"Everybody is for the unity of the Jewish people.
That’s obvious.
But just how important is it?
If I don’t consider the little divisions of my small synagogue to be of supreme importance, the unity cannot become real.
When the point of unity is not an important one, the result can be war.
The American Civil War, for example, was about unity.
In the beginning it was not a war about slavery, but a war about unity.
An undivided nation was so important as to go to war for it, and to fight your own people for it, and to kill your own people for it.
That means it was important.
So if unity is important, sometimes you have to fight your own rabbis, to fight your own leaders and many others, in order to push them.
You can push toward it.
If there is enough push, there will be some results.
But it depends very much on how much importance you give to unity."
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From We Jews, p. 34-35, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
