Kriat Shema: First chapter – Deuteronomy 6: 4-9

1. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD"

2. "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

3. "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." "And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."

    Kriat Shema: Second chapter – Deuteronomy 11: 13-22
4a. "And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day,
to love the LORD your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. "

4b. "Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; And then the LORD's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you."

4c. "Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates."

5. "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

    Initial clarifications for each section

The first section contains a plea for attention, as is customary before saying something important.

The second section contains the topic of Kriat Shema, which is the divine decree of loving God under any circumstance.

The third section relates to the process of development, recollection and practical expression of loving God.

The fourth section regards the reward, the punishment and the process of recalling these:

a. The reward that will be granted to a person, if he will love God.

b. The punishment inflicted on whoever does not do so.

c. The recollection process of this reward and punishment.

The fifth section relates to the goal for which the expression of  loving God is vital.

Summary: The first chapter comes to form the process of development and expression of loving God and man, whereas the second chapter comes to point to the need for expressing this love.

The essence and goal of loving God
Is this love designed to supply God's personal need or man's need, i.e. is it for man's benefit? If we agree that everything we received from God is for our benefit, we could say that this content too, was delivered to benefit us. Therefore, the true goal of  loving God is for man's sake. What follows will reinforce this initial conclusion.

The proper expression of loving God
Is God satisfied with man's declaration of love towards Him or does He want to see it proved by actions? It is logical to suppose that God expects actions, since truly loving someone, implies expressing it in actions.
An appropriate love, expressed through activity, would be to love everything God has created. Since we too are part of the same creation, created in God's own image, it could be said that loving God, contains within it love-actions towards man.

Whoever truly loves God,  also loves man
This principle was proved to be true between people and numerous examples of this exist. Therefore, its must hold true between man and his God due to our spiritual similarity.
I have to repeat and emphasize that loving man and loving God are one, and cannot be separated. Whoever truly loves the Creator, also loves man and whoever truly loves His marvelous creation, called man, instinctively loves his Creator. This conclusion not only specifies the expression of man's true love towards the other and his God, but is also the test of the deed's truth.

The intensity and purity of loving man, as a consequence of loving God
Since man's love towards the highest being in the universe is expressed, by its very nature, at the highest level of purity and intensity. Since man  is similar to God, a person's love for another person shall also be similarly expressed. The divine expression: "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" explicitly describes the way in which God wishes us to express this love.
We shall call it, the love of man in the pattern of the love of God.

Summary: Loving God, should be regarded as the proper and most efficient way of bringing man to love the other.

Loving God's "Doctrine":
This doctrine is His creation too; His spiritual creation, possibly the most important of all. This includes the love of God, but also represents all His doctrine – in love. In practice, His doctrine shall be expressed in the actualization and implementation of its content, in love. No longer a mechanical execution, performed due to coercion and fear of punishment, but of one's own free will, through conviction; a constructive execution; its performance arising from inner unity with ourselves and the world; an execution that will advance us, performed with love.

Loving God, for its own sake
This love is the primary factor in our nearing or even uniting with God, something that His Grace so influenced us to perform. It is logical that in order to establish trust between God and man, in order to accept his Word, it is necessary that man will approach God. This closeness or unity will grant us with further, valuable advantages. For instance, they will supply us with ideal conditions for proper and efficient spiritual development and function, including a wonderful reward for it.

They will also bestow trust and confidence of our being received by Him as we are; that we matter to Him; that we are not alone in the infinite universe; that we can trust Him and place ourselves in His hands. Approaching Him, will also enable us to be in a state of love and unity for extended periods of time, with all its accompanying benefits

Approaching this way is, according to (the philosopher) Socrates, nearing immortality. According to Plato, it is the shedding away of those shackles, which have held the lover prisoner in Socrates' cave of shadows, and his departure into the true world. This is also the approach towards God, which according to the prophet Isaiah will elevate man to such a plane of value, that hate and wars between people will lose meaning and will disappear.
Summary: Although this love is aimed towards God alone, people derive significant benefits from it.

