Jewish law requires a greater measure of concentration on the first verse of the Shema than on the rest of the prayer. With a minyan, the chazzan repeats the end of the Shema so this phrase is unnecessary. This indicates that the worshiper dedicates his or her whole body to serving God. When a person is praying alone, he begins the Shema with the phrase 'God, Faithful King' ( El melekh ne'eman) to bring the number of words in the Shema up to 248, the number of parts in the human body. In the third paragraph of the Shema, when the word ' tzitzit' is said three times and when the word ' emet' is said at the end, it is customary to kiss the fringes as a sign of affection for the commandments. It is customary for worshipers wearing a tallit to hold the four fringes in the left hand while reciting the Shema. Orthodox congregations sit because the passages are from the Torah so it is as if a person is studying Torah when he or she recites them, and sitting is the position for study. Today, some Reform and Conservative congregations stand out of respect for the Shema. In the ninth century, the Karaite sect used the practice of standing to claim that only the Shema passages of the Torah were of divine origin, so Jewish leaders stopped standing. The Jews of Israel used to stand to show the Shema's importance and to demonstrate that saying Shema is an act of testifying in God (testimony in a Jewish court is always given while standing). The Shema may be said while standing or sitting. Since the Shema reaffirms the basic tenets of Jewish faith, it is important to hear clearly what one is saying. The Shema should be said more audibly that the Amidah. The commandment of saying Shema is fulfilled by reciting it in the shacharit and maariv services.

It is said in the morning blessings, in the musaf Amidah of Shabbat and holidays, when the Torah is taken out of the Ark on Shabbat and holidays, as a bedtime prayer, as part of the deathbed confessional, and at various other times. The first line of the Shema, 'Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One' ( Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad) ( Deuteronomy 6:4) is repeated throughout the prayer services. The obligation to recite the Shema is separate from the obligation to pray and a Jew is obligated to say Shema in the morning and at night ( Deut. The Shema is an affirmation of Judaism and a declaration of faith in one God. 2, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-512826-4.Jewish Prayers: Table of Contents| Daily Services| Origins of Prayer 1, 3rd edition, Harcourt Brace College Publishing: ISBN 0-15-567425-0 or Paul Brians, et al. You can search for used copies using the following information:Paul Brians, et al. Reading About the World is now out of print. The reader was created for use in the World Civilization course at Washington State University, but material on this page may be used for educational purposes by permission of the editor-in-chief: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Publishing. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Why might the attitudes expressed in the Shema have led to the Jews having an unusually high literacy rate among the world’s people? The wearing of a small mezzuzah (usually a cylinder) around the neck on a chain is a modern adaptation of the ancient custom. These words are inscibed on small scrolls contained in a box called a mezzuzah fastened to the doorpost of Jewish homes.

The Shema expresses the essence of Judaism, that God must be loved and obeyed at all times.

Shema transliteration