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 ...

Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its ...

Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its ...

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 ...

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 ...

Thousands of people from around the world joined in with worshippers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in prayers for the soldiers and hostages in what organizers hoped would be the largest recitation ...

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 ...