Congregation Shema Yisrael

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Teach them diligently to your children. When you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you rise up. -Deuteronomy 6:6-8

Most of us in the Messianic movement recognize those verses from Deuteronomy as part of the Shema; the most holy prayer in Judaism, that tradition states must be prayed twice a day, everyday, to impress upon us the vital importance of our relationship with God and with our fellows.

Obviously, it’s important to God that we teach our children the commandments that He gave to the Children of Israel through His servant Moses. This includes teaching them the words of The Prophet, the Mashiach, Yeshua (Jesus), our living Torah, who also believes that children are especially important.

People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” -Luke 18:15-17

Yet, are we teaching our children to receive the kingdom of God as the Master would have us do? Hopefully, if we belong to the community of faith, we are. But what other things does the world around us teach them?

I was pleasantly surprised to find an article at the Washington Post called Abstinence-only programs might work, study says. This is encouraging news, but the secular world has relentlessly attacked “abstinence-only” sex education programs as outmoded and impractical, reasoning that children will inevitably have sex and that we must prepare them for “safe-sex” by giving them condoms. The foundation behind what makes sexual behavior in children as young as 10 or 12 “inevitable”, is the idea that humans are just another kind of animal that has evolved from less complex species, just like all other life on Earth. And as animals, we have little or no control over our basic drives, such as eating, sleeping, and sex.

Certainly eating and sleeping are absolutely necessary for everyone and God did build a “drive” for sex in each human being, but to be expressed only within the context of a loving and committed relationship between one man and one woman (one flesh). Even among the community of faith, we don’t always live up to God’s perfection in this requirement (along with all the rest of God’s commands), but that makes it no less a requirement that we are to control our behavior and even our thoughts.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. -2 Corinthians 10:4-5

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. -1 Timothy 6:11

May my meditation be pleasing to Him, as I rejoice in the Lord. -Psalm 104:34

That’s the behavioral and mental lifestyle God has charged us with living and what we are to diligently teach our children at all times. Now, what about the flip side of the coin?

Even if you home school your children, refuse to let them watch television, listen to the radio, or surf the Internet, sooner or later they’ll hear about the “outside world”. God didn’t mean for us to live in isolation from society, otherwise, how could we be a witness to the unbelievers around us, including our friends, co-workers, and neighbors? While we have a responsibility to teach and protect our children, how far can that protection go, especially as they get older? And yet, the constant bombardment of the messages of a fallen world are a continual danger that can and has reversed everything we’ve tried to communicate to whole legions of our kids. Case in point:

9-year old Noah Cyrus, sister of pop-star Miley Cyrus, is teaming up with her pint-sized best friend Emily Grace to launch a children’s lingerie collection for ‘Ohh! La, La! Couture’.

What? The quote is from an article posted at geekweek.com called 9-Year Old Sister of Miley Cyrus Starts Lingerie Line. When I first saw this, I thought I’d flipped. Who in their right mind would consider having a nine-year-old little girl promote a line of lingerie? I mean…a nine-year-old little girl with her own line of “sexy underwear?” That’s crazy, isn’t it?

On the one hand, we have the secular world saying that abstinence-only sex education is unrealistic and impractical. On the other hand, we have the secular world saying that it’s OK for a nine-year-old girl to market her own line of lingerie (I guess it’s OK because her older, teenage sister is a celebrity). No wonder celibacy before marriage is considered impractical! Who could combat the overwhelming streams of sexual imagery and material the media constantly aims right at children, using children to sell it?

The intent of God’s words in the Shema becomes of even more vital importance as the values of our world tail spin out of control into the depths of the moral abyss. If we don’t “teach them (the commandments) diligently to your children” and speak of them “when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up” (in other words, constantly), we surrender young minds and young souls, giving them up to everything outside the will of God, and to what is considered the most precious values of “the abyss”: a total moral vacuum.

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” -Luke 18:6-8

If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you. -Friedrich Nietzsche

All three of my children are in their early 20s and I fully admit, I could have done a better job as a parent. Once your kids grow beyond a certain age, they start forming their own opinions and attitudes and are responsible for their own relationship with God. Even if you’ve laid a firm foundation for them to stand on, they will still make their own decisions and reap their own consequences. Of course, if you don’t lay that foundation, you’ve given them only sand to stand on, and they will surely fall.

No wonder reciting the Shema…sincerely reciting the Shema, hanging on the meaning and passion of every word, is so important to God and to us. If we neglect the commandments and neglect our children, will Yeshua indeed find faith on the Earth when he returns? The Shepherd did not neglect his sheep. We have the same responsibility for those young souls who depend on us.

Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

Barukh sheim k’vod malkhuto l’olam va’ed.
Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom all eternity.

V’ahav’ta eit Adonai Elohekha b’khol l’vav’kha uv’khol naf’sh’kha uv’khol m’odekha.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

V’hayu had’varim ha’eileh asher anokhi m’tzav’kha hayom al l’vavekha.
And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart.

V’shinan’tam l’vanekha v’dibar’ta bam
And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them

b’shiv’t'kha b’veitekha uv’lekh’t'kha vaderekh uv’shakh’b'kha uv’kumekha
when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

Uk’shar’tam l’ot al yadekha v’hayu l’totafot bein einekha.
And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.

Ukh’tav’tam al m’zuzot beitekha uvish’arekha.
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.