Quote #5

The meaning of the word 'true' here is similar to the word Amen said after a blessing. It is an act of affirmation and ratification, reminding us that the Shema is less a prayer than a declaration of faith.

More from Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks

  1. The first of the 'request' prayers in the daily Amidah is a fractal. It replicates in miniature the structure of the Amidah as a whole.
  2. The twenty-first century is, and will remain, the Age of Insecurity.
  3. Marriage, sanctified by the bond of fidelity, is the nearest life gets to a work of art.
  4. If we are to cherish freedom, and to guard it, we must remember what the alternative is: the bread of affliction and the bitter herbs of sl…

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