Out of Many, One (Rosh HaShanah 5786)

Out of Many, One
Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal, Rosh HaShanah 5786

E Plurabis Unam. This was the motto chosen by the founders of our nation 250 years ago. Out of many, One. 13 letters, one for each original colony. Franklin, Adams and Jefferson, our forefathers, disagreed often about how to fight a revolution and even how to build a government. But they understood that to birth a nation, individual needs would be secondary to the common good. E Plurabis Unam. Out of many, One.¹

To be an American, to be a citizen of a country that was built to last, people would have to feel an obligation to something other than themselves. They would need to work towards a set of common values and agree to live under a common set of laws, even if those decisions would inevitably conflict with some individual needs and desires.

More than a thousand years before 1776, our Talmudic sages use the following story to make a similar point.²

The people of Israel are wandering in the desert, having just escaped slavery in Egypt. They are fighting a fierce battle with Amalek, one of Israel’s worst enemies. With a little bit of Divine wizardry, the Torah recounts that when Moses would raise his arms, the Israelites would begin to win the battle, but when his arms got tired and he would lower them, the Israelites would begin to lose. Seeing this, Aaron brings Moses a rock to sit on and help him prop up his arms.

The rabbis wonder about this detail about the rock. Why a hard, unyielding rock and not something more comfortable like a pillow or even a chair? They imagine Moses responding to their question saying, “How can I be comfortable while my people are suffering and fighting a battle for their very survival? I must be with them in their suffering, even if I am not fighting alongside them.” From here, the rabbis go on to teach, “When the community is immersed in suffering, a person may not say: I will go to my home and I will eat and drink, and sit in peace.” To separate yourself from the community at any point, but especially when the community is in distress, is to step outside the story. And when consolation comes, those who shut themselves away from the community will not benefit, because they chose to abdicate the responsibility of belonging.

To be part of a community we must be willing to make sacrifices, to experience some discomfort in order to enjoy its benefits. Moses on the rock reminds us: to share in the struggle is what allows us also to share in the joy. Community, with all of its challenges, sacrifices, and messy parts is worth fighting for. It is worth the sacrifice even to our personal comfort.

We know what the founders thought. We know what the rabbis thought. On this sacred morning I pose this question to all of you: what does it mean to you to be in community and what are you willing to give up to be a part of it?

You might define your community as narrowly as possible – your immediate family, the people right in your circle, or those people who agree with you. I understand this impulse. The more stress we are under, the more threatened we feel, the smaller and tighter we want to make our circle. The rabbis understood this too – they want us to care for our family and close community first.

But the rabbis urge us not to stop there. We need community beyond our very narrow slice of the world. In the Moses story, he is sharing the distress of the entire Israelite community. We know that we, as Jews, are responsible for one another. That doesn’t mean that we are responsible only for the Jews with whom we agree. I am responsible to you and you are responsible to me, and part of that responsibility is finding ways to be in community when we agree but even more importantly when we disagree. Of course, we are responsible for people outside the Jewish community as well. The rabbis are clear on that. The people of your city, your village, your town, your country, your world, those people are your community too, even if they feel far away, even if they see the world through very different eyes.

Being in community with those with whom we disagree requires us to give up something of ourselves. We may have to hear something that shakes us, or makes us angry, or possibly even leads us to a different conclusion. It's not easy to change our minds or our behaviors for the sake of community. We don’t always have to. But we have to at least be open to the possibility that being in community means that sometimes we will be right and sometimes we will be wrong, that sometimes we will be comfortable and sometimes uncomfortable, and that sometimes we will give more than we get.

Think about our synagogue community. Sometimes you hear words from this bima and think – yes, that is exactly what I think. I’m so glad that my rabbi agrees with me and affirms my values. Sometimes you may hear something that makes you want to send an angry email because it is so antithetical to everything you hold dear. Sometimes you wish we would say something, the thing you want to hear, and it doesn’t come. Every time I get up to give a drash, or teach a class, or post something on social media, or have a conversation with one of you on a difficult topic, I wonder: Is this something I’m willing to engage in disagreement about? Are you? Will you even tell me if you disagree or will you stop listening? Am I going to be cast out of the community?

We live in an era where all of us, even your rabbi, are anxious about sharing ideas, especially ones that are new, or not fully formed, or that go against the majority. The default reaction is often over reaction. At the slightest discomfort we rush for cover, blocking out the sounds of disagreement or shouting over them.

