These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan. Devarim / Deuteronomy 1:1
The Gra1 parsed the opening words of this passage giving particular emphasis to the middle phrase.
“These are the words that Moses addressed to”, the central and essential element that Moshe urged upon the people was that they be “all Israel”, that unity pervade the community, that they be one people, a whole nation.
I was struck by the Gra’s interpretation of Moshe’s words to the Israelites as being an admonition to preserve communal unity in the future given the Gra’s ardent and vociferous attacks against the followers of the Ba’al Shem Tov and the nascent Hasidic movement. Was the Gra articulating his own hope that the Jewish community of his own era would find a commonality of purpose and connection to each other even as it was experiencing tremendous communal controversy.
The Gra, would also have been aware of Moses Mendelssohn (1729 – 1786) the German-Jewish philosopher and his responses to Jewish Emancipation in Europe beginning in the latter part of the 18th century. Mendelssohn’s writings regarding Jewish life would give rise to the Haskalah, the ‘Jewish Enlightenment’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well as explorations of what Judaism would like in this new reality.
Given the growing diversity in Jewish life and divisions developing in its wake it is not surprising that the Gra would see in Moshe’s speaking to “all Israel” an ideal to be wished for, sought after, and pursued by all factions within the Jewish people. This remains the enduring challenge of modernity in the Jewish world; a Jewish world far more diverse and divided than in the days of the Gra.
The nascent Zionist movement of the next century reflected the spectrum of the Jewish world with labor Zionists, cultural Zionists, and religious Zionists, to name only a few elements, seeking to create a Jewish state. This effort, especially after the emergence of the State of Israel, was a unifying and galvanizing force in the Jewish world. Today, unfortunately, Israel, and by extension world Jewry, are experiencing centrifugal forces pushing us apart from each other and moving us away from a unity of purpose essential to Jewish survival.
Prior to the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel was experiencing ongoing protests, large and small, against the course of action being pursued by the Netanyahu government in furtherance of policies reflecting its most extreme voices.
Israeli President Yitzchak Herzog, reflecting upon the turmoil in Israel at the time, affirmed it as a sign of the robust democratic nature of Israeli society, “I know our democracy is strong and resilient. Israel has democracy in its DNA… as a nation, we must find the way to talk to each other no matter how long it takes. As head of state, I will continue doing everything to reach a broad public consensus…” President Herzog also emphasized the need to fulfill the greeting “Shalom”, to foster peace and promote wholeness, both in Israel and the global Jewish community.
The sense of unity created by the horrific terrorist attack on October 7, has clearly been fraying. Families of those still held hostage in Gaza have increased their demands for action on behalf of their loved ones and are growing frustrated with the government’s seeming intransigence. Many in Israel have come to question Prime Minister Netanyahu’s priorities and motivations as the war in Gaza continues and danger in Israel’s north continues to escalate with over 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes for some ten months.
As deeply concerned we hope that the most recent call to the negotiating table, issued by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, and agreed to by Israel but not yet by Hamas, will finally bring a return of the hostages to their families, a restoration of normalcy to the Land of Israel, and begin the renewal of Jewish communal unity, both in our ancestral homeland and throughout the Jewish world.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1720–1797) known by the acronym Gra, was born into a rabbinical and scholarly family. At 18, Eliyahu travelled extensively through Poland and Germany visiting many Jewish communities. The Gaon of Vilna was the central cultural figure of Lithuanian Jewry and was revered as a spiritual giant, role model and source of inspiration.
Rabbi Eliyahu held no official office but was widely recognized for his scholarship which encompassed all aspects of rabbinic literature, halachic, aggadic, and kabbalistic earning him the title of Gaon.
The Gaon of Vilna was adamant in his opposition to the nascent Hasidic movement seeing it as a continuation of the Sabbatian heresy and the wrenching struggle with their spiritual heirs the Frankists in the 1750s.
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