NEW YORK — “Hear” as a command conveys one meaning.
“Pay attention” signifies yet another idea, one that goes beyond the ear canal.
Especially to a Deaf person.
During a recent “ReSoul” Saturday morning Shabbat service at Congregation Rodeph Sholom on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, most of the song and prayer lyrics were projected on a wall of the Reform synagogue’s sixth-floor chapel in three forms. Congregants could follow along in Hebrew, transliterated Hebrew and English.
Halfway through the service, one Hebrew prayer didn’t need a projected translation because the congregants knew it by heart: the Shema. This prayer, which many Jews learn as children, begins with the line “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad,” which means, according to most translations, “Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”
Cantor Shayna De Lowe and Rabbi Ben Spratt, who led the service, at times swayed to the music, accompanied by piano, drums and guitar. But as they began to sing the Shema, they moved their arms in a more deliberate, dramatic way: They used American Sign Language.
Nearly everyone in the congregation knew the ASL signs, too, although a few stumbled over the finer gestural details. No matter. All who attempted the ASL smiled as they signed.
The full Shema prayer is actually in three parts. At Congregation Rodeph Sholom (7 W. 83rd St.), only the line mentioned above and the one that follows are signed. The words to the entire Shema come from three different Torah verses in Deuteronomy and Numbers. The first line, from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, in just a few words distills ideas that are key to Jewish beliefs.
The Shema, “one of our central prayers, is our statement of monotheism, that we believe in one God,” De Lowe said. “We say it at every service, and any time we gather,” and many Jews say it twice a day, in the morning and evening, whether at a service or at home. Using sign language to express the prayer is an innovation, something not found in most congregations.
“What it’s really saying,” De Low said, is “‘Pay attention, Israel: This is our God, and it’s one God, and that’s our God.’” The opening word “Shema,” she said, is often translated as “Hear.” “But members of our Deaf community told us that’s very excluding for them.” Even the ASL sign for “hear” — holding a cupped hand up to one’s ear — can leave out Deaf people. So to be more inclusive, “instead we do this,” De Lowe said, and she held up both hands to either side of her head, palms facing each other, the ASL sign for “Pay attention.”
De Lowe, who has a Deaf son, echoed the words of Rabbi Darby Leigh of Congregation Kerem Shalom in Concord, Massachusetts, a Deaf man who describes in a YouTube video how he translates the Shema using ASL — and in turn interprets the meaning of the prayer at a deeper level.
Leigh says he doesn’t translate “Shema” as “Hear,” “because as a Deaf person I don’t feel comfortable. It doesn’t make sense to sign Shema as related to the ear, and the real meaning of the prayer, in my opinion, is to pay attention.”
ASL also brings out the deeper meaning of other words in the first line.
Leigh explains his sign for the second word, “Israel.” First, he shows how to sign “Israel” in ASL: He puts his little finger on one side of his chin and moves it down, then repeats the motion on the other side of his chin.
“But this sign alone isn’t enough because this is the sign for Israel the place, and the Shema is talking to Israel the people,” he says, “so I’ve added to ‘Israel’ ‘the gathering’ of all the people before me.” Leigh holds up his arms horizontally to the sides of his body, then scoops his hands together in a forward collective motion.
At the Congregation Rodeph Sholom service, the Shema ASL signs for “the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” were particularly eloquent.
The ASL sign for “one” is simple: Point the index finger upward with the other fingers folded down. “For a more spiritual interpretation I like to show ‘many’ and then change it into ‘one,’” Leigh says. In one fluid motion, he wiggles his fingers open on one hand, palm down, then sweeps his index finger up in the sign for one.
That ASL sequence, so vivid at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, was packed with meaning, pulling together the many under one God.
Naomi B. Sokoloff, a professor of Hebrew at Washington University, wrote in an essay, “Reading the Shema,” that those who are not Deaf can learn from ASL how to reread or rehear the phrase “Shema Yisrael”: “As the Shema calls on Jews to recognize and acknowledge the diverse manifestations of one God, ASL renditions of the Shema serve as a pointed reminder to honor diversity.”
At the Saturday service at Rodeph Sholom, a vision-impaired woman with a tiny dog — the pup wore a red vest embroidered with “Vision Service Dog — Full Access,” joined in on signing the ASL prayer.
Pay attention, the congregation seemed to be saying loud and clear: All eyes and ears are welcome.
Photo courtesy of Congregation Rodeph Sholom