Shema Yisrael – Hear, O Israel
Remarks following the historic gathering for the worldwide recitation of “Hear, O Israel”
Ta’anit Esther – 5784
If there is one sentence that characterizes the essence of the entire Jewish people, it is undoubtedly the sentence “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
This verse has accompanied us since Jacob our patriarch bid farewell to his sons – the tribes of Israel. And when Moses stood before the people and said to them, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one,” he was telling them that all the good and evil in the world, all the twists of history, the great journey that we are on, all are included within that unity whose purpose is to do good for the world.
In the most difficult moments, these eternal words went with the children of Israel as a cloud before the camp. In dark hours, in the loneliest moments, Jews from all corners of the earth stood together, in large assemblies, in hidden chambers, and called out “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
It is difficult to describe in words the magnitude of the event that we experienced with tens of thousands of Jews during the Fast of Esther this year at the Western Wall, at the initiative and request of the families of the hostages.
Tens of thousands of Jews, women and men, with and without kippahs, stood together in the Western Wall Plaza under the ancient stones, and in many communities around the world, and everywhere on the globe – as individual Jews or as a family. And as one person, with one heart, in this challenging time that the people of Israel find themselves in, with complete faith and with a prayer for the well-being of our sons and daughters who are in captivity, and for the wellbeing of the soldiers fighting the Lord’s war against our enemies seeking to destroy us, and for the sake of the wounded in body and soul, they stood and loudly proclaimed “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” It was a moment of remarkable unity that tore open the gates of heaven.
In those moments, I understood that it is no coincidence that this revelation of faith, perhaps the greatest revelation of Jewish faith, begins with the words “Hear, O Israel” – words that we address to ourselves.
In our difficult hour, we not only turn our eyes upward, but to one another, strengthening one another, embracing one another, sending strength and prayers and hope to those who need them most.
In that awesome moment, in which we stood together, sharing in their pain, in their anguish, and in the prayers of our brothers and sisters, all of the House of Israel, we sought to bring to them the strength of the souls of all generations. Of the Jews who recited “Hear, O Israel” under the Roman sword. Of the Jews who recited “Hear, O Israel” during the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, of the Jews who recited “Hear, O Israel” during the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the Jews who recited “Hear, O Israel” in all the wars, from the establishment of Israel to our present day.
We stood there together in prayer, in hope, in supplication to the Creator, our Father in Heaven, to have mercy and compassion on His sons and daughters who are in distress and captivity.
May it be His will that the resounding call of “Hear, O Israel” give strength to fathers and mothers, to brothers and sisters, to grandparents. Our brothers and sisters with whom we share in their pain, in their prayers, and in their relentless efforts until all the hostages return home, and the verse “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your actions, and they will return from the enemy’s land” will be fulfilled.
