Like most, I had never heard of Kibbutz Be’eri until this Sukkot. The only difference is I first heard of it on Oct. 3, a mere four days before the world heard about it after Hamas’ massacre on Oct. 7th of Be’eri and other surrounding kibbutzim.
October 3 found me at an event organized by Safeguarding Our Shared Home (SOS Home). Just as G-d spreads a sukkat shalom, a canopy of peace, over the Jewish nation, so too SOS Home hoped to bring together Jews of all stripes — pro-countreform, anti-countreform, religious, secular, etc. — maybe not to achieve peace, but at least to take some baby steps toward mutual understanding and respect.
To discuss issues and listen to opposing concerns, not just yell at each other via street protests.
Our homes are closed in — proverbial echo chambers. Our sukkah, by contrast, is open to the outside, inviting of every Jew.
Thousands of Israelis, at over 250 host sukkahs, prioritized this as their chol ha’moed event instead of traditional celebratory gatherings.
I got one of the last seats in the sukkah itself. People continued to trickle in, sitting on rocks, stairs or even standing, with around 40 people ending up at this stranger’s sukkah.
The facilitator guided us to share our name and place of residence, as well as our most Israeli moment or memory.
That is when I heard of Kibbutz Be’eri for the first time, from one of my fellow attendees.
I can only hope he is still alive, though at best I know he has lost family or lifelong friends to terrorism. Efforts to get his contact information have so far come back emptyhanded.
We were then asked to jot something down anonymously on two pieces of paper. The first? Something we feel is vital to Israel’s character, but that we can live with in compromise if it doesn’t happen. The second? Something so vital to Israel’s character that we can not live here without it.
The idea was to go through some of these notes, fleshing out the opinions and feelings behind them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first note was also our last, because it sparked such a passionate discussion that it carried us nearly until midnight.
There was a lot of anger in the air, but ultimately a fruitful conversation ensued.
The Yom Kippur clashes in Dizengoff Square dominated the conversation at first, with voices from across the spectrum receiving relatively equal airtime.
As the discussion veered into the topic of judicial reform, however, only anti-reform voices were heard. Suddenly, a clarion call:
“Enough with the reasons why the judicial reform is dangerous! I think it’s dangerous, everyone who has spoken thinks it’s dangerous, but what’s the point of gathering here if we don’t hear from someone who is pro-reform? Is there anyone here pro-reform?”
At that, a resident of a Samaria settlement stood up. A bit emotional, he thanked that participant, “It’s the first time in nine months I feel like someone anti-reform is actually interested in what I think.”
From there, he was given ample time to spell out his positions, interspersed with lively debate.
Eventually, the facilitator moved toward closing remarks. One participant sounded a pessimistic note: “We heard everyone talk, but I don’t think we’ve moved one inch closer to each other. I came to give this a try, but I don’t know what the point was.”
Thankfully, most everyone else took a different view. Not an optimistic one per se, as the harsh reality of Israel’s divisions could not be ignored. Nonetheless, most participants reflected that the gathering itself was an achievement, that hearing different opinions without name-calling was valuable, and that additional such gatherings would be welcome.
Whatever positive takeaways there were, though, unity it was not. Animosity, pain and near hopelessness filled the air.
So when the country seemingly unified instantaneously in wake of Hamas’ barbaric massacre, a bit of skepticism remained inside of me. Was this unity? Or just a national version of “there are no atheists in a foxhole”?
Was the newfound unity showing our true colors or was existential fear just covering up the true colors of our divisiveness?
It’s nice to feel warm and fuzzy sentiments, but did it need to take 1,400 innocent lives murdered to achieve that?
What if, instead of the current unified, national mobilization, everyone had made but a fraction of those efforts the past nine months? Not necessarily to agree with each other—unity is not uniformity—but at least to understand the fears and ideas animating the opposing side? To argue without derisive name-calling?
In the words of Buchenwald survivor, former Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, “We are champions at dying together. But living together? We haven’t even passed basic training.”
Geopolitical dynamics and intelligence failures no doubt allowed Oct. 7 to happen, but we would be remiss to forget that Jewish history and Talmudic literature both underscore the dangers of internal Jewish strife (see Yoma 9b and Vayikra Rabba 26:2). This outlook occupied my mind the first few days of the war.
Thankfully, I was rescued from this dismal mindset by a wonderful insight from my wife.
The Talmud and Maimonides discuss an unusual law regarding Jewish divorce. Background: In Jewish law, a divorce given via coercion is not a valid divorce. However, if it is determined that the wife deserves a divorce, the law is that one may exert incessant social and economic pressure on the husband to issue the divorce until he finally says, “Here, I’m giving it willingly.”
But isn’t this precisely a divorce issued against his will? He had to be painfully shunned and sanctioned until he agreed!
The answer is that beneath the cruel exterior and psychological defenses, at his core we believe the man does not want to hold his wife hostage; rather, he wants to do the right thing.
So, too, perhaps it is on the national level. Our unity now is not a farce, only because there is a gun to our collective head. Rather, our current unity is the emergence of our pure core, with the many external layers of strife and internecine conflict stripped away by the brutal pain inflicted by Hamas.
While a shallow unity will automatically go away once the danger passes, if the unity is reflective of our pure core, it has the potential to cause a lasting change in our national dynamic.
The overwhelming force of unity is, in my lifetime, unprecedented and offers hope that the second approach is true.
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