Twice each day, once in the morning and again each evening, we Jews pledge our allegiance to G-d by saying the “Shema Yisroel.” We also place this most important pledge on our doorposts so that “every time a person enters or leaves his house and encounters the unity of the Divine Holy Name, Blessed Be He, he will recall his love for G-d, and will be aroused from his slumber and errant involvement in the vanities of everyday life and recognize that nothing lasts for eternity except for the knowledge of the World’s Creator. This will immediately bring the person back to reality and get him to walk in the path of the upright.” ( Rambam –Laws of Mezuza, chapter 6:13).
Each day we also wrap our tefillin around our arm and head as a reminder of some of the fundamental principals of our belief. That’s because the tefillin contain within them four scrolls upon which are written the basic principals of our belief. It includes our faith and trust in G-d’s great powers and miracles, His sovereignty over the entire universe and the fact that it is He Who took us out of our bondage in Egypt and will bring us into the Holy Land, as well as the requirement sanctifying our first born.
We place these beliefs opposite our heart and near our brain rather than on top of a tall flagpole or on the wall, so that our brain constantly thinks about them and our hearts emotionally react to their message at all times. In ancient times people wore tefillin all day long. That’s because our love and fear of G -d and the awareness of His Kingdom and Unity must be with us constantly.
Each day we begin our prayers with the “Adon Olam” in which we define more precisely and in great detail what our belief in G-d consists of and actually means. And so, while the belief in a G-d is a universal concept accepted by all religious people, the Jewish belief and concept of G-d is very unique and different than all others, as we say each day in our final prayer of Olainu,“For they bow down and believe in a god of no worth or value…” Let us therefore hope that very soon, “All humanity will call Your Name and turn all the world’s wicked toward You. And all the world’s inhabitants will recognize and know that before You, Hashem, our G-d, they will bow…,” as we say each day in the prayer of “Al Kein Nekaveh.”