“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one”
This is the most important: 'Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' (Mark 12:28–34 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A summary: love God, love people.
The cultural key
'Which commandment is the great one?' was a live scholastic question: tradition counted 613 commandments and debated 'heavy' and 'light' ones. Jesus answers with the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), recited by every Jew morning and evening, and pairs it with Leviticus 19:18. 'Depend' is literally 'hang' (kremannymi; Hebrew talah), the rabbinic idiom for derivation, as when everything is said to 'hang' on a text. Hillel had answered a similar challenge: 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; the rest is commentary; go and learn.' Three differences from Matthew. Mark's questioner is sincere, not hostile. Jesus begins his answer one line earlier, reciting the Shema's opening confession, the sentence every Jew prayed twice daily, and this is the only Gospel that records him saying it. And the scribe answers back approvingly, adding the prophets' own ranking, that love outweighs 'all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices,' earning the reply: 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.'
Recovered meaning
Mark shows the teaching landing: a scholar hears it, repeats it back with the prophets' own ranking attached, and stands 'not far from the kingdom.' A rare scene of Jesus and a scribe agreeing, warmly, at the exact center of the Law.