UNITY
YAD VASHEM COLLECTION
What does unity
FEEL LIKE?
Barry Manilow was onto something when he sang:
“I feel sad when you’re sad, I feel glad when you’re
glad” I BY RABBI MOSHE KURTSTAG WITH ROBERT SUSSMAN
20 JEWISH LIFE
ISSUE 86
Among the many rabbis who came to
the defence of Beilis and the Talmud was
Rabbi Meir Shapiro3, z”l, who is today best
known as the person who instituted the
daily study of Talmud (gemara) known as
Daf Yomi (the learning of a single page,
back and front, of gemara each day, which
takes place throughout the world and enables a person to complete the study of the
entire gemara in a period of roughly 7.5
years), who sent an explanation of this gemara for Beilis’ defence attorney to use at
the trial. Rabbi Shapiro argued that the
Jewish people are referred to by the singu-
Rabbi Meir Shapiro
ALTHOUGH THE JEWISH PEOPLE ARE SPREAD OUT ALL
OVER THE ENTIRE WORLD, OUT OF THESE VARIED AND
SEEMINGLY DISCONNECTED PARTS, WE COMPRISE ONE
SINGLE, INTERCONNECTED BODY.
lar ‘adam’ – man – rather than the plural,
‘anashim’ (men), because we are really a
single entity that happens to be made up
of many different parts, in the same way
that a single human body is comprised of
many different parts: skin, bones, sinews,
muscles, organs, etc. Although the Jewish
people are spread out all over the entire
world, out of these varied and seemingly
disconnected parts, we comprise one single, interconnected body. When one of us
is in pain, we are all in pain, and when one
of is in trouble, we are all in trouble – and
Rabbi Shapiro argued, the worldwide outpouring of support for Beilis in terms of
the many letters, etc, should be clear
enough evidence of this for the court. Fur-
thermore, the gemara4 teaches: Kol Yisroel
areivim zeh la’zeh – “all Jews are responsible for each other” – the Jewish people
care about and feel a unique responsibility
for the welfare of one another. A single Jew
on trial in Russia is of tremendous concern
to every other Jew, whether those Jews are
in Amsterdam, or London, or New York –
such a thing touches and affects every single Jew, no matter where he may be in the
world; it is, from the perspective of the
Jewish people and their holy Torah, as
though the entire Jewish people were on
trial! And we see this idea throughout Jewish history; whenever Jews are threatened,
we put aside our differences and the entire
people come together and unite.
PHOTOGRAPHS: WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SAY WHAT UNITY LOOKS
like, but we can describe how it should feel.
In 19111, a blood libel was brought in Kiev
against Menachem Mendel Beilis, a Russian
Jew, who was accused of murdering a nonJewish child. While Beilis awaited trial in
prison for more than two years, anti-Semitism raged, as accusations of a secret ritual
]\