In this week’s Parasha “Va’eschanan” (He implored), the first paragraph of The Shema Yisrael is given to us. These prayer has been our signature prayer since the giving of the Torah in the year 1313 BCE. Every Jew knows it by heart and it has been transmitted to us from generation to generation. It is the prayer in which the Jews walked into the gas chambers standing tall and proud. We say it in the morning, evening and before going to sleep. The first paragraph is in our mezuzahs and Tefillim. We hold it dear and close to our hearts.
“Shema Israel, Ad-nai Elokeinu, Ad-nai Ehad” (Listen Israel, The Lord is our G-d, G-d is One”.
There is a beautiful story on the power of the Shema. In the times after the holocaust, many Jewish orphans were taken and put in orphanages, many of them didn’t even know they were Jewish. A Rabbi that had survived decided to rescue every Jewish kid he could so they could grow up living a Jewish life. He came into an orphanage and the caretaker said to the Rabbi, we really don’t know who the Jewish kids are. The Rabbi asked him if he could come at bed time and the caretaker said “sure and good luck”. The Rabbi came back when the children were tuck in bed and ready to go to sleep and started to recite The Shema Yisrael. The Jewish children jumped out of bed and started saying “Tati? Mama?”. Something stirred the pinkele Yid in them. The Rabbi was able to take them to Eretz Israel and raise them up as Jews.
Live a little higher
