The Shema is a cornerstone prayer for Jews and it is why we put a mezuzah (see https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/256923/jewish/The-Mezuzah-Scroll-and-Case.htm) on our doorposts … but the words that have stuck with me are these: “teach them thoroughly to your children” … but what shall we teach our children … all of the commandments in the Torah? That was my father’s answer, and he made an effort, I suppose, but my recollection is that the focus of my parents was more narrow … focused on the 10 commandments and a few other things … and then there is the Al Chet prayer (see https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/confessing-our-sins/) on Yom Kippur in which each person asks forgiveness for any transgression that any member of the community has committed. I also asked my father, the Rabbi, why we ask for all and he answered that is what makes a community. If anyone commits that transgression, then the community has failed. Those thoughts from my upbringing have outlived my parents and are still with me.
Hear, fellow Americans, fellow
worlizens, hear ye, hear ye … we must rise about hate and violence … we must,
or our community will not survive … we must end poverty and prejudice, we must,
or our community will not survive, we must tolerate and respect each other, we
must, or our community will not survive … we are losing our community … our
humanity … we are losing to the purveyors of hate, violence, poverty,
prejudice, intolerance, and ill will … we are losing, we are lost.
Hear ye,
hear ye. The silence is deafening.
