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My friend Marc moved to Israel eight years ago with his wife and two teenage children. This was a family decision because they all loved Israel and wanted to live among Jews in a Jewish country. When the time came, their daughter wanted to go back to the U.S. for college and was accepted at UC Berkeley. In a very short time, her ideas about Israel began to change, and her sympathy for the Palestinians grew with each passing year. By the time she graduated, she refused to return to Israel. After October 7, she aligned herself with Jewish Voices for Peace and began to call her parents “racists, occupiers, and supporters of genocide.”
My oldest friend, Dina was born in Israel but has lived in the United States for over fifty years. She’s always been a moderate Democrat and a supporter of liberal causes. After October 7, she shocked me when she confided that it’s hard for her to have sympathy for the people of Gaza because “they all support Hamas and want to kill us, and anyone who doesn’t see that is either blind or refuses to face reality.”
My orthodox Jewish neighbor across the street told me that I should stop having the New York Times delivered because “it is all anti-Israel propaganda and controlled by George Soros.”
My atheist brother-in-law has never been to Israel and refuses to visit because “the country is controlled by ultra-orthodox fanatics.”
I have stated many times how alarmed, concerned, and frightened I am by the horrific rise of antisemitism in this country. I have expressed how devastating it is to witness the violence, the hatred, and the murders of Jews in America and around the world.
But I am also alarmed about something else. Not just about what’s going on out there, but also what’s going in here. In our homes, in our synagogues, in our communities.
You know what I’m talking about. The anger, the name-calling, the ugliness, the intolerance. The fracturing, the siloing, the unwillingness to even listen to the other side without judgment or dismissal. The Torah talks about the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. But what about us?
In a time when we should be standing strong and united, many of us are tearing at the very fabric of Am Yisrael - our peoplehood, our sacred historical connection, our oneness with each other.
Our Hasidic masters teach that all Jews are really part of a single soul, radiating into many bodies. According to the midrash, all Jewish souls – past, present and future, including converts – were present at the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, thus making us all soulmates. The Talmud states: All Israel (meaning the entire Jewish people) are responsible for one another.
These teachings are meant to remind us that when we hurt each another, we are actually hurting ourselves. When we attack and degrade each other, we lose our capacity to be kind and compassionate and set ourselves up for self-destruction without any help from the outside world.
Our sages believed that the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem was not just due to Roman power, but also to “sinat chinam” – baseless infighting among Jews which divided and weakened them and ultimately led to 2000 years of exile. Sinat chinam was considered so dangerous that the rabbis likened it to the three most heinous sins in Judaism – murder, sexual abuse, and idolatry.
Which leads me to another famous quote: “Two Jews, three opinions.” In other words, it’s a given that we won’t always agree. In fact, I think it’s one of our strengths – we question, analyze, debate and come up with our own conclusions.
What matters is not that we all agree, but rather how we disagree.
The Talmud is basically a book of disagreements. Over several hundred years, our wisest rabbis argued and debated every aspect of Jewish law and life, often coming to the exact opposite conclusion of their colleagues. Sometimes these arguments went on for pages and pages with numerous rabbis weighing in, asserting their opinions vehemently and forcefully, believing that their answer was the absolute correct one.
Amazingly, every opinion was recorded. Every point of view was considered and listened to with respect and honor. Every voice was valued, even those that ended up being in the wrong. Sometimes a final answer was reached and the discussion ended peacefully. But, other times, the rabbis just couldn’t come to a decision acceptable to all. In those cases, they ended the debate with the word, Teiku.
Teiku means, “Let it stand. Leave it for now and we’ll just have to wait for the Messiah to come and give us the answer. At this moment, we will agree to disagree. You could be right or I could be right. Or who knows? Maybe we are both right. In any case, we are equals in each other’s eyes and in the eyes of God.”
Wisdom. Humility. Respect. This is the Jewish way.
Shabbat Shalom and sending you love,
Susan