Posted on September 10, 2026
Seeing what unites, not what divides…
I don’t know about you, but in our house one of the most difficult decisions involves an evening when we do not have specific dinner plans. The debate about where to go and what food to eat is enough to make a person lose their appetite.
What’s funny is that we actually agree about almost everything.
We agree we want to go out.
We agree we want someone else to cook.
We agree we want to go somewhere nearby.
We agree we want a nice restaurant.
We are almost completely united.
Unfortunately, there is one small issue upon which we disagree:
Where we actually want to eat.
One person wants Mexican. Another wants sushi. Someone suggests burgers. Someone else rejects all three.
And before you know it, despite agreeing about almost everything, we’re all arguing about where to go for dinner. And the meal is delayed by at least half an hour as we search for a compromise.
I’m sure we’re not the only ones who end up in this cycle of indecision and dispute.
I was thinking about the negotiations that accompany the choice of where to eat as I watched the Massachusetts primaries take place this week.
The entire primary process is one of those things that was completely foreign to me when I arrived in the States. Back in Britain, candidates for elections are chosen by the political party in the local constituency. There is no public vote, no public campaign, no public participation until the General Election, when candidates from the various parties stand against each other.
Here in America, the primary system is an important part of the political process, but it has always struck me as a strange endeavor.
Two politicians (sometimes more) from the same political party, agreeing on potentially as much as 95% of the issues, somehow have to find a way to campaign against one another, focusing attention on the 5% on which they disagree.
In recent years, these contests have become ever more tense, divisive, and aggressive. In debates they may hurl insults at one another and question each other’s ability to hold public office. But at the end, when the results are in, the defeated candidate will often turn around and affirm that they will be supporting the victor when the general election takes place.
I know that there are times when the disagreements are more substantial, when the divisions are more ideological, but often candidates standing in a party’s primaries agree on far more than they disagree.
The primary season seems interminable. For weeks and months we focus, not on the debate and dispute with the other political party – with whom there are likely to be significant differences of opinion. Instead, all of the attention is directed internally toward the few things that separate people who agree on most issues. The 95% agreement almost disappears from view, while the 5% becomes everything – the only thing that is talked about.
This may seem like a situation that is unique to American politics. But I think it is actually an exaggerated example of a tendency that unfortunately exists in many of us.
Why is it that we so often focus on the things that divide us rather than seeing the ways in which we are united? Why do we choose to put all of our energy into a single disagreement and allow it to outweigh all that we share? Why are we so quick to dismiss the 95% on which we agree and focus only on the 5% where there is difference?
There is a visual phenomenon called the “pop-out effect.” This speaks to the way that our brain’s attention is automatically drawn to what is visually different, so that if there is a group of similarly colored and shaped objects our eye is almost immediately drawn to the one that is different from everything around it.
If we had a page covered with ninety-five black dots and just five red ones, our eyes would not be drawn first to the overwhelming majority of dots that all look exactly the same. Instead, our attention and our focus would go to the five dots that are different.
Our eyes automatically do what we seem to do with each other – we notice and focus on the difference.
We can’t control the fact that our eyes are drawn to the red dots, but we can choose whether this is all that we focus on – the only thing we are able to see.
Judaism has never sought uniformity for the world in terms of either what we see or what we think. In fact, Judaism has always managed to hold together two seemingly opposing ideas – that we are all different and unique, and yet that we are all bound together by something greater than ourselves. We recognize the differences, but we never let them obscure or erase the unity that lies beneath them and that is so much more important.
This principle is reflected in two foundational ideas at the heart of Judaism. The first comes from the very beginning of our Torah; it affirms that every single one of us, in our beautiful diversity and difference, is created b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God.[1] We come in all shapes and sizes, with different backgrounds, beliefs and experiences, but we are all similarly made in the Divine image.
Reiterating this principle, the Rabbis considered the reason for all of humanity being descended from a single original person. The Mishnah teaches that humanity began with Adam so that no person could ever say to another, “My ancestor is greater than your ancestor.”[2] Whatever else might distinguish us, we all share the same human ancestry.
But then the Mishnaic text transitions to celebrate our diversity. It tells us that when a person stamps coins from a single mold, every coin looks the same. But when God creates every human from the mold of the first person, we all look different. Everyone is unique.
Our unity does not depend on our being the same. What binds us to each other, to the first human being, and ultimately to God, is something deeper than the differences between us. We were never supposed to all be the same.
To be clear, this is not to say that all of our differences are irrelevant or unimportant. Sometimes the 5% really matters. Sometimes we disagree on fundamental principles or deeply held values. These are disagreements and arguments that are worth having; they cannot always be overlooked or ignored.
We can recognize our differences. We can acknowledge that they matter, but we do not have to allow them to dominate our relationships or become the only thing we see.
Hearing the debates, watching the commercials, and following the articles over this primary season, one might have imagined that the candidates fundamentally disagreed with each other, disliked each other, and saw virtually no common ground for unity. But on Wednesday, as the results were confirmed, very quickly the differences were set aside and the unity, the commonality, the agreements were once again emphasized in advance of the general election, when the focus would turn to an opponent with whom the differences will be far greater.
I appreciate the shift that we witness at the conclusion of the primaries. The differences between the candidates did not suddenly disappear on Wednesday morning. All that changed was where the candidates chose to focus. They put the 5% to the side and decided to elevate and concentrate on the 95% where they agree.
In the heart of our liturgy, known as the watchword of our faith in various Reform prayerbooks, is the Shema. This prayer affirms clearly: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad – Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One.
It is a beautiful statement about the coexistence of difference and unity. We affirm that each of us has a unique and individual relationship with God – we are different, there are differences. But then, we continue by recognizing the oneness and unity of God. We do not let our differences be the final word, we end by recognizing what we share, by focusing on our unity, by emphasizing our commonality.
We cannot control the fact that our eyes will always be drawn to the five red dots, but we can choose to see the ninety-five black dots as well. We can see that there is difference and there is unity. We can recognize the disagreements, while also remembering that there are so many things on which we agree. We can choose to focus on the common threads that bind us alongside the places where our connections fray.
The red dots are real. They matter. But they are not the whole page.
Our differences are real. They matter. But they are not the whole story.
Perhaps we were given two eyes so that we might learn to see both – the difference and the unity.
Shabbat Shalom
[1] Genesis 1:27.
[2] Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5.
