Tuesday I was at a wedding and heard the following story from the officiating rabbi. Last week he joined a delegation to visit the devastated communities along the border of Gaza. While they were in one of the villages, a family returned to discover what, if anything, they had left. The father of the family approached the rabbi with a question.

“Can I give you a hug?”

After the rabbi complied, the man told him, “Before October 7^th I would have kicked you out of here. Now I want to take a selfie with you.”

“What changed?” the rabbi asked.

“I now know we’re one people.”

I love this story because it happened only a week ago. And I love hearing the soldiers have not stopped asking for tefillin and the Charedim are still enlisting in the army.

Lately, we’ve been hearing more and more about the cracks in our unity. Of course, there’s some. We can’t agree with each other all the time. Even my husband and I, after almost fifty years of marriage, fight occasionally. That doesn’t mean we don’t love and care about each other.

Today is the Tenth of Tevet, a fast day to commemorate the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem that led to the destruction of our Holy Temple. That Temple has not been rebuilt and our Sages teach it’s due to senseless hatred.

Many of us believe that this war has us on the cusp of a new era, an era that will herald true redemption. However, I don’t believe that we’ll reach that era without a major miracle. And to be worthy of a major miracle we have to remember, like the man from the border settlement, that we’re One People. Just like my husband and I, we can disagree, but we cannot hate each other.  

May Yehezkiel’s vision of unity which we’ll read in the Haftorah tomorrow become our reality now.

Shabbat Shalom