Clarifying the concept of "serving God" in Deuteronomy 11:13
Generally, this concept is understood to signify a periodical holy act, initiated by man, for God.
In this case, the act is decreed by God. Since this expression is adjacent to that of love, and given that observing a commandment involves action, it refers to repeatedly performing acts of love, or it could be said, to repeatedly and lovingly performing positive actions.

With this clarification in mind, we can correctly understand the sentence: "If ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul" – If you improve yourselves correctly following my commandments, which come to give actual expression of loving God and man, and repeatedly perform acts of love ("to serve him") in this spiritually improved state, then I will bestow you with the things which follow.


Whatever is not loving God is idolatry
Kriat Shema's second chapter's first part, specifies the type of reward that man will receive if he loves God. In the second chapter's second part, which deals with punishment, the type of punishment for not loving God ought to have been indicated. Surprisingly, in its place, man is warned not to worship other Gods and bow down to them, otherwise, he would suffer the punishment referred to. Why is the textual linearity broken? Has there been a mistake, or was it written this way deliberately?

If we believe this quote was received from the highest intelligence in the universe, who is aware of the matter's importance, it is inconceivable that He made a mistake. Therefore, it was deliberately written this way. If so, what additional information was delivered, by using this form of writing?

One thing grows clearly apparent from all this, that not loving god is identical to idolatry, which is, by all accounts, a negative activity. Therefore, every activity, which does not express love for God and, in parallel, loving man in the pattern of the love for God, is a negative activity. This conclusion comprises basic knowledge; a guidance, of utmost importance to our moral behavior.

Indeed, idolatry is a thing of the past, but also today we may worship "other Gods". A person does not have to physically or emotionally bow down before idols - he bows to them through his negative and immoral actions, viewpoints and reactions. The punishment for doing so is that misery; that exile; that continuous bloodshed and that existential danger, which currently faces humanity.

As we can see, the matter at hand is a natural punishment, stemming from one's unique spiritual makeup and not a retribution delivered by a higher source. This phenomenon recurs whenever we come across a similar occurrence. Therefore, the method that has been presented is based on a very wise approach or principle, supplying the highest degree of motivation for bringing a person to do the right thing.

Additional          information          provided         by         this           interpretation In itself, not loving the other is permissible, but we have to be aware of the consequences that follow this lack of love's expression. For that reason, things were written as they were already some 3500 years ago, with the aim of alerting man to the risk and its consequences.
 In order to make this more vivid, Moses equated the consequences to those of that time's familiar negative activity - idolatry. And the consequences or the terrible punishment which could be man's lot are: "… ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you". Thus, man was furnished with another reason; more direct, egotistic and urgent, for why he ought to cultivate and implement love.

To our great misfortune, the religious person remains unaware of this knowledge and of the goal it represents. Were he aware of it, a reasonable chance exists that much of the most terrible horrors that had occurred in this world, instigated by those who believe in a single God and those who received their education by these religions, would not have occurred.

I deeply hope this awareness will bring you to rethink; draw the correct conclusions, inferred by the content of the Kriat Shema, that shall constitute the first step of the development for which God turned to man in the marvelous format, detailed in this sub-chapter

The aim of serving God is to induce loving God
If we examine the conclusion in a positive way, according to which whatever is not loving God is idolatry, we shall find that loving God is equal to serving Him. It could also be said that serving God is loving God. This implies that the goal of this holy work (referred to in the Pentateuch as "serving Him") , rules and laws, is to actualize and implement one very important purpose, which is the loving God and loving man in the pattern of loving God.

This conclusion points, in an utterly dramatic way, to the level of importance granted to the appropriate realization and implementation of love in general, and of its meta-value in particular, in God's eyes. And for what purpose be this love's realization and implementation? "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

In a very similar way, and without being influenced by the bible's content, Socrates opined regarding the matter of love – that the only God he recognizes is the God of Love. According to all the proofs in this chapter, you may certainly name God as the God of Love, with all the far-reaching conclusions this entails.

Summary: What is inferred from all that has been said is that  serving God  , is a crucial activity for actualizing love for man in the pattern of  loving God, in order to guarantee humanity's continued survival, its walk towards infinite progress and the actualization of Good along the course of this path.