Yesterday we observed Tisha B’Av, the day in the Jewish calendar when we remember the greatest losses and times of destruction for the Jewish people. The Talmud teaches us that one of the reasons that the Second Temple was destroyed was due to acts of sinat chinam (baseless hatred) between Jews — refusing to be one community and refusing to value one another. It was a time of immense polarization and division. 

We are in danger of making the same mistakes.

As a Jewish educator, I am regularly asked to share Judaism’s perspective on the issues of the day. Recently, people have consistently asked me to teach what Judaism has to say about red lines. From progressives to conservatives, we are all experiencing immense fear, and we all want to know whom we can trust. It is our instinct to try and clarify the rules of good citizenship and partnership; but in our quest to do so, we are all capable of creating divisive rhetoric or polarizing categorizations.

Yet if we look to our most precious shared heritage, the Torah, we see that the Jewish people have never done well when we adopt an us vs. them attitude. Indeed, in the book of Genesis, story after story teaches us that when we are pitted against each other, it can end in tragedy — a tragedy that repeats itself generation after generation. Abraham and Lot, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau —family after family rejecting a brother or a nephew because we could not get on the same page and work together.

It is only when we get to the last family in the book of Genesis, that of Joseph and his brothers, that the Torah branches out from a good vs. evil narrative to the possibility of multiple tribes and thus multiple perspectives. While those brothers were also trapped in the mindset of sacrificing one of their own “for the greater good,” Joseph teaches them that this mentality is no longer necessary. He breaks the paradigm of one brother needing to triumph over another, of one brother needing to be “right” while the other is cast out.

This same message continues when the Jewish people shift from a tribal family relationship to a national relationship. We do not suddenly become one nation without differences; rather, we maintain the idea that there are twelve separate and distinct tribes. They each have specific places in the camp and each maintains their individuality while being a part of the whole. 

A beautiful midrash teaches that when God split the Red Sea, it was not split into one path, as we most often imagine and see in artistic depictions; rather, it was split into 12 distinct paths, one for each tribe — and each tribe had to bravely walk into the sea. This act of faith on the tribes’ part was reciprocated with a divine gesture: windows carved into the walls of each path so the tribes could see one another. 

It’s an incredible image, each tribe walking separately, possessing its own identity and purpose, but walking together to freedom and redemption — and being able to see one another, to experience it together, while still maintaining their individuality. It is possible to imagine the interactions through those windows: Words of encouragement shared between cousins, surely terrified and mystified as they walked through walls of water; smiles and jokes shared between children through the windows.

The Hasidic master Sefat Emet takes this idea one step further and teaches that the reason that there were twelve different paths through the sea was to teach us that every single tribe was worthy of having the sea split for their sake. So too, he writes, is each and every Jew worthy of having the sea split for on their behalf.  

We find ourselves in such tumultuous times for the Jewish people. Enemies of all kinds are chasing us; they are at our backs and only the sea is in front of us. Now is not the time to see one another as the enemy. It is the time to move forward, together — united, but not uniform. Unity allows us to tap into our roots as a family, work together and become stronger as a people through our diverse perspectives. We do not need to walk the same path, nor do we need to demonize one another’s paths.

This all may sound like a nice dream. I am not naïve. I understand that red lines will be drawn, and clear boundaries are necessary for a people to understand itself and its values. What is happening today, however, is that so much focus, so much energy and so much of the discourse revolves around identifying the ways in which we differ, feeding distrust and highlighting reasons to discount one another. 

What if we began instead with the reasons why it is imperative for us to find common ground and the windows to see into each other’s worlds? Establishing red lines can come second (or, if we do this work right, they might not even be needed).

Our children are looking to us at this moment, wondering if they have a place in the community and if they too must somehow fit themselves into this us vs. them narrative. How wonderful would it be if together with our children imagine a different path and narrative for our people, one where the sea will split and create the countless pathways that would allow us to walk in the same direction, yet on our own paths? We need one another and need to walk towards the shore together if we are to make it to safety.

Author’s Note: With thanks to Jon Marker of the Aviv Foundation for learning this Torah with me.

Rabba Yaffa Epstein is the senior scholar and educator in residence at The Jewish Education Project.