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July 27, 2026 / 13 Av 5786
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The lush Jezreel Valley (Wirestock Creators, Shutterstock.com)
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Shalom -, Please enjoy today's Daily Inspiration from Israel.
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Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is One
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שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהֹוָה אֶחָד
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sh'-MA yis-ra-AYL, a-do-NAI e-lo-HAY-nu a-do-NAI e-KHAD
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A Prayer Said in the Dark, Answered in Daylight
By Shira Schechter
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Last night I made my rounds, saying the Shema with each of my children before they fell asleep. By the last bed I was was mostly saying it alone, the words going out into a dark room over a child who was already gone, repeating them a beat behind me and then not at all.
The Shema is the closest thing Judaism has to a creed, and it comes from the Torah portion of Va'etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11). It opens with a single verse, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One (Deuteronomy 6:4), and continues into the paragraph that follows: love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might, keep these words on your heart, teach them to your children, speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise.
A Jew is obligated to say the Shema in the morning and again in the evening. He says it a third time at his bed before sleeping, even if he has already said it in the synagogue that evening.
That third one has no audience. No congregation, no quorum, nobody to hear it. Whatever else the Shema is, it is the sentence a Jew says into the dark before falling asleep.
It is also what a Jew says as his last words. Rabbi Akiva said it while the Romans were flaying him with iron combs, and the tradition remembers that he drew out the final word until his soul left him. Jews walked into the crematoria saying it. Fathers said it over children they could not save, in the same words they had used over those children at bedtime a year earlier.
In this sentence, Israel is addressed by name. The God in it is described as ours. It is a family sentence, whispered at bedtimes and gasped at deathbeds, and nothing in the Hebrew Bible seems to belong more completely or more exclusively to the Jewish people.
So it is worth asking why Rashi reads the last word of it as a statement about every person on earth.
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TFirst Temple-Era Idol Mold Discovered in Jerusalem — A First for the City
A mold used to cast the face of a female figurine nearly 2,700 years ago has surfaced from the soil beneath Jerusalem’s Tower of David Museum, and archaeologists say it answers a question that has puzzled researchers for decades: were the thousands of clay figurines found across Judah made locally, or brought in from elsewhere?
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Viral Nigerian “Moses” Video Gets Roasted on TV. But There’s a Deeper Story Here.
A video out of an unidentified beach in Africa, widely reported to be in Lagos, Nigeria, has gone viral this week, showing a pastor in a white robe, staff in hand, striding confidently into the surf of the Gulf of Guinea in an apparent attempt to part the sea the way Moses did in the book of Exodus. The waves had other plans.
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IDF General Unveils New U.S.-Israeli Plan to Cause IRGC Collapse!
Former IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus warns that reopening the Strait of Hormuz will not eliminate the Iranian threat while the IRGC and the regime remain intact.
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Hebron: Journey to Our Roots Walk where Abraham walked.
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Hebron: Journey to Our Roots takes you through 4,000 years of history in the city of the Patriarchs. With breathtaking photos and deep insight from Dr. Noam Arnon, you’ll experience the land where faith began — and feel your own roots come alive.
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Use code INSPIRATION20 to get 20% off!
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Blessings from the land of Israel,
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