שמע ישראל

When the "Ponovizer Rav", Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, arrived in Europe after the Holocaust, he looked for a way to save the Jewish children who were hidden in monasteries by their parents who never returned. The monasteries` administrators tried to prevent him from doing so, claiming that there were no Jewish children there, but they allowed him to enter and try to identify who was Jewish on the condition that he say only one sentence!
The Rabbi of Ponoviz, in his wisdom, decided to lay a hand on his eyes and cried out the verse of "Shema Yisrael". Immediately the Jewish children gathered around him shouting "Mama, Mama". Shema Yisrael – a verse that unites us all together, a verse that connects every individual, wherever he is, to the One, our Father in heaven.