The Shema--What Does it Mean?

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃

Shema Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.

My Jewish Learning, When do we Recite the Shema? (https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-shema/)

From the verse in Deuteronomy 6:7, which commands to “Recite them … when you lie down and when you get up,” the rabbis determined that the Shema should be recited twice daily, in the morning and in the evening, which is why it is included in both the morning and evening services. The first verse of the Shema is also recited at the conclusion of Yom Kippur and is included in the Kedusha service on Shabbat. It is customary to recite the Shema, or a portion thereof, immediately before bedtime, and when one’s death is believed to be imminent.

Jeffrey Tigay, "The JPS Torah Commentary to the Book of Deuteronomy"

The precise meaning of the Shema is uncertain. The four Hebrew words "Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad" literally mean "Adonai our God Adonai one." Grammatically, it could be rendered several ways, such as 1. Adonai is our God, Adonai alone. 2. Adonai our God, Adonai is One. 3. Adonai our god is one Adonai...

Although the Shema began as a declaration of allegiance rather than of monotheism, it became the preeminent expression of monotheism in Judaism...this may have been due especially to the word echad, which normally means one. This word made the Shema a suitable response to the many theological challenges that Jewish monotheism confronted throughout history: in the face of polytheism it meant that the Divine is one, not many; in th face of Christian trinitarianism it meant one not three; and in the face of atheism, one and not none.

Traditional Translations

• Hear, O Israel: Adonai our God; Adonai is one.
• Hear, O Israel! Adonai is our God, Adonai alone.
• Listen, Israel! Adonai is our God, Adonai is one.
• Hear, O Israel, the Adonai [who is] our God [now, and not the God of the peoples — He is destined to be] the one Adonai.

Alternative Translations

• Listen, you, Yisrael person, [say your own name here], Yah who Is, is our God, Yah who Is, Is One, Unique, All there Is.~~Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi
• Hear O Israel--The Divine abounds everywhere and dwells in everything; the many are One.~~Marcia Falk
• Hear O Israel: Everything is connected; the Universe is One.~~A Siddur for Humanistic Judaism
• Focus your attention and heed the following teaching: though other peoples worship various beings and things they consider divine, Israel is to recognize Adonai alone~~Jeffrey Tigay
• Sh’sh’sh’ma Yisra’el —Listen, You Godwrestlers! Pause from your wrestling and hush’sh’sh to hear —Adonai.
  Hear in the stillness the still silent voice, the silent breathing that intertwines life; Adonai Eloheinu breath of life is our God, what unites all the varied forces creating all worlds into one-ness, each breath unique, and all unified;
  Adonai echad! Yahh is One. Listen, You Godwrestlers! No one people alone
  owns this Unify-force; Adonai is One.~~Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Mishnah Berurah, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan,1884, Commentary on Mishnah Sotah

"In any language" means in a language you understand. But the optimal way to fulfill the mitzvah of reciting the Shema is to say it in Hebrew. This is because there are words and phrases that we do not know how to translate precisely or that have multiple meanings when translated into other languages. But by reciting the Shema in Hebrew, one fulfills the mitzvah even if they do not understand the Hebrew.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation, Commentary on Parshat Va'etchanan

The verb lishmo’a is a key term of the book of Deuteronomy, where it appears in one or other forms some 92 times (by way of comparison, it appears only 6 times in the whole of Leviticus). It conveys a wide range of meanings, clustered around five primary senses:

[1] to listen, to pay focused attention, as in “Be silent, O Israel, and listen
[u-shema]” (Deut. 27: 9)
[2] to hear, as in “I heard [shamati] Your voice in the garden and I was afraid” (Gen. 3: 10)
[3] to understand, as in “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand [yishme’u] each other” (Gen. 11: 7)
[4] to internalize, register, take to heart, as in “And as for Ishmael I have heard you” (Gen. 17: 20), meaning, “I have taken into account what you have said; I will bear it in mind; it is a consideration that weighs with Me”.
[5] to respond in action, as in “Abraham did [vayishma] what Sarah said” (Gen. 16: 2). This last sense is the closest shema comes to meaning “to obey”.

It has yet other meanings in rabbinic Hebrew, such as “to infer”, “to accept”, “to take into account as evidence” and “to receive as part of the Oral tradition”. No English word has this range of meanings.

Marcia Falk, Journal of Feminist studies in Religion, 1987

The authentic expression of an authentic monotheism is not a singularity of image but an embracing unity of a multiplicity of images.