It almost became a game of “tell me your war aim and I will tell you who you are”
Since Simchas Torah, all the city buses in Israel have been broadcasting this slogan as they lumber along the streets, that oblong LCD display atop the windshield alternately flashing “Route 69 to Givat Shaul,” the final stop of “Har Nof Terminal” and “Together we will win.”
So simple.
When this war was first thrust upon us, it really did seem simple. All Jews were targets. There was no significant distance – not in miles, not in mindset – between the kibbutzim of the Gaza Envelope and the major modern cities of the Center. As far as our enemies are concerned, there wasn’t even any significant distance between the development towns of the South and those enlightened, modern cities. Your views on the Supreme Court or Bibi or the too-messianic or too-secular identity of the state didn’t make you more or less safe.
During those first few weeks, when the hearts of Jews across the globe beat in sync to the footfalls of the IDF soldiers drilling on the Gazan border, we all found succor in Chazal’s account of the Jews living in King Achav’s times. They weren’t faithful to Hashem or his Torah but they were united, and that gave them the merit to triumph on the battlefield. Surely, with our new layer of unity covering the ugly scars of so much dissent and strife just days prior, we, too, would merit a swift victory.
But that’s not exactly what happened. And it leads you to wonder: Sure, we need the Yachad for the Nenatzeach. We need unity to merit victory. But maybe we need to agree on what Nenatzeach means in order to have the Yachad? Maybe there’s only so “together” we can be, if we don’t have a shared definition of what triumph would look like.
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