On a train from Westchester County to New York City, with two young children, clad in light blue shirts with identifiable Magen Davids, my family and I made our way to the Israel Day Parade in New York City. There were other parade attendees on the train with us. Some winked at us, others smiled, and some said to us, “Am Yisrael Chai!” After months of not being overtly Jewish while out on the streets of New York, it was a surreal kind of experience to flaunt one of the most important and sacred aspects of my identity to the public; but one I have been cautious about presenting openly.
My five year old asked me aloud, “Do you think that everyone in a blue and white shirt is Jewish?” I nodded, explaining that they were either Jewish, wearing those colors in support of Jews, or were wildly confused as to why everyone was matching them. When we got off of the train and made our way to the parade meeting point, we were met by the screeches of anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox protests. My older child asked me, “Ema, if they are Jewish, then why are they against Israel?” It was too loud to answer and I needed time to think about my response. I gave her a knowing look which she understood to mean that we’d talk about it a bit later.
As we edged our way through the lines, the NYPD helped everyone get safely through the tight crowds. I thought back to a wildly dissonant moment last year, standing on the streets of my then home, Tel Aviv. The streets were on fire, the police were charging protestors on horses, and I remembered thinking a similar thought, “If we are all brothers and sisters, why then, are we against one another?”
Crisis fosters temporary clarity amidst chaos. Humans instinctively seek to define their own identity, establish belonging, and find meaning in ideological affiliations. We seek to identify who we are; who we belong to; and to create meaning and ideology out of this information. This kind of thinking helps us feel safe, gives us purpose, and a sense of belonging when times feel dire.
However, in this reality, we also seek to understand “who is with us” and “who is against us!” Who agrees to the same principles as I and who does not? A common enemy to unite the great Jewish divide was a twisted gift to Jewish peoplehood. In an article from The Atlantic, by Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel, they note that, “when humans identify with a group, we are motivated to pursue the group’s interests and goals […] but when people use the term tribalism, they are usually aiming to capture a toxic dynamic […] including the suppression of dissenting voices and a cult mentality.” The key is a balancing act; finding unity but also maintaining autonomous ideals.
Our parasha begins:
“On the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt, the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, saying: Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms.” (Numbers 1:1-3)
The text makes sure to count and to take account of each tribe. Each man above the age of 20 is counted according to the line of their ancestors. The 19th century German thinker, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, explains the intentionality in the people being counted as part of their ancestral tribal houses:
“Even when there were Israelite descendants by the tens of thousands, they were all members of the “one house,” sons of “one man” (Jacob), with one seal still ingrained in their hearts and souls, and they passed their inheritance from one generation to the next, an inheritance of a common task and a common future. Within this unity, there were a multitude of qualities that were kept and nourished, especially in tribes and families…. Every tribe and every family unit worked towards the joint tasks of the house of Israel and shaped and educated their children. Therefore, there are not thousands of Israelites together like an undivided mass, rather they are counted by “family, according to the house of their fathers.”
Hirsch identifies the importance of maintaining unity within diversity. Each tribe is particular in its strength but together in its universal goal of being a strong united people.
The parade gave me a pang of hope; the same kind after the attacks on October 7th. Perhaps this unification is to last. People shouted slogans of love and unity, but amongst the love was also the tension that we don’t know our tasks to keep the house in order.
In order for our tapestry to remain strong, we must acknowledge the vast differences and varying opinions between us. Our modern tradition has to be one that can hold more than “with us” or “against us.” Our reality is already fractured; old tribes built on new party lines. And if we want to survive this desert, we must be willing to be in camp long term one next up the other.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rabbi Leora Londy is a rabbi at Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester in Chappaqua, NY. Up until last year, she was a rabbi and educator at Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv. She writes, enjoys the upside down moments of motherhood, is passionate about interfaith work, and is navigating being an Israeli/American Jew in the Diaspora at this moment.
My five year old asked me aloud, “Do you think that everyone in a blue and white shirt is Jewish?” I nodded, explaining that they were either Jewish, wearing those colors in support of Jews, or were wildly confused as to why everyone was matching them. When we got off of the train and made our way to the parade meeting point, we were met by the screeches of anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox protests. My older child asked me, “Ema, if they are Jewish, then why are they against Israel?” It was too loud to answer and I needed time to think about my response. I gave her a knowing look which she understood to mean that we’d talk about it a bit later.
As we edged our way through the lines, the NYPD helped everyone get safely through the tight crowds. I thought back to a wildly dissonant moment last year, standing on the streets of my then home, Tel Aviv. The streets were on fire, the police were charging protestors on horses, and I remembered thinking a similar thought, “If we are all brothers and sisters, why then, are we against one another?”
Crisis fosters temporary clarity amidst chaos. Humans instinctively seek to define their own identity, establish belonging, and find meaning in ideological affiliations. We seek to identify who we are; who we belong to; and to create meaning and ideology out of this information. This kind of thinking helps us feel safe, gives us purpose, and a sense of belonging when times feel dire.
However, in this reality, we also seek to understand “who is with us” and “who is against us!” Who agrees to the same principles as I and who does not? A common enemy to unite the great Jewish divide was a twisted gift to Jewish peoplehood. In an article from The Atlantic, by Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel, they note that, “when humans identify with a group, we are motivated to pursue the group’s interests and goals […] but when people use the term tribalism, they are usually aiming to capture a toxic dynamic […] including the suppression of dissenting voices and a cult mentality.” The key is a balancing act; finding unity but also maintaining autonomous ideals.
Our parasha begins:
“On the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt, the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, saying: Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms.” (Numbers 1:1-3)
The text makes sure to count and to take account of each tribe. Each man above the age of 20 is counted according to the line of their ancestors. The 19th century German thinker, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, explains the intentionality in the people being counted as part of their ancestral tribal houses:
“Even when there were Israelite descendants by the tens of thousands, they were all members of the “one house,” sons of “one man” (Jacob), with one seal still ingrained in their hearts and souls, and they passed their inheritance from one generation to the next, an inheritance of a common task and a common future. Within this unity, there were a multitude of qualities that were kept and nourished, especially in tribes and families…. Every tribe and every family unit worked towards the joint tasks of the house of Israel and shaped and educated their children. Therefore, there are not thousands of Israelites together like an undivided mass, rather they are counted by “family, according to the house of their fathers.”
Hirsch identifies the importance of maintaining unity within diversity. Each tribe is particular in its strength but together in its universal goal of being a strong united people.
The parade gave me a pang of hope; the same kind after the attacks on October 7th. Perhaps this unification is to last. People shouted slogans of love and unity, but amongst the love was also the tension that we don’t know our tasks to keep the house in order.
In order for our tapestry to remain strong, we must acknowledge the vast differences and varying opinions between us. Our modern tradition has to be one that can hold more than “with us” or “against us.” Our reality is already fractured; old tribes built on new party lines. And if we want to survive this desert, we must be willing to be in camp long term one next up the other.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rabbi Leora Londy is a rabbi at Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester in Chappaqua, NY. Up until last year, she was a rabbi and educator at Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv. She writes, enjoys the upside down moments of motherhood, is passionate about interfaith work, and is navigating being an Israeli/American Jew in the Diaspora at this moment.