Let My People Know

"Pulling out of the syndrome of this incurable disease"

 

Unity is a grandiose thing, a supreme cause, and God willing, the time will come in which we shall attain it. 

I am talking about something closer, which is also more essential: pulling out of the syndrome of this incurable disease, in which I cease to feel my "I," which includes the other as well. 

I may have a very negative view of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionists – but all of them are I. 

I may argue with all those people whom the late Prof. Leibowitz termed "desecrators of the Sabbath, who have sexual intercourse with ritually impure women, and eat non-kosher food" – but still, they are I. 

So long as this joint "I" exists, we have life. 

It is this all-inclusive "I" of the Jewish people – not a unified Jewish people, but a people that has an "I" of its own, that includes all its members – that we must not lose.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From an essay, "Achdut – Jewish Unity" by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz