Shma Yisrael
In the last moments before the soul departs from the body, a Jew hopes for the strength and lucidity to utter the six words of the Shma, “the watchword of Jewish faith.” These six words first appear in Deuteronomy, spoken by Moses as he approaches the end of his life. With the first two words, he summons the Israelite multitude to an attentive silence. The four words that follow invoke the mystery of echad/One.
Over time, Jewish readers have discovered within the words of the Shma many meanings: two that are one; three that are one; twelve that are one; seventy that are one; six hundred thousand that are one.
Two: The Loving God [יהוה]and the Judging God [אלהינו] are One. By holding together these two contrasting names of the divine, the Shma grasps rigorous justice in one hand and divine love in the other, and fuses these opposites together into one. (MaLBIM on Deuteronomy 6:4) (19th century Russia)
Three: The God of Creation, the God of Revelation, and the God of Redemption are One. Seated on its throne in the heart of the siddur, the Shma unifies the great triad of Jewish theology: Creation, Revelation and Redemption are three books all written by a single Author.
Twelve: In one Jewish legend, the aging patriarch Jacob/Israel grew anxious that after his death his family would disintegrate into multiple families and faiths. At his deathbed, his twelve sons (and all Jews after them) reassured him with the six words of the Shma, by which they meant: “Listen, our father Israel: Your God is our God. We remain Jews” (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 56a).
Seventy: After the flood, the human race dispersed and broke into a profusion of nations and languages, each one worshiping its own gods and none understanding the other. Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki read the Shma as a prophecy of the Messianic future in which all humanity, all seventy nations of the world, will one day return to each other, and join together in prayer (RaSHI on Deuteronomy 6:4). (11th century France)
Six Hundred Thousand: A Jew hopes, at the moment of death, to have the Shma upon his or her lips. In each recitation of these six words, we prepare for that moment in which our separate existence will come to an end, and we each will return to the One.