Martin H. van den Bergh

Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort, always follows Tisha B’Av and features Parashat Vaetchanan. This parasha contains two of the Torah’s most important passages: the Ten Commandments and the first paragraph of the Shema. The Shema affirms our faith, declares the oneness of God, and expresses the centrality of Torah. Its words have long been a source of strength in times of hardship. Many hostages who returned alive described how they endured by holding fast to their faith and reciting the Shema, just as many Holocaust survivors did.

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In my pastoral work, I have seen the power of the Shema firsthand. I was once called to an elderly woman suffering such deep anxiety that she could not speak. I recited the Shema aloud, and she joined me. When I left, she was calm and relaxed. Yet the Shema’s strength lies not only in its words, but also in the mitzvot it teaches: tefillin, mezuzah, teaching our children, and, in its third paragraph, tzitzit. These are all fundamental signs of our Judaism.

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This teaches us that, powerful as the words of the Shema are, their greatest strength comes when we translate them into action—above all, by inspiring our children to say the Shema too. As a child, my father, of blessed memory, would say the Shema with me at bedtime. He knew its power as a source of faith and inspiration especially since his time as a prisoner of war in the Second World War. Thus, for me, saying the Shema is therefore not only an expression of faith, but also a source of strength and a connection to my dear late father.