(4) Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. (5) You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (6) Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. (7) Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. (8) Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; (9) inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
(א) ...בַּפְּרָקִים שׁוֹאֵל מִפְּנֵי הַכָּבוֹד וּמֵשִׁיב, וּבָאֶמְצַע שׁוֹאֵל מִפְּנֵי הַיִּרְאָה וּמֵשִׁיב, דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי מֵאִיר. רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר, בָּאֶמְצַע שׁוֹאֵל מִפְּנֵי הַיִּרְאָה, וּמֵשִׁיב מִפְּנֵי הַכָּבוֹד, בַּפְּרָקִים שׁוֹאֵל מִפְּנֵי הַכָּבוֹד, וּמֵשִׁיב שָׁלוֹם לְכָל אָדָם:
(1) ...At the breaks [between sections of Shema], one may greet another out of honor and return a greeting, and in the middle [of a section], one may greet out of fear and return a greeting. These are the words of Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Yehuda says: In the middle, one may greet out of fear and return a greeting out of honor, and at the breaks, one may greet out of honor and return a greeting to any person.
1. Why do you think we say the same words in prayer today that were said thousands of years ago?
2. This Mishnah says that if someone tries to interrupt you while you say the Shema, you should ignore them. Why do you think it says that?
בשעה שהוציאו את ר' עקיבא להריגה זמן ק"ש היה והיו סורקים את בשרו במסרקות של ברזל והיה מקבל עליו עול מלכות שמים אמרו לו תלמידיו רבינו עד כאן אמר להם כל ימי הייתי מצטער על פסוק זה בכל נפשך אפילו נוטל את נשמתך אמרתי מתי יבא לידי ואקיימנו ועכשיו שבא לידי לא אקיימנו היה מאריך באחד עד שיצתה נשמתו באחד יצתה ב"ק
At the time when they took Rabbi Akiva to be killed, it was the time of reading the Shema. While they were brushing his flesh with metal combs, he was accepting upon himself the yolk of heaven. His students said to him: Our Rabbi, until here He said to them: My entire life, I felt bad about this verse, "With all your life" even to take your own soul. I said When will I have a chance to fulfill (the words of the verse?) Now when I have that chance, would I not fulfill the verse? He extended the word "One" until his soul left his body.
1. Why do you think the Shema was so important to Rabbi Akiva?
2. What does the timelessness of the Shema say about Judaism?
3. Can you think of any other traditions that might be this old?
[Additionally,] many Jewish children who were taken in by orphanages, convents and the like, had no parents or close relatives left after the Holocaust. When rabbis or distant relatives finally tracked down many of these children, the priests and nuns who had been their caretakers insisted that no children from Jewish homes were in their institutions. Thus, countless Jewish children were not only stripped of their entire families, they were also stripped of their souls.
In May, 1945, Rabbi Eliezer Silver from the United States and Dayan Grunfeld from England were sent as chaplains to liberate some of the death camps. While there, they were told that many Jewish children had been placed in a monastery in Alsace-Lorraine. The rabbis went there to reclaim them.
When they approached the priest in charge, they asked that the Jewish children be released into the rabbis' care. "I'm sorry," the priest responded, "but there is no way of knowing which children here came from Jewish families. You must have documentation if you wish me to do what you ask."
Of course, the kind of documentation that the priest wanted was unobtainable at the end of the war. The rabbis asked to see the list of names of children who were in the monastery. As the rabbis read the list, they pointed to those that belonged to Jewish children.
"I'm sorry," the priest insisted, "but the names that you pointed to could be either Jewish or Gentile. Miller is a German name, and Markovich is a Russian name, and Swersky is a Polis name. You can't prove that these are Jewish children. If you can't prove which children are Jewish, and do it very quickly, you will have to leave."
One of the rabbis had a brilliant idea. "We'd like to come back again this evening when you are putting the children to sleep."
The priest reluctantly agreed.
That evening the rabbis came to the dormitory, where row upon row of little beds were arranged. The children, many of whom had been in the monastery since the war started in 1939, were going to sleep. The rabbis walked through the aisles of beds, calling out, "Shema Yisrael - Hear, Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One!" One by one, children burst into tears and shrieked, "Mommy!" "Maman!" "Momma!" "Mamushka!" in each of their native tongues.
The priest had succeeded in teaching these precious Jewish souls about the Trinity, the New Testament, and the Christian savior. Each child knew how to say Mass. But the priest did not succeed in erasing these children's memories of their Jewish mothers now murdered - putting them to bed every night with the Shema on their lips.