Together as One

Sitting down to write something this week, two things that recently occurred come to mind. One of course is the now world famous (or dare I say infamous) Israeli raid on the Turkish “aid” convoy to Gaza. The other was the great showing of “coming together” from across the world to assist my sister in winning an online voting battle.

While the second seems almost meaningless in comparison to the first, it did start me thinking in an interesting direction. Let me explain.

The online contest my sister entered asked for people to submit their vote. While she was in the lead much of the contest, a sleeper rose from the cellar to quickly tie her as the final hours approached. With determination and conviction, she gathered a small team of family to spend the final hour soliciting votes. After several minutes, friends were helping, and friends of friends were helping.

All said and done, my sister came in a very close second, only four votes behind. Tallying up the final numbers, we realized that half the votes were from people that didn’t even know my sister. People from far and wide. This was a demonstration of “Achdus” – unity. People were coming together for a seemingly unimportant cause, but because it felt good to a part of the excitement. In fact, this was unity that most people couldn’t even claim a personal reward from. It was purely to help another and be a part of it.

Back to the Flotilla: While it seems much of the world is gathering together to bombard Israel with condemnation and criticism, what happens in the Jewish nation must be focused on, and we must be determined to stand strong – together.

Our sages have explained that unity amongst the Jewish people is one of our greatest tools. In reference to the greatest moment of Jewish history, the receiving of the Torah at Sinai, it is written; “Like one man with one heart”. This is the essence of our people. We were all there. And we were all just as important as the next.

To truly understand what it means to stand together, we need to understand where we come from. As it is taught, every soul has a spark of G-dliness. In fact, we can look at it as G-d being the original flame, and each of us are a direct offspring of that flame. That being stated, its not possible for one to be more important than the other. We are all in reality one.

If we can come together for a pointless photo contest, we must certainly come together to support the Jewish State, and stand strong together. Our people live under the threat of attack every day, and Israel has done what needed to be done to protect her citizens. We as the Jewish people must stand behind Israel in solidarity.

This weeks Parsha, Shelach speaks of Moshe sending the 12 spies to scout out Israel. 10 return saying the land would be impossible to conquer, while two insisted the possibility remained. While they disagreed on this point, they in fact returned from the land agreeing with each other. Both groups agreed that the land was magnificent and “flowed with milk and honey”.

It’s time to focus on what we agree on and what we have in common and begin to build stronger. As it is asked in Pirkei Avot – Ethics of Our Fathers, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”.

Good question indeed.