Unity

BS”D

What is it Unity?

The nebulous concept of unity is one which is often spouted in Jewish sermons, throughout the year. A small people like ours should be able to stay fairly united? If anything, with so many enemies in the world, we need to stay united, one would think.

But as often is the case, from times immemorial until this difficult era in the present, we see this lack of unity in the Jewish people, and we see it as we speak.

Israel is now threatened by a general strike in favor of a deal releasing the hostages and more and more Jewish individuals are blaming Netanyahu and the government for not doing enough to release the hostages.

This is heartbreaking to see.

It is heartbreaking because we as a Jewish family have been stricken with death and grief and instead of sticking together against the enemy who is the cause of this death and grief, we are busy fighting ourselves. It’s akin to a family who has had a family member lost to violent crime, and start accusing each other of the event: “If only you hadn’t moved to this area [where the crime occurred]. If only you would have told him/her to stay at home during that time of the day. If only you would have told him how to stay out of harm’s way better”, and so on and so forth. Instead of the family grieving together and sticking together during this difficult time, to support each other, they only make the matters worse by creating a rift within the family due to the tragic and evil event.

This mutual blaming misses the central points, which are: 1, No-one in the family is ultimately responsible for the family member’s death-the violent criminal is. 2, No-one in the family wanted this to happen.

The last point, that no-one in the family wanted this to happen, is the most important point, since it speaks about the trust you have for each other within the family.

In the case of the hostages and the war against Hamas, the politician Arye Deri, whom you might dislike or like-but this is besides the point-had the following to say about the event: We all want the hostages to be freed, we all want Hamas to be defeated.

These were very simple but understated truths. The different political factions have to trust each other that they all want the same thing, they just have different ways of reaching that goal. That is unity, when you trust that the other side has the same basic intentions that you have and that those intentions are good.

The barbaric and evil terrorists of Hamas, and all their helpers, first and foremost Iran, are the only ones who are responsible for these deaths described above.

Netanyahu’s government is no more responsible for any hostage’s death than he is for the freeing a few days earlier of the hostage Farchan Al-Kadi (who is said to have been found accidentally).

Let’s calm down and unite against the real enemy. Our brethren will never be our enemy.

In memory of the six Jews who were murdered by vicious terrorists in cold blood: Hirsch Goldberg Polin, Eden Jerushalmi, Almog Sarussi, Alex Lubnov, Uri Danino, Karmel Gat.

May their souls be elevated and May G-d avenge their blood.