To Dwell Together
“Hinei mah tov u’mah na’im, shevet achim gam yachad. How good and how pleasant it is when siblings shevet yachad, dwell together” (Psalm 133).
You probably know this line, or if you don’t you’ll no doubt hear it at a Jewish gathering soon. We often sing it as a way of beginning prayer services, life cycle ceremonies, and communal gatherings of all sorts. How wonderful it is to be together!
Except when “being together” feels fraught with division, disappointment, dread, and demonization. A national election foregrounds differences between candidates and parties and their vision of the future, and between those of us who vote one way or another. At the same time, our collective process of voting reminds us that we are bound together, responsible for each other, and vulnerable to each other’s choices.
In the Torah this week, Avram (later named Avraham) journeys forth, formally beginning the Jewish story. With him comes his nephew Lot, whose father had died young. The two seem to share a special bond, because Lot could have stayed back with the rest of his extended family yet chooses to accompany Avram on his new path to Canaan.
Once there, though, troubles arise. Both Avram and Lot have sheep and shepherds, and as their flocks grow it seems that space gets scarce. “And the land could not support them to settle together (shevet yachdav), for their property was so great that they were not able to settle together (shevet yachdav)” (Bereshit 13:6).
Twice the verse emphasizes that they couldn’t shevet yachdav - their togetherness was getting tougher to navigate. The commentator Ha’amek Davar (19th century) teaches:
This is doubled language. It comes to teach us that it is not that the pasturage was insufficient for their flocks, like it says later in Bereshit 36:7: “For [Jacob and Esau’s] possessions were too many for them to dwell together (shevet yachdav), and the land where they sojourned could not support them because of their livestock.” Rather, it is because their natures were distant and Lot couldn’t be joined to Avraham except at a distance. But together they were not able to settle.
Only once Lot leaves do they mend the relationship enough for Avram to keep looking out for his nephew from a distance, rescuing Lot from a war and later from God’s wrath at his new home of Sodom. But they never again liveyachdav.
Ibn Ezra (12th century) notes: “Yachdav is not synonymous with yachad(together). Yachdav means acting like one person.”
Or as Rabbi Rachel suggested to me, yachdav is a form of mission alignment. It’s not two or more people sharing space, but rather sharing a worldview, ideology, purpose, sensibility. The word shows up later in Avraham’s life in the story of the Binding of Yitzchak. Avraham and Yitzchak walk yachdav(repeated twice) up the mountain where father will plan to sacrifice son. We do not know if Yitzchak knows what is about to happen or not. The sages imagine he does and is a willing participant. Total mission alignment. Or maybe he just trusted his father blindly, a tragic togetherness. But after the near sacrifice, Avraham walks down with his servants yachdav, with no mention of Yitzchak. Avraham remains dedicated to following God’s instructions, no matter how perplexing, but in upholding that relationship to the divine, he seems to have severed his relationship with his son. Ideological purity risks sacrificing loved ones, at least on the relational level.
In our political climate, the viewpoint of the “other side” seems not just different, and often not just wrong, but existentially catastrophic. We are not able to shevet yachdav; we cannot dwell together with such distant natures from each other. Already over the past year, family and friend connections have been strained and severed over perspectives on Israel/Palestine. We are again at a moment in the United States where we can choose, as Ezra Klein comments, to react to those who voted differently than us with contempt or with curiosity.
In other words, we can choose yachdav or yachad.
Yachdav - the sort of ideological comfort zone that keeps us close to those like us and far away from those who are not like us.
Or yachad - an awareness that we are together for better and for worse, that we are as citizen-siblings bound to one another no matter how similar or alike we are.
I don’t have answers. But I’ll leave you with these questions:
Where is your yachdav - what groups hold ideas, values, and commitments that align with your own? Finding the pastoral refuge of like-minded people doing work that matters is essential!
How do you relate to people who think and vote differently than you? If you don’t cut all ties, what adds some pleasantness to dwelling yachadwith our fellow Americans?
Wishing you a Shabbat of restfulness and respite as we gear up with renewed vigor for building a world of kindness, justice, and belonging.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