But those of you who are willing to stay in a diverse community do so because you see the value in being here, even if you don’t get everything you want at every moment. You see the value in giving of yourself, of your time, of your resources, even if sometimes what you get back is unsatisfying. Because in a true and strong community, everyone is seen and heard and supported and challenged, without a constant need for homogeneity of thought, belief, or practice.

The other day, I was having a conversation with a group of educators about what one of them called “the great sorting.” Many found that families are coming and going from their synagogues because they are looking for places where they feel more politically or ideologically aligned. While this may be more comfortable in the short term, I don’t think this is what’s best for communities in the long run, and probably not what’s best for us as individuals either.

On Rosh Hashanah, we have the opportunity to examine not only our own souls, but the soul of our community. We are strongest when everyone gives a little, when everyone sacrifices a little, when people can sit in conversation and see the human being across the table from them and not the ideology. I don’t need to convince you that I’m right all the time, but I still hope you will show up if I need you for a shiva.

To get to this place, we have to agree that we have something worth fighting for. Because without that, there is no reason to make sacrifices. Moses sacrificed his own comfort in order to help this bunch of former slaves become a people. The founders of our nation believed in the idea that we could become one country, to become one from many, while maintaining messiness and contradiction, and that we could figure out how to live together under a set of democratic norms and ideals.

At our best, Americans figure out how to take care of one another. Not because our government requires us to, but because we believe that we are responsible for those around us. In the days after 9/11, people lined up to give blood, to feed and care for first responders, to provide for those who had lost everything. In Covid’s first phase, when so many of us stayed home, others sacrificed their own health and wellbeing in order to minister to the sick, to teach children, or to cook and deliver food. Homebound, we leaned out of our windows to clap and cheer at 7pm. We donated funds to keep our institutions running. How many of us checked on our neighbors? We did these things because we believe that we have a role to play in the community. Some people even did this in spite of their government telling them they didn’t have to, because they believed that making a sacrifice was worth it to allow others to survive the pandemic.

Sadly, it was more difficult for me to come up with a more recent example, as our differences overshadow our feelings of unity. Crisis after crisis, infighting and fighting the other has worn us down to the point where it can be hard to remember why we need each other in the first place. You may feel like going into your house, shutting the door and trying not to worry about the distress just outside. It may feel too uncomfortable to sit next to someone who seems to think so differently than you do, you aren’t sure you are inhabiting the same planet. And so we become closed off, and the community frays.

When you find yourself in these moments of disagreement, when your blood starts boiling and when you want to run for safer ground, try this instead. Take a deep breath and pause. Ask yourself:

What’s the worst that can happen if I hear this person out?

Can I give them my full attention so I can hear what they are saying, not just what I assume they are saying?

Given what I know about this person, even if what I know is just that they are part of my community, why might they be making this argument?

I am not saying you have to agree. But a pause and some self-examination has the potential to slow us down, to help temper our anger and our judgement, to help us listen to each other, not just think about how we might push back.

I am not saying it will be easy. It certainly isn’t for me. But it may be our only way forward in this fractured and heartbreaking time.

Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, teaches, “Building bridges of understanding and caring in our global and interconnected world with members of other faiths, cultures, and political allegiances honors our recognition of God’s love for all and of everyone’s potential to achieve redemption. It also gives us new opportunities for finding common ground with those who are different from us, who can work alongside us toward a better future.”³

Our community is only as strong and effective as the ways we can organize together, both to change our country or our world, but also to find support in changing ourselves. If I am only willing to work with people who I agree with, my community gets smaller and smaller, until I am on an island alone, and then who will listen to me? Who will give me feedback or advice or, like Moses’ community, give me a rock (or maybe even a pillow) to sit on when I grow tired? But if we can stay at the table, stay in the conversation, find a way to use our discomfort to grow, then suddenly the unattainable change feels possible. We become powerful enough to grow and strengthen the things that we care about.

This is the only path forward. It is a path that is rockier and more treacherous than it might have been before. We can navigate it. In the new year, we have the opportunity for redemption right in front of us. It is each other, in all of our differences and difficulties and frayed edges.

This Rosh Hashanah and beyond, stay in the community, whether it be America, or the Jewish community, or some other community that sustains you. Stay in the community when you regularly agree with those around you and when you don’t, stay whether you want to push your community to stay the course or push it to change. Stay because someone before you thought this was worth fighting for and tried their hardest to make it so. Stay because it is not good for anyone to be alone. Let us sweeten the new year with a commitment to our community. In spite of so many reasons for division, out of many, let us become one.

¹https://www.monticello.org/res...
²Talmud Bavli, Taanit 11a
³ https://www.jtsa.edu/no-shade-...