This past summer, my family and I were hiking in Acadia National Park in Maine – when, about 100 feet ahead of us on the trail, coming our way from the other direction, I noticed a young couple whom I could tell were Modern Orthodox Jews. The man had tzitzit dangling out from beneath his tucked in shirt and was wearing a ballcap – under which, I imagine, he was likely wearing a yarmulke. And the woman, despite it being a warm August day, was dressed in a long skirt and long sleeves.
Now, I’ve been told before that I look pretty recognizably Jewish – or, at the very least, that, for those who would know, my features are distinctively Ashkenazi. But nevertheless, seeing this Modern Orthodox couple approaching, I wanted to be sure that they unmistakably recognized that I, too, was a Member of the Tribe.
And so I did two things. First, surreptitiously, as if I were just wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead, I pulled my Star of David necklace out from beneath my t-shirt. And second, just to make sure I didn’t leave any stone unturned, I called out by name to my kids and niece and nephew, who were a few paces ahead of me on the trail: “Keep to the right, Gavi, Nomi, Hannah, and Adam” – knowing that a more overtly Jewish set of four names you would be hard pressed to come up with.
And just as I had hoped would happen, as I and this young Modern Orthodox couple passed one another, we gave each other a knowing nod – not just the usual friendly hello that many hikers give one another on the trail, but rather, a nod with a deeper layer of meaning, a nod that silently indicated: you and I are connected.
I imagine that many of us may have had an experience like this one. Maybe you noticed someone’s chamsa necklace. Or maybe you overheard a conversation at the mall about shopping for a Bar Mitzvah suit. And maybe, like me, you felt not just that you and that person were connected, but also, that you wanted to acknowledge the connection with them.
There is a humorous slang word for this type of interaction. (I’m not making this up; you can look it up later.) It’s called “bageling.” And although the bagel is not a universal Jewish food – but rather, originates in the Ashkenazi community – nevertheless, the term is used to describe the interaction when one Jewish person tries subtly (or, in my case on the trail in Acadia, tries not so subtly) to establish with a stranger that both of them are Jewish.
It is a peculiar feeling, this sense of connection that many of us might feel when we encounter another Jewish person – peculiar, but nevertheless, real, and sometimes very strong. And even if the word “bageling” is too silly or too frivolous to describe that sense of connection, there is another word that we could use – a word that carries some sociological seriousness, a word that is likely as old as the Jewish tradition itself. The word that we might use is “peoplehood.”
Peoplehood is the idea that all Jews, in one way or another, are connected to each other. The feeling of peoplehood can include those who are Jewish by birth, those who are Jewish by choice, and those who are not formally Jewish but who participate in the life of the Jewish community through family bonds.
Sometimes, Jewish peoplehood feels really easy and good. It is the instinct you might have, when you meet someone who is Jewish, to casually use a Yiddish phrase. It is the sense of pride you might feel when you learn that a beloved public figure is Jewish – say, for example, when you learn that the point guard for the Knicks, Jalen Brunson, and his family belong to a synagogue here in Westchester. It is the feeling of familiarity and belonging you might experience when you go into any synagogue in the world – in Boston, or Berlin, or Buenos Aires – and recognize that they recite the very same prayers as we do.
And also, sometimes Jewish peoplehood can feel surprisingly difficult. It is the feeling of embarrassment you might experience when you learn that someone who has been in the news for unsavory reasons is Jewish. It is the unexpected sense of disconnect you might feel when you wander into an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood – say, Borough Park, or Monsey – and encounter a Judaism that might feel strange or unrecognizable. It is the strong feeling of frustration, or outrage, or the sense of somehow being implicated when you read about other groups of Jews acting in ways that clash with your own deeply held convictions.
Both when the relationship feels good and also when it feels difficult, Jewish peoplehood is a sense of communal relatedness – the feeling that we are all a part of one sprawling, extended family.
It pains me deeply to realize that we are living in a time when the bonds of Jewish peoplehood are becoming loose. We are living in a time of great rupture for the Jewish people – in which the many different fault lines between us are becoming wider and deeper.
A few prominent examples come to mind.
