Am Yisrael Chai is also a tefilla, a longing for a united Jewish people living together in safety, security and with unity and harmony.
Explaining the words “I will take you to Me as an “עם”, a people (Shemos 6:7), Rav Soloveitchik writes:
The political-historical unity as a nation is based on the conclusion of the covenant in Mitzrayim, which occurred even prior to the giving of the Torah at Sinai. This covenant forced upon us all one uniform historical fate. The Hebrew word עם Am, nation, is identical in spelling to the Hebrew word עם Im, with. Our fate of unity manifests itself through a historical indispensable union...No Jew can renounce his part of the unity...Religious Jews or irreligious Jews, all are included in one nation, which stands lonesome and in misery in a large and often antagonistic world...
In the ashes of the crematoria, the ashes of the Chasidim and pious Jews were put together with the ashes of the radicals and the atheists. And we all must fight the enemy, who does not differentiate between those who believe in God and those who reject Him.
The secret to a strong Am Yisrael is a sense of Im Yisrael, being in it together, united, loyal, giving one another the benefit of the doubt, and judging each other favorably.
The Torah relates that at the end of the first day of creation, ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר, יום אחד – “It was evening and it was morning; the first day” (1:5). Rav Zev of Strikov advances a beautiful chassidic reading of this pasuk. ערב (evening) represents the gloom of exile, periods when we are thrust into “darkness,” struggling, suffering, and in distress. בוקר (morning), then, symbolizes the “light” of the redemption, the joy of salvation. The way we proceed from ערב to בוקר, from the darkness of suffering to the light of redemption, is יום אחד – having days of oneness, days of achdus, unity, togetherness.
This is a major gut check moment for those who live outside of Israel. Do we feel connected to the plight of our brothers and sisters there? Are we in profound pain by the events unfolding? Are our lives severely interrupted and different while this is going on?
There is so much we can and must be doing. We are all
- Rabbi Efrem Goldberg
