Indivisible!

“Indivisible” is a word many of us know only from the Pledge of Allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Apparently, the US is not as “indivisible” as the pledge purports. A recent study found one in four Americans say they would support their state seceding from the union.

What is indivisible is the Jewish people. Like one body whose physical, emotional, and mental health are fully intertwined within itself, our people are a single unit whose destiny and well-being are fully bound up with each other.

Just as I cannot be healthy if my arm is bleeding, I cannot be free if there is a hostage in Gaza. Just as my feet move my arms forward, the success of a Jew in Portugal propels this Portlander forward as well.

We may not pray the same way, speak the same language, or even live by the same ideals, but being indivisible means that we remain one nonetheless.

Our enemies know this. Hamas holds Americans with Argentinians, infants, and IDF soldiers. Hitler gassed Jews regardless of their occupation, education, or level of practice, and Haman famously stated: “There is one people scattered and separate among the peoples”; the problem is wherever they are, they are one.

More than anyone, Moses knew this. He knows that there is not simply a “Jewish people”; rather, there is a collective only whole with the full sum of its parts.

When some of the people nearly destroyed the idea of monotheism by dancing around a golden calf, he insisted on bringing the violators with him instead of simply allowing them to be broken away from the nation.

While he could have continued living in safety in Pharaoh’s palace, he went out and joined his enslaved brothers in the fields.

As the people he led out of Egypt died in the desert, his body remained there with theirs.

He understood that he is inseparable from the people and they are all fully one unit with each other.

Because he understood we are indivisible he was fit to be the “giver of the law”.

As the cracks start to form in the unity October 7th brought upon us, let’s remember that the Jewish people are absolutely “one Nation under God, indivisible” and like Moses let us remember that wherever we go, ultimately we will go together.

And together, we will go far.