Consider the ways in which this year’s war with Iran illustrated the growing differences between the American Jewish experience and the Israeli Jewish experience – where the proportion of American Jews who were in favor of the war was approximately 40%, while for Israeli Jews, who perceive Iran to be a more immediate existential threat, support for the war was upwards of 90%.
Or: consider the heated conflict within Israeli society over whether Ultra-Orthodox Jews should be obligated to military service – a responsibility that all other groups of Israeli Jews undertake – or, alternatively, if their intensive study and preservation of the Jewish tradition should be considered its own sufficient form of national service.
Or, here in the United States: consider the ways in which each end of the Jewish religious spectrum critiques the other – how the secular Jewish world criticizes the Ultra-Orthodox for failing to meet educational standards in math and in English, and meanwhile, how the Ultra-Orthodox criticize the secular for growing increasingly disconnected from Judaism.
Or, in what is likely the most sharply felt rift that has emerged within the Jewish community: consider the fiercely argued debate among American Jewry over how to properly balance support for and critique of Israel – a debate that recently boiled over in our own Reform Movement around the question of whether the Reform rabbinical and cantorial seminary should ordain students who identify as antizionist.
Around each of these debates, the Jewish people is currently experiencing a moment of great fracture. I regularly hear from congregants about their feeling of alienation from – and sometimes, even their desire to fully disconnect from – other Jews whose lives and, seemingly, values feel unrecognizable. It sometimes feels as if our sense of Jewish peoplehood – the feeling that we are all inextricably connected to each other – is beginning to come apart.
The idea of Jewish peoplehood is ancient. As a Hebrew phrase – am Yisrael – it makes its first appearance early in the Torah, in the very beginning of the Book of Exodus. [1] There, it describes how the Jewish people have grown numerous during their 400 years in Egypt – how, originally, Jacob and 70 members of his household had migrated to the Nile Valley, and how, over the course of many generations, that small group has grown and multiplied into some two-and-a-half million men, women, and children. [2] They are no longer a mere extended family. Now, they rightly constitute a people.
As their numbers have grown, they have also grown more diverse. Although they all share a common ancestry and speak a common language, internally, they are comprised of many distinctive sub-groups: the Twelve Tribes of Israel, as they are called – each with its own particular identity. For example: the Tribe of Levi was known for being especially pious [3] – while the Tribe of Benjamin, by contrast, was known for being fierce warriors. [4] Or: the Tribe of Zebulun was comprised of sailors [5] – while the Tribe of Issachar was comprised of farmers. [6]
In today’s Jewish world, we are similarly made up of a variety of distinctive sub-groups: with Israelis and Americans; from the secular to the Ultra-Orthodox; with political liberals, centrists, and conservatives; with Jews who trace their cultural heritage to Vienna as well as to Baghdad, to Ethiopia as well as to the former Soviet Union. We might even say that we, like our biblical ancestors, are now comprised of the contemporary Twelve Tribes of Israel: as diverse and sprawling as our mythic forebears.
Perhaps we should find it surprising that a people so diverse and sprawling has been able, over the course of 3000 years, to maintain a sense of collective identity. In his classic book on the topic, the late political scientist Daniel Elazar [7] explains that, historically, there have been two different modes by which the Jewish people maintained a sense of peoplehood. The first mode, he labeled “kinship.” The second, he labeled “consent.”
“Kinship,” on the one hand, is the feeling that many Jews have of some sort of implicit family connection between us – a bond that we share, across our differences, simply by virtue of common ancestry. “Consent,” on the other hand, is an active choice that we make – a willing decision to affirm the group’s shared set of values, norms, and practices by claiming them as our own.
To put it in the context of our biblical ancestors: kinship is the connection that the Twelve Tribes felt towards one another in Egypt, even as they grew in number and diversity. Consent is the willing agreement they entered into with one another at Mount Sinai, when they collectively committed to uphold the Ten Commandments and other laws of the Torah.
Throughout most of Jewish history, kinship and consent were virtually indistinguishable. For thousands of years, the vast majority of our ancestors lived in relatively boundaried Jewish communities, where practically everyone shared the same set of collective norms and practices.
