The excitement and majesty of the inauguration of our 44th president are now behind us but the inspiring image of the beaming First Couple as they waved to the crowd is forever etched in my mind. So too are three simple words President Obama spoke that day to a nation of people from difference backgrounds, races, religions and cultures. I have to admit that it struck me as more than coincidence that these were the very same words that the United Jewish Appeal (now known as the United Jewish Communities) used a decade ago to define their mission. And these three words are the same ones that articulate the ideals, commitments, and responsibilities of the Jewish people as well: We are one.
What does it mean to say, We are one? Dating back to the time when a group of 600,000 disenfranchised Hebrew ex-slaves received the Torah in the Sinai desert, we have been struggling to understand its significance.
On the day that the Jews entered into the Covenant with G-d, we are taught that everyone was there. From the tribal leaders and elders to the wood choppers and water carriers, all of the Hebrew people were encamped at the base of Mt. Sinai. In the Torah, the verb encamped is written in the singular form, not the plural. What is the reason that a verb describing the action of more than half a million people is in the singular? Could the Hebrew scribes have possibly made a mistake in grammar?
Our sages asked the same question 2,000 years ago and this was their response: When the Jewish people stood together for the very first time and accepted the Torah, it was a transformational moment in their personal lives as well as in Jewish history. Even though each person saw, heard and understood the word of G-d uniquely, when they stood together at Sinai as a group, they understood and felt the power of what it means to be a singular, awe-inspired Jewish community. They realized that they belonged to each other and that they belonged together. They realized the power of the words: We are one.
Being in relationship with one another and being a part of the Jewish community is at the heart of the Jewish experience. How much more significant is this idea when we realize that this relationship is based on something much deeper than mere acquaintance, circumstance, convenience or gastronomic preferences. Our relationship as members of the Jewish community is a sacred one that is based on what began at Sinai, between G-d and the Jewish people. In English we call this relationship a covenant. In Hebrew, a brit.
This covenant is so strong that it has sustained us for thousands of years through wars, assimilation, anti-Semitism and philosophical divisions within Judaism. It is the bedrock of Jewish life because it establishes an essential expectation: that the Jewish community to which you belong is the same one for which you are responsible. And because you belong to the Jewish community, it is also responsible to and for you.
The rabbis of old knew how hard it was to live in a community with this kind of expectation. They understood only to well how economic stresses, political oppression and internal struggles can deplete and undermine Jewish life. That is why the rabbis counseled us that: A community is too heavy for any one person to carry alone.
It was because of this wisdom that Jewish communities the world over, no matter how poor or oppressed they were, always established organizations to provide the basic necessities so that people could live according to the Torah and with dignity. This is evidenced by the following passage in the Talmud which states: A Torah scholar should not reside in a city where the following things are not found: a court of justice, a charity fund (kuppah) collected by two and distributed by three, a synagogue, a bathhouse, an outhouse, a doctor, a blood-letter, a scribe, a slaughterer (shochet) and a teacher of young children.
The rabbis of old knew it and we know it today. We have to work together for each other, with each other as a unified community, to make this country and our world a better, safer and more dignified place to live. I believe President Obama understood that when he told the throngs of American people, in all of our glorious diversity, that we are one.
