father from death, nor wilt thou thyself escape it.”1
After this, Abraham was cast into a fiery furnace and suffered many things, that he might become “a stream of blessing to purify and regenerate the pagan world.”
At the hour of Abraham’s appearance, the Semitic people were reborn. Around the early camp fires the first academies of learning came into being, schools whose central teaching was the singleness and majesty of God. As late as the day of Alexander of Macedon, these academies remained the most effective centers of truth in the world. Alexander himself, coming incognito to conquer Jerusalem, was himself conquered by the wisdom of the Rabbis. The Revelation of Abraham was so potent that its effect lasted many centuries, and so universal that a later writer testifies: “It is particularly Abraham—the friend of God, upon whom are founded alike the Synagogue, the Church and the Mosque. Abraham was not a Jew nor a Christian, but a believer in one God.—When God said: ‘Let there be light,’ He had Abraham in view.”
Centuries after the passing of Abraham, Moses the Interlocutor arose to champion the Cause of God. He found his people
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1 Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 1.
2 Shalsheleth Hakkabalah—Talmud. Translated by M. H. Harry.
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fallen into bondage
and unfaith. Because
they knew nothing of self-government,
Moses laid down mundane laws as well as
spiritual, and Israel became a theocracy, a
nation rightly proud of a government
founded on divine justice. So to the heritage
of faith was added an extraordinary ideal of
obedience, righteousness, and respect for law.
The story of Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma relates:
“I once met a man in my travels—he offered
me a thousand golden denari and precious
stones and pearls if I would agree to
go and dwell in his native place. But I
replied, saying: ‘If thou wert to give me all
of the gold and silver, all the precious stones
and pearls in the world, I would not reside
anywhere else than in a place where the law
is studied.’ ”3 This amazing
respect for law
gave rise to high ethical morality, and when
the foot of the people slipped, inspired men
arose again and again to renew the moral
suasion of Abraham and Moses. Rabbi Isserman,
in his graphic little volume, “Rebels
and Saints,” recalls them to us, every one
of them a champion. A Nathan who could
rebuke a king’s injustice; Amos, the
shepherd of the desert who cried out that the
famine was “not a famine of bread or a
thirst for water, but of hearing the words
of our Lord”; Hosea, who warned: “My God
will cast them away because they did not
hearken unto Him, and they shall be
wanderers among the nations”; Isaiah, who
prophesied peace and an Íránian Redeemer to
end suffering; Daniel, whose visions spanned
twenty-three hundred years to the “time of
the end.” These were champions indeed.
Long after the Jews ceased to be a political
nation, the amazing loyalty to God, the
Single, the One, remained. At one time the
law of the Jews and the idea of the God of
Israel was displeasing to the Romans, and
the famous Rabbi Akiva was forthwith put
to death. On his lips were the words that
had become the theme song of Israel: Sh’ma
Yis-ro-ayl A-do-noy E-lo-hay-nu A-do-noy
E-chod. (Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God,
the Lord is One.) From the Talmud,
"—and as they tore him with currycombs,
and as he was with long drawn breath
sounding forth the word One, his soul departed
from him. Then came forth a voice from
heaven which said: ‘Blessed art thou, Rabbi
Akiva, for thy soul and the word One, left
thy body together.’ ” 4
Now to every discerning one, it must be evident that the importance of Divine Unity was very great among the Jews, since their Odyssey is marked by an ever recurring aria of such strength and beauty. Bahá’u’lláh has revealed the true meaning of Divine Unity. Its explanation has two parts. First, God is single and unattainable in His Essence. “Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from and immeasurably exalted above all created things.”5 Second. that the true matter hidden in the song of the Jews is the continued manifestation of this singleness, as revealed through the great Prophets. "It is clear and evident that all the Prophets are the Temples of the Cause of God.”. . . The early Jews evidently recognized that Revelation was progressive and recurrent, for we find in Jewish lore: “Adam’s book, which contained celestial mysteries and holy wisdom, came down as an heirloom into the hands of Abraham, and he, by means of it, was able to see the glory of his Lord.” In brief, Abraham received Divine Knowledge identical to that of the Prophets before him. Why, then, can we not go farther and say that one God revealed the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’án? Bahá’u’lláh proclaims that loyalty to one must include loyalty to all, for God and His law are indivisible. Bahá’u’lláh has brought to a close the Adamic cycle, a period of evolution covering five hundred thousand years. He writes: “I have been preceded in this matter by Muḥammad, the Messenger of God, and before him by the Spirit (Christ) and before him by the Interlocutor, Moses.-This is the Father of whom Isaiah gave you tidings, and from whom the Spirit received his covenant.” Isaiah wrote: “The government shall be upon his shoulder, and he shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end.”
Spiritual unity can come only out of Revelation. It was Revelation that created the ancient unity, Judaism; created Christianity,
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3Avoth—Translated by M. H. Harry.
4Berachotch—Translated by M. H. Harry.
5Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.
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a later unity; created
Islám. Each has had
a potency beyond the ken of men and of
angels, has purified life, made progress, and
taught truth. Each, in its primitive period
of growth, has exercised the greatest
influence and held its world together.
In its later days, each has fallen into
disunity and been
all but lost to its adherents. The desire of
Bahá’u’lláh is that these courts of majesty
become one court, and that God be worshipped
as One Lord. Today He is as torn
by idle fancies as in the days of Nimrod.
His Cause is again in need of champions.
The ancient Cause of God has reached the
most dramatic point in its history,
for evolution, side by side with Revelation, has
brought man to the age of maturity. A
Revelation containing the seed of the Most
Great Peace has appeared, and once more a
divine government will be born, a government
with powers to subdue the warring
forces of the planet and organize its
resources. Bahá’u’lláh calls the world from
clan to superstate, from sect to spiritual
solidarity.
This is a challenge to Israel, the champion of God. Can the clan spirit today prevent a great people from stepping into the court of a world religion? Never will they be willing to stand clinging to the shadowy past, failing in the greatest adventure of history. The voice cries in the sacred vale: “Here am I! Here am I!” Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is One!