Unity in the Community: Shacharit, 1st day of Rosh Hashanah, 5786. Kol Shalom, 2025

“Am Echad b’lev echad” 

“One people with one heart” 

As they prepared for the decisive moment of revelation at the foot of Mount Sinai, the  Midrash says that the people were united, their hearts beating with one rhythm. 

This, by no means, should be confused with a single voice. On the contrary, Talmudic  tradition fosters differences of opinion and disputes, which—like those of Hillel and  Shammai—lead us to think and rethink, striving not to fall into empty dogmas or  immovable ideas. Differences of opinion are like a vaccine against fascism. 

Alongside this, imagine a philharmonic orchestra where all the instruments play the same  score, in unison. We could call that music, but we would be leaving out the element that  brings a deeper dimension to music: harmony. For that, I will not play or sing the same as  

you, but I need to listen to you, I need to know what you are doing, because what I do  must be on the same channel and complementary. Only then does the magic of art take  place.  

Personally, I like sevenths, ninths, elevenths, thirteenths, and all the extensions found in  classical music, or in good popular music such as Jazz and Bossa Nova. 

What I mean is that we don’t need to think the same way. Even more, we need to think  differently. This will not destroy unity, but rather enrich it, unless we stop listening to one  another, unless we march through life with slogans and dogmatic ideologies, whether  right-wing or left-wing, which turn our dialogues into monologues, and our music into  noise and cacophony. 

What cannot happen in music, just as in life, is losing the tonic, the center, the direction,  the destination, our root, our home.  

It is always necessary to return to the safe place of our home.

Last night we said that to be a Jew is to recognize oneself as part of an extended family.  It is unity in diversity, a chorus of voices that, yes, sometimes sounds out of tune, but at  other times rises to heaven like a prayer of profound beauty and intensity.  Likewise, that unity of Am Yisrael is manifested in every Kehilah Kedoshah, every sacred  community. 

I believe, as some historians and sociologists suggest, that the Jewish People survived  2,000 years of exile not only thanks to their faith and memory, but also because Jewish  communities occupied the political space that the state could no longer provide.

Yes, communities organized themselves—differently, yet similarly—in Sepharad and  Ashkenaz, in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, Communities had a certain political  autonomy, and of course, social and religious as well. 

At the same time, communities are also extended families. And like all families, there are  arguments, conflicts, and even fights and resentments. But very few of us stop loving our  relatives because of disagreements. In general, love is stronger than any discussion,  especially when it is an ideological one. Families experience anger, disappointments, and  frustrations, but even in rupture—and this makes it more dramatic—there is no lack of  love. 

We must try to escape the trap of polarization and demonization. The Persian idea of the  struggle between the two deities, Ormuz and Ahriman, is leading us toward fanaticism.  Not everything is a battle between light and darkness, or between good and evil.  Most of the time, ethics wanders among shades and colors, lights, shadows, reflections,  and eclipses. No one should claim ownership of the only truth. No one should fall into the  idolatry of imagining themselves as God. 

I want to be clear in my message about communal unity on this Rosh Hashanah. Because  there are many out there who would like to see us broken, fractured, and divided. In fact,  there are campaigns trying to install this idea. 

But above all, our unity does not lie in a single voice, nor in a single truth, but in sharing, in  solidarity, in the love that binds us. 

We need dialogue, and that only happens when we truly try to listen. My sense is that  when we only want to be right, the apparent dialogue becomes two deaf monologues. 

In today’s Torah reading, Abraham, at Sarah’s urging, cast out Hagar. We cannot afford  such a luxury, not on this small island, not in Kitsap County, where we are so few. It would  be unjust, and even suicidal. It is wrong, and it does not serve us. 

And if we cannot dialogue, then perhaps it is better to do as Avraham Avinu did after that  painful episode: to keep a respectful silence in the face of diversity and different opinions.  It is not ideal, but it is better than fighting and deepening polarization. 

Everyone has the right to disagree with the founding pillars of this Kehilah Kedoshah, and  the right to leave, to join another family whose ideas and beliefs are more aligned. This is  inevitable, it hurts, and in some cases, it even tears at our hearts because of the love we  feel. But it is everyone’s right.  

Likewise, we rejoice and find hope when we receive new members, and we grow—as we  have continued to do despite obstacles, the pandemic, war, and various crises. 

Let us not fall into simplistic duality, nor much less into the fascism of a single voice. Let us not imagine ourselves as the sole owners of truth.

Let us not close our senses and our very humanity to dissonant voices that might become  harmonic extensions and lift our spirituality to dimensions deeper than we ever imagined. May our communal unity be strengthened by differences and by harmony. May we know how to return to the tonic, to the root, to our home. 

In the Uv’chen prayer, which we recite in the mornings of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and is part of the Amidah, we say a phrase that becomes one of my deepest prayers on  this Rosh Hashanah: 

“V’yei’asu chulam agudah echat…” 

May it be Your will, Adonai our God, that we may be bound together as one single  association of fibers forming a strong and united cord, 

“…la’asot retzoncha b’levav shalem.” 

…to do Your will with a whole and an undivided heart. 

Amen.