Shema Yisrael – Listen, Oh, Israel (PL/EN)

26.06.2024 - 14:00 / Festival Tent, ul. Józefa 36

Shema Yisrael – Listen, Oh, Israel, is a prayer and, above all, a voice, a command from God addressed directly to the Jewish Nation, but also to everyone who, in times of hatred and war, tries to reach inner concentration and enter a state of meditation to protect themselves from the destruction of the spiritual dimension of life.

The choice of the Shema Yisrael prayer as the main idea of the Festival was born in dramatic circumstances. Anyway, it’s hard to talk about “choice”. Just like the prayer itself, it was an order, a necessity, the only message we want to share with you.

This will not be an “academic” lecture – I will talk primarily about my spiritual pilgrimage – to the place where I first heard the call of the Shema and to the places where I heard it again. And I can still hear it. I repeat – “I heard it” and since then I have been answering this call in the only way to which – in some sense – I was called. As sincerely as I can manage to do it.

Janusz Makuch