Partial Truths and Layered Perspectives
It’s a human thing to want to know the whole truth. But most of the time, we only glimpse a piece of it. There is an old well-known parable about several blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time.1 One feels the trunk and says, “It is a hose.” Another grasps the leg and insists, “It is a tree.” Another touches the ear and declares, “It is a fan.” Each one speaks their truth, but it is only part of the story. Only together can they begin to imagine the whole.
The rabbis of the Talmud had a word for this way of seeing truth: aspaklaria.2 It’s a lens through which we see the world: but it’s always incomplete, always shaped by our own perspective. Partial truths, refracted through glimpses, adding to a greater whole.
Judaism has always insisted on multiplicity. There are so many Jewish examples. Two creation stories. Two versions of the Ten Commandments. The celebrated cacophony of the Talmud where disagreements are preserved. And wholeness does not come from erasing differences but from piecing them together.3
But let’s be honest: living with layered truths can feel exhausting. This year, Rosh HaShanah begins with the call to wake up to a world of possibility and promise. Even as we already know (spoiler alert) that tomorrow will be flawed and complicated. We see goodness and light right here: people who still gather to pray, to learn, to mourn, to celebrate—to be proudly Jewish. But we feel dangers out there: hatred rising, wars that grind on, leaders who divide instead of heal.
Yet, what frightens me most this year is not the dangers beyond us. It is the fractures within.
The Letter We Wrote
This summer, as hunger in Gaza grew, our clergy team wrote to the community. We tried to put into words a reality that feels almost unbearable.4
As Yossi Klein HaLevi said: “To be an ambivalent Jew today is not to be uncertain [as] much as torn between conflicting certainties.”5
We did not write to collapse complexity into one headline or to claim expertise in conducting a war or peace negotiations. We wrote because we heard the struggles that people in our community are carrying.
How easy it is, in times like these, to harden our hearts, to cling to what feels safe, or to close our ears to the news and voices that unsettle us.
We wrote to say that love for Israel is deep and real, and that love cannot excuse us from seeing the costs of war. We wrote to say that compassion for Palestinians is urgent and necessary, but compassion cannot erase our responsibility to protect Jews and the Jewish State.
And we wrote because we believe the only way forward is with a courage strong enough to hold multiple truths, and with nuances wide enough to keep us in relationship with one another.
When we wrote that letter, some in our community read it as betrayal, as if critique meant that we were making a false equivalence or that we do not love or support Israel. Others read it as complicity, as if any defense of Israel or Israelis meant we had (and I’m quoting here) “blood on our hands.” Some people left, convinced Temple Beth El could no longer be their home even as we were inviting people into an actual dialogue here at Temple.
A New Kind of Fracture
Last year at this season, many of us felt a dread that seemed to grow by the day. Would antisemitism overwhelm us here? Would Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran strike Israel again? Would the election result in civil strife? Some of those threats remain real.
But this year, something has shifted. My fear is not only about what others might do to us. It is what we—as Jews—are doing to each other.
Our Jewish house is splintering in ways our enemies could never accomplish alone. What is happening inside our community seems to reflect the fractures of this country, where rhetoric radicalizes, and turns neighbor against neighbor and family members against family members. Trust has eroded piece by piece. And we are now, in the Jewish community, reflecting back the same suspicion and outrage that threatens America itself.
You can feel it at holiday tables, where Israel is the subject no one dares to mention. You can feel it in friendships, when bonds built over years are undone by a single social media post, a single statement, a single silence. You can feel it in synagogues and Jewish organizations where people gather.
Some of us are afraid to say what we really think. Some fear being labeled as self-hating Jews. Others fear they’ll be accused of apologizing for violence against Jews. Still others fear being branded as people who care only for Jewish lives, or being accused of proving the ugliest stereotype of “Jewish power.”
And so, from opposite sides, these fears all drive us to the same place: We go silent. Or get angry.
The Danger of Silence
But silence and anger, too, are a choice. Where once we could hold a diversity of views in one room, now the very existence of another opinion feels somehow unthinkable. Perhaps that coexistence was always more fragile than we wanted to admit. Maybe it was an illusion held together by politeness. But still, it felt more possible than it does now.
Today, disagreement feels personal. A different view doesn’t just challenge our ideas… we treat it as if it somehow reveals something truer (and darker) about the other person than all the kindnesses and conversations that came before. It is not only that people disagree. It is that we no longer believe disagreement can be survived.
That hurts in a way that goes deeper than a difference of opinion. Because it threatens relationships.
Judaism has never required us to think in one unified voice.
But what we are facing now is not simply disagreement. It is the judgment that whispers: if YOU see it that way, you are BAD. And since what I believe is right, I must distance myself from the bad. So, maybe YOU are no longer MY kind of people.
It has left me wondering: Can we still belong to one another if we do not see Israel the same way? Or America the same way? Or Judaism the same way? Can we view our differences without losing patience?
If we decide that difference is intolerable, if we decide to walk away from the table, away from debate, away from community – we will unwind the covenantal bonds that have held us as am echad panim rabot—one people, with many faces.6
And if we stop seeing each other as bound together, and start to believe we are better off apart—the Jewish house will collapse…
And that, my friends, is not good for the Jews.
