The Shema — Radical Oneness
The Teaching
Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One.
From the Zohar: “Hear O Israel — the supernal secret is: Adonai is one and his name is one. The mystery of the Shekhinah below, completing everything in the perfect unity.”
From Isaac Luria: “Before the creation, Ein Sof filled all of existence. To create, the Infinite performed Tzimtzum — a self-contraction — making space for the finite world to arise. Yet the withdrawn light left a residue. Nothing was truly empty.”
Commentary
Echad, one. But not one as a number among other numbers. One as the only reality, Advaita (non-dual) in the Hebrew tradition. The Zohar’s mystical reading makes this explicit: the oneness is not a theological proposition but a description of ultimate reality.
The Lurianic Tzimtzum, divine self-contraction to make room for creation, is one of the most profound images in all mystical literature. God ‘empties’ Godself (kenosis!) to allow the finite to exist. This is the Taoist emptiness of the vessel, the Buddhist Sunyata as generative ground.
Sikhism’s Ik Onkar, one creative reality, is the same declaration. The Hindu Advaita Vedanta is the same. The Sufi Wahdat al-Wujud (unity of being) is the same. The Shema is the oldest formulation of what all traditions are pointing at.
Themes
Connections 12
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Sikhism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Travelled
Judaism reached Sufism by 650 CE. The Qur’an retells the Hebrew prophets, and Jewish lore (the Isra’iliyyat) entered early Muslim piety.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Buddhism and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
Both took shape before Judaism and Neoplatonism were in documented contact (from 900 CE).
Unsure
Persian rule from 539 BCE (Isaiah 45 calls Cyrus ‘anointed’). Persian influence on Jewish angels, resurrection and the end-times is argued, not settled.
Unsure
No documented reading of Judaism behind this teaching, or against it.