The power of one
At the base of all computers is a binary numbering system in which every letter and number is represented as a unique series consisting of only two characters: 0 and 1. In computer algorithms, 0 and 1 are typically used when evaluating a conditional statement, indicating no and yes, false and true, or bad data and good data, respectively. In the binary world, the difference between 0 and 1 means everything.
Long before computers were invented, Judaism taught us about the power of one. The Talmud says, “Whoever saves a single life is considered to have saved the whole world.”
In 2024, Israeli soldiers rescued a Yazidi woman kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq and held captive in Gaza for 10 years. Taken when she was only 11 years old and sold as a “war bride”, the woman was finally returned to her home in Iraq.
However, it is not only the ultimate mitzvah of saving a life that endures. One simple, thoughtful act performed by one individual can stay with us forever. The act most likely seems inconsequential to the person performing it, but not to the person who benefits from it.
Daniel Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, recalled an experience in 1959 when he was the only Jewish student in his fifth-grade class. His teacher took him aside to tell him that the school janitor had found a swastika scratched into a wall in the boys’ restroom, and she wanted to assure him that it had been removed. Decades later, Mariaschin still remembers his teacher’s sensitivity.
Last year, while having dinner at my father’s house, we saw a story on the local news about the blizzard of 1978. My father recounted his experience during the storm. When the buses stopped running, he went to pick up my sister from school, and they, along with many others who were unable to make the drive home, spent two nights at the Rhode Island State House. Fortunately, there was some food in the building, and it was a priest who had made an announcement asking people to refrain from eating the kosher food so that my father and sister would have enough to eat. That a man in his nineties still speaks with appreciation for something that happened when he was in his forties is a testament to the lasting impact of a single act of kindness.
Several years ago, I was in synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, and city workers were working on the road outside. The noise made it difficult to hear the service. The next day, however, it was quiet. The rabbi told us that one of the workers had approached him, concerned that the noise was disrupting our prayer, and said he would call his supervisor and ask if the team could be assigned to another spot the next day. He made the call, the supervisor agreed, and we had a peaceful service on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. Years later, this act of consideration stays with me.
Often something is noteworthy because it is the one thing that stands out from the others. In Israel, the street signs are in three languages. When I visited, I sometimes read the words in English, and sometimes in Hebrew, whichever letters caught my eye first. However, it is the third language, Arabic, the one that I am unable to read, that reminds me of the diversity of my homeland.
For a Muslim man named Kaid Farhan Elkadi, the language that is momentous is Hebrew. Kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, Elkadi spent almost a year as a hostage where he was kept in a tunnel and given meager amounts of food. During that time, he had heard only one language: Arabic. One day he heard people approaching who were speaking Hebrew and his heart soared. Israeli soldiers had come to rescue him. Indeed, it was the sound of a language associated with a religion that was not his own, that represented freedom for him.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog spoke of the heterogeneity that exists in only one country in the middle east, saying: “Our democracy is also late Friday afternoon, when the sound of the Muezzin (Muslim) calling to prayer blends with the siren announcing the Sabbath in Jerusalem, while one of the largest and most impressive LGBTQ pride parades in the world is going on in Tel Aviv.”
But it was the man who would become the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, who, recognizing the singular land of our heritage, gave a particularly unique and clever answer to a question posed by a member of the British House of Lords. When asked why Jews wanted their state to be in Israel and not somewhere else, he replied, “That’s like asking why someone drives 20 miles to visit his mother when there are many other old women living on his street.”
As a writer on the topics of Israel and antisemitism, I am heartened when people tell me that they have used in a discussion or forum a fact that they learned from one of my articles. However, my most fervent goal is to sway someone’s opinion. One of my Facebook “friends” frequently posts memes and links with a clear pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist view. One day, I noticed that this person had endorsed one of my articles by giving it the thumbs up like. I was both shocked and grateful that at least one person had perhaps started to see the situation from a different angle.
Demonstrated in a myriad of ways, the power of one has a significance that belies its small number. Similar to the binary world of computers where the distinction between 0 and 1 means everything, the difference between zero and one in life’s non-binary world can very often mean everything, too.
