Blessings Before Shema: Blessing and Peace

In Nusach S’fard, we say: “Hurry and bring us blessing and peace, speedily from the four corners of the world, break our yoke from upon our necks, and lead us speedily, upright, to our land”.

We tend to visualize our salvation the other way around. If God breaks the yoke of our exile, then we will experience blessing and peace as we are lead to our land.

When we feel embittered by the strain of our exile, we sometimes reject the gifts that God is giving us. We feel hopeless, we just want the weight of our suffering to be lifted off our shoulders; until then, we feel that it is impossible to truly receive His blessings.

But we must realize that the first step is to make ourselves permeable to the flow of blessing and peace.

Each and every time we experience such blessings, it is a foretaste of what is yet to come. And each and every time we feel a sense of peace, it contains the promise that the yoke of our oppression is about to be shattered.

It is through this process, a process in which we must be involved, that God will lead us, standing tall, to our land.