Hebrew Word for Obey

[Jason]

I am reading another one of Rabbi Sacks books titled "Ceremony and Celebration"

On page 191 in the chapter where he writes about Pesah he says -

One of the most striking facts about biblical Hebrew is that, despite the Torah containing 613 commandments, it contains no word that means "to obey". Modern Hebrew had to adopt the Aramaic word letzayet. The word the Torah uses instead of "to obey" is shema, a word that means "to listen, to hear, to understand, to internalize, and to respond."

That is amazing as I never knew that!!

If you read most English translations, it uses the word obey quite often. Many times we are told by Christians, we cannot obey the law perfectly. Of course we know we cannot and never were told to or meant to. But this carries a whole new meaning to me. Now I can respond by saying the Torah never says to obey the law! Okay, the meaning "respond" may be close, but it isn't obey.

Modern Hebrew also uses לְהִשָּׁמַע lehishama, which is built on the root for “hear.” The word “discipline” is מִשְׁמַעַת mishmáat (from the same root) and someone who is “disciplined” is called מְמֻשְׁמָע memushma. It’s all from the same word that means “hear.” It’s kinda exaggerating to say that we don’t have a word for “obey.” That’s an essential meaning of the word “hear” or “listen” in both Hebrew and English.

“He didn’t listen to his mother.” = “He didn't obey his mother.”

If you have a way to express the concept, who cares that it isn’t a dedicated word of its own? The concept of obedience lies in the lexical range of the word “hear.”