This week’s Torah portion marks a turning point in Jewish history. Jacob, the last of the patriarchs, is about to die. His eyes are growing dim, and his sense of prophecy is fading. We sense that he is afraid – that he wants to reveal one last secret before he dies.

Jacob knows that his children will become slaves, that they will be tempted to assimilate. He longs to tell them about God’s promise to him, “I will go down with you and I will bring you up too.” But he was already slipping away. God closed his eyes, the rabbis tell us, before he was able to reveal the end of the exile.

Jacob’s children gather around his bedside to say goodbye to him, and they can sense his distress, his fear that Judaism will die with him. And they try to reassure him, calling him by his other name, Yisrael. They tell him that they will continue to serve God, and according to the Midrash, they recite the most powerful phrase in Judaism: “Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One.”

Since the times of Jacob, the Shema has been a way of finding comfort, a way of reassuring ourselves that Judaism will go on. But Sefat Emet teaches that there is more to the Shema than mere words. The Shema, he teaches, is about a way of listening, a way of being present in the world, and a way of honoring the godliness in each other.

There are two kinds of listening: the normal kind of listening that we do every day, and a deeper kind of listening – the listening that involves pricking up our ears, and listening to the inner meaning of the words, to the meaning that is said in a whisper.

The words that we need to hear existed long before the giving of the Torah. They go back to the beginning of creation. And if we listen carefully, we can hear them at every moment. At every moment, we can find the Creator in the midst of creation. And this is why the children of Israel were chosen – because they knew how to listen.

This is why Jacob’s children gathered around him, to reassure him that they would continue to listen to the innermost voice of the people around them. The Midrash teaches, “Listen, my children, and I will speak”. There is no giving witness until there is someone to listen.

We are here, says Sefat Emet, to give witness to each other – to their pain, to their joy, to their success and their triumphs. “Listen”, he teaches, “in every language that your ears can hear. And in every word, you will hear the greatness and the oneness of God.”

Jacob’s story has come down to us over countless generations – one generation listening to the fears and the doubts of another. The stories of our ancestor have given us faith and hope, and they have taught us that “ordinary” people can do great things. And ultimately, our stories have taught us that their is no ordinary. Each of us contains a spark from God up above.

In the year to come, may we be surrounded by people who truly hear us, and may we, in turn, become better at listening to others.