But over the past 250 years, the external boundaries around the Jewish community have become more porous. Today, individual Jews are largely able to decide for themselves not only whether to affiliate with a Jewish community – but also, which one.
As a result, we have wound up with a wide variety of different kinds of Jewish communities, each with its own set of values and norms. A secular Jew in Berkeley and a Haredi Jew in Jerusalem might understandably feel that they share very little in common. Our feeling of Jewish peoplehood has seemingly narrowed – extending only to those Jews who are in our own particular one among the Twelve Tribes.
In our era of Jewish choice, it would often be tempting to conclude that perhaps our own particular tribe should choose to fully disconnect and disaffiliate from other Jewish groups with whom we tend to disagree – that, in order to stay true to our own deeply held convictions, perhaps the time has come to shrink our commitment to Jewish peoplehood.
However, against that instinct, a similar moment from ancient Jewish history provides a tale of warning.
Two thousand years ago – in the era immediately before the destruction of the Second Temple – there were, like today, a variety of different Jewish sects, each with its own unique identity and way of practicing Judaism: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and others.
After the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis who survived that calamity looked back and tried to explain what had caused the catastrophe. We might find their explanation surprising.
They did not write the kind of military or political narrative that a historian might give – even though they themselves had lived through the historical events. They did not write about the statue of Caligula that the Romans tried to erect in the Temple, and the subsequent rebellion that broke out against it. They did not write about how Rome suppressed the rebellion with an overwhelming display of military strength.
Rather, when the Rabbis looked back and tried to understand why their Temple was destroyed, they gave a very different kind of explanation. They said: the Temple was destroyed because the variety of different Jewish sects had harbored towards one another (in Hebrew) sinat chinam, “hatred for no good reason.” [8]
It is a curious explanation. But it is not entirely historically inaccurate. As many historians have demonstrated, [9] infighting among the various factions did indeed gravely weaken Jerusalem’s ability to resist Roman rule.
But when the Rabbis say that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, “hatred for no good reason,” they are making a different kind of argument. Theirs is not primarily a political concern. Rather, they are making an ethical claim.
The Rabbis are saying that the social bonds between the Jewish people – which were supposed to help sustain them through a time of crisis – had become too weak to endure. They had spent decades building mutual mistrust and disdain: vilifying one another, blacklisting each other – spending more time arguing about who is in-bounds and who is out-of-bounds than on talking about the actual issues.
It is important to note that the Rabbis are not pointing a finger at any one particular group – although there certainly were other groups with whom they vehemently disagreed. Rather, they are pointing a finger at their whole society – at the culture of distrust and delegitimization in which they themselves were active participants.
It requires only a little bit of imagination to see the parallels between their time and our own. We, too, seem to be stuck in a cycle of intra-Jewish vilification: between American Jewry and Israeli Jewry; between progressives, centrists, and conservatives; between the secular and the Ultra-Orthodox and everything in between. Like the ancient Rabbis, we, too, are living through an era of crisis, in which the Jewish people is grappling with unprecedented dilemmas. We would be wise to heed their warning: not to let sinat chinam, “hatred for no good reason,” erode the collective Jewish bond whose purpose is to help us endure.
Now, you might be thinking: my feeling towards other Jewish groups is not sinat chinam – it is not “hatred for no good reason” – that, rather, my feeling of distrust is entirely well founded.
To be clear: I am not saying that we should suppress our strongly held commitments for the sake of Jewish unity. On the contrary: a true commitment to Jewish peoplehood demands that we speak up when we see our fellow Jews acting in ways that violate our moral code. As we’ll read in our Yom Kippur afternoon Torah portion – when it comes to our extended Jewish family, our obligation is clear: “Rebuke your kinsman,” the Torah teaches. “Bear no guilt on his behalf.” [10]
But just as importantly, we must also remember the other half of that biblical verse. The Torah goes on to say: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. … Rather, you shall love your fellow as yourself.” A commitment to Jewish peoplehood requires that we speak up – and also, requires that we do so in a way that clearly demonstrates that we are coming from a place of love and of care.
