by Elisheva Herrera, published in the CBT Newsletter October 2022
The Shema can save your life, and I’m not talking about the usual way prayer can save lives, although I’m not discounting that at all. The Shema is the most important prayer for observant Jews. “Hear O’ Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One.” It is a call to return to Love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might.” In other words, love fully and completely.
Not too long ago, I was a young woman sitting in a modern orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem. The rabbi leading the class was a spirited, white-haired man in his 80’s. He was small in physicality but rather large in stature. His calm, kindly nature came through his mannerisms and his British inspired Hebrew. This rabbi had lived a rich, full life devoted to studying and teaching Torah. He was the perfect person to impart wisdom on the Shema, not only because he was a learned scholar, but because he had lived it. Rabbi Shlomo taught us that the Shema is the first thing on your lips in the morning when you wake up, the last thing on your lips before you go to bed, and the last thing on your lips before you die. He firmly believed all Jews should know how to recite the Shema and used a personal story to explain why it was so integral and how it had changed his life.
Rabbi Shlomo was a teenager when he fought for Britain in World War I. His platoon was on the battlefield fighting German soldiers. They were still fighting hand to hand combat in those days. Rabbi Shlomo faced a formidable foe in a knife fight in a battle for their lives. The two young men, one British, one German, fought for what felt like an eternity, maybe even 20 minutes he thought. Neither was giving up. Neither was faltering, but both were tiring. They knew that either one of them could die in any moment. Suddenly, both soldiers blurted out, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad!” at the same time. They both gasped and withdrew. They looked at each other with newly softened eyes, realizing they were both Jews. They threw down their knives, hugged, cried, and could fight no more.
The Shema saved many more than those two lives during that war. Rabbi Shlomo heard the same story with different people, different battlefields, but the same outcome many times over. He was inscribed in the Book of Life that year, and for many more years to come. The Rabbi loved telling that story and did it with such conviction, with tears in his eyes knowing it would affect others as profoundly as it affected him.
What will it take to remind us Jews that we’re all one? We may come from various countries, speak different languages, have different customs, and yet, we’re all Jews. Rabbi Shlomo reminds us in his story that we are united in our prayers, in our shared history, even in our shared survival. Will you remember this story when you recite the Shema at High Holiday services?
