Awakening To What Truly Unites Us

By: Tzili Schneider

Tishrei is a season of awakening, and a sacred invitation to return. Each year it calls us to prepare our hearts and souls for the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, through teshuvah, tefillah, and reflection. But this year, the call is different. Louder. Urgent.

Because the greatest awakening Am Yisrael needs right now is not only to G-d, but to one another.

The rift between Haredim and secular Israelis has grown. Headlines amplify outrage. Politicians profit from polarization. Social media feeds us a steady diet of suspicion and disdain. But beneath the noise, beyond the talking points, something deeper and more hopeful is happening, which the cameras do not show.

As an Israeli, a mother, and a religious woman, I see it every day: when we meet face to face, the walls fall away. In workplaces, hospitals, schools, and most powerfully, in chevrutot, Jews from across the religious and cultural spectrum discover something surprising: we are family.

We all saw how much the recent tragedy in Jerusalem brought Israelis together. We should not and cannot have acts of terror be the catalyst that reminds us that we are one people.

My organization Kesher Yehudi creates chevrutot; pairs of study partners who commit to one conversation a week. One conversation with someone else in Israel who on the surface has nothing in common with you. (That is not the case, but it takes time to come to understand.) This is how we build a family, one pair at a time. To turn learning into listening, and conversation into connection. To turn strangers into siblings.

Before October 7, we hosted 10,000 chevrutot, pairs of study partners. That day taught us a painful truth: if there had been 50,000 chevrutot, perhaps there might never have been an October 7. Because chevrutot don’t just share ideas; they build trust. They soften hearts. They create a social fabric strong enough to hold a nation in its most vulnerable moments.

Today, thank G-d, there are 27,000 chavrutot. This tells you that there is something deep, meaningful, and hopeful happening under the surface that belies everything the media wants you to believe.

But it is not enough. Not yet.

Consider the story of Uri and Rabbi Yisrael. When Uri Hanan lay wounded in a ditch during the attack on the Mefalsim junction, he made two promises to the Creator: to put on tefillin daily, and to keep three Shabbatot, even though he did not yet know what Shabbat really was.

Months later, awake in the night with PTSD, Uri saw one of our Facebook posts: “From Nova to Jerusalem. Spend Shabbat with us. We’ll tailor it to you.”

He showed up.

That same Shabbat, Rabbi Yisrael Goldwasser, a Jewish educator and guide, brought a Torah scroll stained with the blood of Holocaust victims. As Uri shared his story, Rabbi Yisrael looked at him and said, “Am Yisrael needs to hear this.”

A study pair was born. Today, Uri often accompanies Rabbi Yisrael to speak to Orthodox groups visiting the Gaza Envelope, at the very site where he nearly died. It has become his therapy. His mission. His way back.

“When we meet one-on-one,” Rabbi Yisrael says, “there are no walls. If we had 200,000 chevrutot, we would solve all of Am Yisrael’s problems.” Is he right? Maybe it is time to find out.

Consider Sheli and Margalit.

When Sheli Shem Tov, mother of freed hostage Omer Shem Tov, was drowning in grief and uncertainty, Margalit Peretz entered her life, not as a counselor, but as a study partner, a chevruta. Their connection became a lifeline.

“She lifted me when I fell, and when she lost hope, I lifted her,” Sheli says.

Their bond is more than shared learning. It is sisterhood. In a year of heartbreak, it became proof that unity is not an abstraction. It is alive. It is transformative.

These stories are not the exception. They are the rule. Every chevruta is one less stranger. One more brother. One more sister. One more thread in the national fabric we must repair—and strengthen. Two people from completely opposite walks of life sit down and encounter a text they both inherited and grapple with it, with their worldviews, with each other. It is so simple and yet so profound.

As we enter the new year, our awakening must go beyond the personal. We must awaken to ahavat Yisrael to the radical idea that we are one people, with one destiny. Unity will not come from Knesset speeches or trending hashtags. It will come from us, from the thousands who choose to sit together, speak together, and learn together.

This year, let us commit not just to return to G-d, but to one another. Do you have the courage to commit just one hour a week to encountering and grappling with another? In the end, it is unity, not division, that has always been the true story of Am Yisrael, and in the end each one of us taking one small step to make a national difference may be the real secret to our national victory.

Two people at a time. 

Tzili Schneider is the founder and CEO of Kesher Yehudi.