The Shema says “Lord is One”, and many contemporary spiritual leaders speak of “oneness” of the universe, goodness, love and godliness. What is the correct Judaic interpretation of One and Oneness with G-d and where can I find more written about it?

The most simple way of explaining the words “The Lord is One” is that He is an absolute unity – in other words, he is pure existence without any separate parts – no differentiation whatsoever. One very important implication of this is that the differentiated details of the physical and spiritual worlds are all expressions of this primal and simple ‘existence’; the ‘oneness’ of the universe stems from the fact that everything in it shares a common source. When we say that ‘G-d is one’ we are declaring that even though the world, as it is now, seems to be a mass of details all going in different directions – different nations, ideologies, languages, lifestyles – there will be a time when the unity of these details will be apparent, when the world will reach its completion and become whole again, a time when all details will be an expression of the unified Will that brought them into existence. This does not mean that everything will be the same but rather that each unique detail will be a recognizable part of an overall picture expressing G-d’s will.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘oneness with G-d’; we were created in His image and thus our qualities are expressions of His ‘qualities’. We have a commandment in the Torah to relate to the world as G-d relates to the world – just as he shows kindness and mercy – so should we. Perhaps by ‘oneness with God’ you are referring to the development of a close relationship; one of the highest goals of Judaism is to develop a relationship with God motivated by passionate love, however that relationship, as any relationship, requires boundaries that act as a separation – allowing each member of the relationship to be themselves; becoming ‘one with existence’ is not a Jewish concept if it involves a complete loss of self; the goal is relationship – if there is no you, there is no relationship – we weren’t created to achieve that which was there already before creation i.e pure undifferentiated existence.

In terms of further reading, I would suggest looking in a Jewish book store for books by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan – I’m sure you’ll find one that deals with these issues – there is one called ‘The Infinite Light’ which I assume discusses G-d’s oneness. Also, see the book called Shema Yisrael published by Artscroll.

Yours sincerely,
Ari Lobel