Let’s talk about the Shema for a second, shall we? It’s a basis of our faith. We recite it twice a day. And this week is the last chance we get to use it in a dvar torah this year. Parshat Ekev ...

One of my earliest memories is of reciting the Shema each Sunday morning in heder. Although I didn’t come from a religious family – we were more your traditional three-times-a-year shul-goers – and I ...

Former hostages Segev Kalfon, Matan Zangauker, and Ilana Gritzewsky took the stage in Manhattan at Chabad’s massive youth event, shouted 'Shema Yisrael' and sang 'Shir LaMa’alot.' ...

Eli Sharabi was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7th, and taken hostage by Hamas. Sharabi had never recited the Shema. Until he was in Gaza. Even though he was never a religious man ...

To hear – even in the dark. To listen – when we feel silenced. To act – when it would be easier to despair. To love – when hate seems louder. To believe – even now. It is impossible to write this week ...

There are moments when history seems to stop; when centuries of faith, suffering and endurance collapse into a single gesture. This week, one such moment arrived in Israel amid an extraordinary ...

The words of the Shema prayer, arguably Judaism’s most fundamental liturgical statement, are not generally associated with the art of magic. But the arrival of a 1,500-year-old silver armband ...

I grew up praying to a god in a language I did not understand. In particular, as an observant Conservative Jewish American (that is, “Conservative Jewish, not “conservative, Jewish”), I grew up ...

The Shema bookends Yom Kippur. It is dramatically said at Yom Kippur’s onset. While the sentence Baruch Shem Kevod which follows Shema is normatively said quietly, on Yom Kippur it is said aloud.

Shema Yisrael, or the Shema, is the central affirmation of Judaism. The prayer expresses belief in the singularity of God, that is, in God's oneness and incomparability. Though this opening verse is ...