This is a painting that I did before our grandson Noah was born. For each of my grandchildren ( I have 10 at the moment) I have asked The Lord to give me a painting of "who they are". As my daughter was pregnant with Noah every time I would pray and ask that question the image i would get was of a cub leaning into his fathers strong chest! This little one will know the strength and gentleness of His Heavenly Father! Then then a word I had learned in Israel came to mind. The word "Shema". I began to research the word and this is what I found; "The Shema refers to a couple lines from the book of Deuteronomy (6:4-5), that became a daily prayer in Ancient Israelite tradition. It’s the equivalent of the Lord’s prayer (“Our Father in heaven…”) in Christian tradition. The Shema gets its name from the first Hebrew word of the prayer in Deuteronomy 6:4
, “Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” The English word “listen” renders the Hebrew word
shema. In traditional Jewish prayer practice, these lines from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 were combined with other passages from the Torah (Deut. 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41), and were prayed in the morning and the evening. This prayer has been one of the most influential traditions in Jewish history. The Shema has functioned both as the Jewish pledge of allegiance and a hymn of praise.
The Shema appears in the opening section of Deuteronomy, which is a collection of speeches attributed to Moses before the next generation of Israel entered the Promised Land. Moses challenges them with his wisdom and warning because he doesn’t want these Israelites to repeat their parents’ mistakes. Rather, he invites them to respond to God's grace and mercy with love, faithfulness, and obedience. The book is designed to have three large sections." ( an article in Bible project)
“Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your might.”Deuteronomy 6:4-5
