We Are Not One Voice

We are not meant to be the same.
We never were.

We don’t walk the same.
We don’t vote the same.
We don’t light candles the same,
or pronounce “amen” the same,
or remember the same stories the same way.

Some of us wear black hats.
Some of us wear rainbow tallit.
Some of us lead with psalms.
Some with protest signs.
Some with spreadsheets and salaries,
Some with softness and steel.

Some of us say God’s name with trembling.
Some with fury.
Some don’t say it at all.

Still, we carry this covenant together.
Still, we show up.

We are the people of the long conversation.
Of questions passed down like heirlooms.
Of arguments that built worlds.
Of voices that don’t match
but still sing together.

So why are we shouting at each other,
when we could be singing with each other?

We argue, loudly.
We whisper, reluctantly.
We roll our eyes at each other.
And still we rise.

This has always been the deal.

We didn’t make it through Babylon, Spain, Warsaw, Cairo, Kiev,
for someone to say:
“That’s not what a real Jew looks like.”

You think the women who held this people up were all the same?
Ruth followed.

Devorah led.
Bruriah out-learned everyone.
Golda outlived everyone.
Bella out-yelled everyone.
None of them asked for approval.

Racie didn’t chase titles.
She just kept the lights on in the halls of Jewish learning,
raised money like breath,
and made sure the next generation had a seat at the table.

The Baal Shem Tov saw holiness in the ones everyone else ignored.
He kissed children like they were scrolls
and told the wanderers, you already belong.

Shifra rewrote the rules,
so we wouldn’t have to ask, where are the women?
She changed the system, then passed the mic.

And Loretta Weinberg?
She showed up.
A grandmother with grit and guts,
walking into a space full of scandal
and dared to say, not like this, not anymore.

None of them waited to be asked.
None of them needed permission.
They just got to work.
For all of us.

This isn’t about unity.
It’s about survival with disagreement.
It’s about pluralism without permission.
It’s about being louder together,
not quieter apart.

So no, we are not one voice.

We’re a chorus.
We’re a mess.
We’re a miracle.
We’re not going anywhere.

When someone says,
“We speak for the Jews,”
We say:
There is no one Jewish voice.
There never was.