History has repeatedly shown us that nothing is more dangerous for Jews than Jews divided.7 From the Destruction of the Second Temple to Rabin’s assassination – our deepest wounds have come when Jews turned on each other. When we divide we will fall, and our enemies will not hesitate to press their advantage. The very people and institutions that sustain us will falter from infighting just when we need them the most. We can ill afford this type of division.
So what can we do? How can we bring everyone back to the table? Back to generosity of spirit?
We can start by taking out the Haggadahs we put away in the spring.
The Haggadah is one of our most beloved Jewish texts and it offers a way to hear different voices around the same table.
A New Telling of the Four Children
Do you remember the Four Children from the Passover seder?8 The wise. The wicked. The simple. (What my older brother used to call me!) And the one who does not even know how to ask? Each one comes to the story with a different perspective. Each one receives an answer that meets them where they are.
Today, on Rosh HaShanah I want to offer a new telling of the four children for our time, voices we hear in our families, our synagogues, and in our public life.
The First Child: The Shomrim — The Guards
The Shomrim are those who stand watch. They remember parents and grandparents who slept with shoes beside the bed, never sure when they might need to run. They remember the family who would not buy a German car, or the silence when old photographs from Europe were taken out – it was the silence held by those who barely survived. For the Shomrim, those memories are not history. They are warning sirens. They know that if we do not defend ourselves, no one else will. So they guard. They insist that Israel must be defended at all costs. Critique is not possible. For them, dissent feels dangerous.
The Shomrim look at our democracy and feel its foundations trembling. For them, vigilance is survival. And so the Shomrim press us with questions: How can we be critical of our own people or our own country when it is in danger? And, how can we make sure that we are not vulnerable again?
The Second Child: The Nevi’im — The Prophets
The prophets walked the ruined streets of Jerusalem, lifted their voices by the rivers of Babylon proclaiming truths no one wanted to hear. They warned that injustice, arrogance, and cruelty would lead to collapse. And almost always, they were ignored.
The Nevi’im are still with us today. They see suffering in Gaza. They see hostages still in captivity. They see violence rising in the West Bank and words of vengeance from leaders who should know better. And they cry out: silence is complicity. So they march, and post, and shout. Because if they do not, they feel they betray the covenant of justice and the responsibility to work towards a better world.
The Nevi’im look at America and call out racism and antisemitism. They warn against cruelty dressed up as policy. They speak of threats to democracy and demand better from this country that they love. And the Nevi’im still press us with questions: Isn’t critique a sacred obligation? And if not now, when?
The Third Child: The Rabbanim — The Debaters
Rabbanim means “rabbis,” but this child is not only clergy. It is anyone who finds holiness in questions, anyone who believes wisdom grows through dialogue. It is to love questions that do not end in a single answer. To see debate not as division, but as devotion. To carry the spirit of Hillel, who said: repeat your opponent’s words before your own.9 The Rabbanim teach that holding tension is a form of reverence. That argument can be sacred.
But their love of argument carries risk. Study can become avoidance. Curiosity can slide into paralysis. Sometimes, while they are still debating, someone is bleeding in front of them. And the moment demands action, not another question.
The Rabbanim are still with us today. And they press us with questions: How do we protect curiosity in a world addicted to certainty? And how do we preserve the art of disagreement without losing the urgency to act?
The Fourth Child: The One Who Has Left the Table
Their seat is empty. The page of their Haggadah is torn out. The fourth child has left because Judaism feels too bound up with Israel or American politics. They left because it feels too overwhelming to “pick a side.” They left because they feel betrayed—by institutions, rabbis, by parents, by elders who said too much or too little.
The one who has gone, has left us a page of questions: Why would I enter a door when the people in the room do not see me as I am? If everything is about political action or a position, then where is the space for me as a person?Do you still want me, even if I no longer want you?10
The Table We Build
The urgency of now is real. We are responsible for how we face one another, especially when arguments grow sharp. How we do so will shape the world our children will inherit.
It means quieting the shouting by listening and answering with dignity. It means rebuilding trust in small, stubborn ways: staying present, making room, holding on to each other even when it would be easier to walk away. That is the work before us. And it is the culture that, as your rabbi, I have poured my heart into building here at Temple Beth El with our lay leaders, staff, and clergy team. A culture that listens deeply, even when voices are raw. A culture that makes space for courageous disagreement, where questions are welcome and no one is shamed for wrestling, provided that we wrestle in good faith, with respect and care for each other. A culture wide enough for the seekers, the skeptics, the doubters, and the devoted. And maybe, to make this real, we need some rules for the table.11 As Ezra Klein recently wrote, “We are going to have to find a way to live together.”
Rule Number One: Nobody leaves the table. If you are uncomfortable, stay anyway. Say it out loud. Come and talk and let the conversation deepen. But do not leave the table.
Rule Number Two: Once you are at the table, do not try to convince anyone that you are right and they are wrong. The goal is not uniformity. It is not easy being Jewish today….The goal is understanding and witnessing and the feeling of being in it together.