This is incredibly hard to do. Commenting on this biblical teaching, the sages of the Talmud wonder: “Is there any person in this generation who properly knows how to offer loving rebuke?” [11] We ought to take their caution seriously. It is one thing to believe in loving rebuke; it is entirely another thing to know how to actually give it. Here, then, are three practical suggestions for how to do so.
First: we should seek to understand, on their own terms, what it is that the people with whom we disagree actually believe. This will mean letting go of our own caricaturized version of their argument – and instead trying, with true curiosity, to understand what it is that keeps them up at night: the concerns that they are worried about, the values that they are trying to advance.
Second: only after we have understood them on their own terms can we effectively offer our pushback. If our critique misrepresents their true motivations, not only are we souring the discourse – but also, we are arguing against a straw man.
And third: we need to be willing to turn the critical eye inward – to acknowledge what it is that troubles us about our own position. This does not mean giving up on our deeply held convictions. Rather, it means acknowledging that everyone, including us, has blind spots.
If we can cultivate these three things – the curiosity to understand each other, the insight to offer accurate pushback, and the humility to recognize our own blind spots – perhaps we and the people with whom we disagree might be better equipped to offer loving rebuke.
Then, during a time of crisis, rather than spending our time vilifying each other, we might instead be able to actually talk about our differences. Rather than deciding to walk away from one another, we might instead decide to recommit ourselves to the ancient idea of Jewish peoplehood: the idea that, despite our very real disagreements, we are all just different plot lines in the same unfolding story; the idea that, because we light the same Shabbat candles as one another, because we blast the same shofar, because we retell the same story of the exodus, we are all a part of the same ancient, extended family – one people, comprised of twelve tribes.
Our Torah records the story of the prophet Balaam – who, from a distance, beheld the throng of two-and-a-half million Israelites crossing the desert wilderness. As they drew nearer in his field of vision, the undifferentiated mass slowly became clearer – until, at last, he could see in fine detail how it was that a people so sprawling had managed to stay together on their journey. He saw that, whenever they set up their camp, they pitched their tents tribe by tribe: with each of the twelve tribes arranged around the perimeter of the camp – and at its center, their sacred sanctuary, holding them all together. [12]
Seeing this, the prophet was so moved that he unwittingly broke into song – a song that eventually made its way into our prayer book, a song that we continue to sing unto this day – the song: mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishk’notecha Yisrael, “How lovely are your tents, O Jacob; how beautiful your camp, O Israelites.”
It is a song that you might hear in any synagogue around the world. It is the song of Jewish peoplehood: of twelve tribes that are all a part of one family.
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[1] Exodus 1:5-9: “The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy. … The Israelites were fertile and prolific. … And [the new pharaoh] said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people [am b’nei Yisrael] are much too numerous for us.’”
[2] The census in the Book of Numbers (1:45-46) records 600,000 adult men. We might assume roughly the same number (or more) of adult women, and the same number (or more) of male and female children. Thus, we might assume at least 2.4 million people in total (600,000 x 4).
[3] Numbers 3:6-7: “Advance the tribe of Levi and place them in attendance upon Aaron the priest to serve him. They shall perform duties for him and for the whole community before the Tent of Meeting, doing the work of the Tabernacle.”
[4] Genesis 49:27: “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he consumes the foe, and in the evening he divides the spoil.”
[5] Genesis 49:13: “Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore. He shall be a haven for ships.”
[6] Genesis 49:14-15: “When [Issachar] saw how good was security, and how pleasant was the country, he bent his shoulder to the burden and became a toiling serf.
[7] See Kinship and Consent: Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses (1983), edited by Daniel Elazar. See also Yehuda Kurtzer’s award-winning article, “Our Fragile Tents: Community, Consent, and Care” in Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas (Fall/Winter 2025: Two Years Since 10/7).
[8] Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b
[9] See Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (2007)
[10] Leviticus 19:17-18
[11] Babylonian Talmud, Arakhin 16b
[12] See, specifically, Numbers 24:2: “As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him.” Shortly thereafter, in Numbers 24:5: “How fair are your tents, O Jacob – Your dwellings, O Israel!”