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Shalom, I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg of the Ezra-Habonim Niles Township of Jewish Congregation, Skokie.
This video is to help explain Sh’ma. The six words of the Sh’ma are the most important words in Judaism. It is the basic line of our prayer. It is from the book of Deuteronomy and it says hear o Israel the Lord our God or A-donai our God, A-donai his one. And in Hebrew it is Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.
Now, in the prayer services, we recited twice a day because it says that in the first paragraph we should recite it when you lay down and when you rise up and we recite it in the morning and then the evening and not in the afternoon service. Many times, Jews will say the first sentence with their eyes covered like this to increase their spiritual intentionality. The normal tune is Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. And there is a mystic practice that my wife likes where you sing each word to a full breath to increase your concentration like this Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai and so on. The sentence after the Sh’ma in the service is Baruch Shem k’vod malchuto l’olam va-ed, that is not in the Torah it was added by the rabbi and therefore it said silently except on Yom Kippur when it was said out loud by the high priest.
And there are three paragraphs all from the Torah. The first actually contains many commandments. It says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And there are three different ways to love God. That is a famous story very sad about a great sage 2000 years ago being flayed to death by the Romans. An honorable persecution and he was smiling and the students ask them why he was smiling, he said I have been able to fulfill all of the commandments in my life except how to love God with all my might and now I know. And then in that same paragraph, it tells us to teach our children diligently, the Jewish education. It says to recite the Sh’ma when we lied down and when we rise up which teach us to do at twice a day. It says to bind them as a sign upon your arm and frontlets between your eyes to feel in the frontlets. And finally, it says that you should bind them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates the Mezuzah that you find on Jewish doors. The second paragraph is called the V'hayah im shamo'a and it basically says that you should follow God’s commandments to be rewarded and there is a curse or punishment for not following God’s words. And finally, you end with the last section that God said to Moses saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel and they should put fringes on the corners of their garments.” Which gives us the tradition of Persia and I have a separate YouTube video on the Persia and that you should not go astray but you should follow the commandments.
That is the Sh’ma prayer. I will tell you one story when I was a teenager I went to Eastern Europe and to Israel with my Ramah Youth Group. Then we stopped in West Berlin and a man came to see us and he told us a story that for years after the holocaust, this was 1973 so it was less than 20 years after the holocaust. We keep on going to synagogue in Germany after Sabbath services and going to the arc and saying to be Sh’ma, six words. And finally, we are on base and somebody asks that why, he said he was a non Jew and he had been a guard forced by the Nazis to be a guard at their concentration camp. One of them in the crematoria and he heard as Jews were dying and saying this six word phrase time after time after time in his minor way of repenting for the horror that he committed in aiding and abetting this mass murder was to say the Sh’ma. Of course, you say it was the last thing they say at night when they go to sleep. Watch the word of our faith, Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.
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