Rule Number Three: Be curious. Suspend your certainty. Make room to be surprised.
The rabbis knew the power of these truths. They taught that the Temple was destroyed not by Rome alone, but by sinat chinam, baseless hatred that hollowed us out from within.12 And so, in the shadow of destruction and exile, they gave us the Haggadah.13 They crafted a ritual that brought everyone back to the table, even when grief and blame still burned hot. That is what it means to be a people of resilience: to take destruction and turn it into dialogue, to take fracture and transform it into a table large enough to hold us all.
We are going to need one another, not only to endure the end of this war, which please God will come soon, but also in the reckoning and the rebuilding that will follow, which may test us even more. We will need one another to resist the poisons that already divide America and to make sure that those fractures do not hollow out our Jewish house.
If we resist here… if we practice these rules in our homes, at Temple Beth El, on Shalom Park, and across Charlotte… then we can model what it takes to hold a community together even when the world urges us to divide, harden, and turn on one another.
We have not endured for thousands of years because we agreed.14 We have endured because we refused to let go of one another. The table must be reset again and again, until it is wide enough to hold us all: every face, every question, every hope.
Thank you to Rabbi Dara Frimmer, my friend and extraordinary High Holy Day thought and writing partner, and to Michele Lowe, editor extraordinaire. And to Ana Bonnheim and Julia Bonnheim for their editing, wisdom, and love.
Footnotes
1. This is a parable told in many traditions and which I have used to teach about God concepts within Judaism. Though, it is not a Jewish parable. My understanding is that it comes from Indian traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Jain) and is retold in Sufi literature.
2. My thanks to my teacher Rabbi Michael Marmur who wrote the incredible book, Living the Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought. Marmur explains that asplakaria is sometimes “translated as speculum, a term employed in rabbinic literature to explain a distinction between the prophecy of Moses, on the one hand, and the other biblical prophets, on the other.” pg. 54. The rabbinic term appears in Talmud Bavli, Yevamot 49b and Bava Batra 12a.
3. See: Genesis 1–2, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, Eruvin 13b “both these and those are the words of the living God.”
4. https://templebethel.org/with-love-with-sorrow-with-courage/
5. https://www.hartman.org.il/our-season-of-reckoning-israels-moral-crossroads-in-gaza/
6. There is not a specific Hebrew reference here. This was the NFTY Study theme for 1996–1997, when I served on the North American Board. However, it is also an idea found throughout rabbinic literature and liturgy, affirming that while the Jewish people are one, we have many faces, perspectives, and experiences.
7. One could argue that the Tribes of Israel, after Solomon’s death, split into two divided kingdoms. The Second Temple was destroyed not because Rome was stronger, but because of sinat chinam—baseless hatred and infighting amongst Jewish leaders. The Talmud records the humiliation of an individual at a banquet which spiraled into a catastrophe, Talmud Gittin 55b. Josephus also records how Jewish factions turned against each other. Cossacks exploited divisions amongst Jews in the 17th Century which led to the Khmelnysky massacres. Pre-State Israel and violent disagreements between the Irgun and Haganah, when Ben Gurion warned that Jews killing Jews would destroy the hope of the State. And in my lifetime, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli extremist.
8. See the Passover Haggadah, which draws on Exodus 12–13 and Deuteronomy 6 & 11. Also see Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 18:23–25.
10. Note: In the Haggadah each child brings a question. And each gets an answer. So, too, we answer the questions we hear today: To the Shomrim who guard we say: protection is holy. But it must not become so narrow that it forgets the dignity of every human life. Whether defending the Jewish people or defending your vision of America’s Republic. To the Nevi’im who cry out we say: justice is holy. But justice cannot be so universal that it forgets the particular needs of our own people. Our bonds of care and responsibility cannot be erased, even as we work for the repair of the wider world. To the Rabbanim who question we say: curiosity is holy. But questioning must not drift so far that it delays urgent action. Wisdom requires dialogue, but responsibility requires real response especially when lives are at stake in Israel, in Gaza, and in America. To those who have left, or who are tempted to leave, we say: your absence matters. We miss you, and you will be welcome, should you choose to come back. Disagreement should never be the end of discussion. We cannot afford to lose you, and we will not stop making space for your questions.
11. This idea is prevalent in rabbinic literature. See Pirke Avot 5:17, which discusses disputes for the sake of Heaven. Or Talmud, Eruvin 13b, which presents the idea of eilu v’eilu—that both the arguments of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai were respected.
12. The Talmud teaches that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam—baseless hatred. See Yoma 9b.
13. Scholarly consensus is that the Passover Haggadah emerged in the early rabbinic period, roughly 70 CE – 200 CE, as a way of reframing Jewish memory after the destruction of the Temple. See Shaye J.D. Cohen, The Origins of the Seder.
14. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in the book Future Tense, argues that Jewish survival is rooted in community and covenant rather than uniformity. Sacks also argues in The Dignity of Difference that “the unity of God is discovered in the diversity of creation.”
