As every year, this Rosh Hashanah we will all recite the familiar verse in the holiday prayers: “And they shall all form one united group.” For generations, we understood this as a moral and social call to safeguard unity and strengthen the bonds among the Jewish people. Yet this year, we must internalize something far more sobering: This verse carries existential meaning for our collective future.
The sound of the shofar raises the spirits of all – religious and secular, Right and Left, “Bibi supporters” and “Kaplan protesters” alike. The blasts make no distinctions and erect no barriers. Their sole purpose is to open the hearts of all Israel. In an era of internal fracture, that is a message of extraordinary urgency.
Wisdom from the sages
The sages taught that when the Jewish people come together as one, the Divine presence dwells among them; when they do not, there is no survival. Once, we might have heard this as a purely spiritual teaching. However, after recent years, and this past year in particular, it is impossible to ignore its piercing relevance as a political and social warning: without basic unity, the State of Israel cannot endure.
Even more troubling than the warnings themselves is what has happened to us in recent months – we have grown accustomed to division. We no longer fear it. We have heard threats, and even concrete plots, against the life of a prime minister, and they barely caused national shock.
We have grown used to public conversations about cantons and separate autonomies, as if it were natural to imagine the Jewish people, once a shining nation, splintered into tribes merely cohabiting the same land.
We have tolerated language that labels political opponents as traitors, anarchists, and terrorists, and it no longer rattles us. In short, we have normalized division, and that is far more dangerous than we dare admit.
Social rifts are an existential threat for Israel
In other countries, a social rupture is “only” a social threat. In Israel, it is existential. The Jewish people’s greatest enemy has never been external. We have always withstood our foes, from Pharaoh and Haman, to Hamas and Iran. Our gravest threat has always been ourselves. It was only we who brought destruction upon our own sovereignty in the past, and only we who could, God forbid, bring it again.
Rosh Hashanah is a time of introspection, personal and national. It is the moment to ask ourselves: Are we ready to search once more for common ground? Not by ignoring our differences, but by confronting them honestly – listening, engaging, and working through them.
At Gesher, we have learned that where it hurts most is precisely where work is required. And there is plenty of pain, and plenty of work to do. Not to blur disagreements, but to ensure we can remain together, despite them.
The shofar, whose sound will echo across Israel, must compel us to stop and ask: Will we continue to sink into the routine of division and hatred, or will we rediscover the path to becoming “united as one”? This is not a utopian dream or naive wish. It is a condition of survival.
In the year ahead, we must face the open wounds, gather the fragments, and seek out the points of connection from which we can begin rebuilding Israeli society together. Before we can do any of this, we must grasp the severity of our situation, the weight of this moment, and the profound meaning of becoming “united as one” in the year to come.
The writer is the CEO of the Gesher organization, which for over 50 years has worked to bridge divides and strengthen the bonds among diverse sectors of Israeli society.