A Nation of One

August 16, 2026 3 Elul

We are not just a united nation. We are a nation of one, so interconnected that we are like a single person. Wait. Is that not discriminatory? Are we really saying that Jews are different from everyone else? The Torah itself seems to raise precisely this question. Two laws in this week’s Torah portion distinguish between Jews and non-Jews.

The Lost Item

The first is the Mitzvah to return a lost item (Deuteronomy 22:1). We are required to return a fellow Jew’s lost property, but this Mitzvah does not extend to non-Jews. Many find this discriminatory. The first answer is reciprocity. Non-Jews are not obligated to return our lost items; for them, doing so is optional. Therefore, we are not obligated to return theirs; for us, doing so is optional. In other words, there is no obligation without reciprocity.

That explains the distinction, but it does not yet explain our oneness. There is a deeper reason. This Mitzvah cultivates the awareness that we are one family with one Father in Heaven. We are expected to care about another Jew’s property as we care about our own (Rabbenu Bachye Ad Loc.). We cannot be expected to treat the entire world as family. Family, by definition, is a closed circle. If everyone were family, the concept would lose its meaning. It is like saying that everyone is your friend: if everyone is your friend, you have no particular friend. The Torah therefore creates special obligations among family members. This mitzvah reminds us that our fellow Jews are family.

Usury

The same principles apply to the prohibition against charging interest on a loan (Deuteronomy 23:20). We may charge interest to a non-Jew, but not to a fellow Jew. Again, there is reciprocity. If a fellow Jew must offer us interest-free loans, we have a reciprocal obligation to do the same. Although interest is essential to a functioning economy (without it, there would be little incentive to lend money), we make exceptions for family. We do not treat family members as economic transactions. We help them as we would help ourselves. Just as we would not charge ourselves interest, we do not charge interest to family members. These laws teach us that Jews are more than fellow citizens. We are family.

But the Torah takes Jewish unity much further. We are not merely a family whose members care deeply for one another. We are a nation of one.

The Newlywed Exemption

This deeper level of unity is reflected in a mitzvah from last week’s Torah portion: When war was declared in ancient Israel, certain able-bodied men were exempt from battle. Anyone who had betrothed a woman but had not yet married her, built a home but had not yet moved into it, or planted a vineyard but had not yet enjoyed its produce, was exempt (Deuteronomy 20:57). On its face, this makes little sense. Why thin out the ranks simply because the war has arrived at an inconvenient time for certain people? Are their private needs more urgent than the needs of the nation? If the war is lost, their homes, vineyards, and fledgling families will be lost as well. So, what is the point?

The Beilis Trial

To understand the answer, consider the infamous Beilis trial: In 1913, a Jewish clerk at a brick factory named Mendel Beilis stood trial in Kyiv for the murder of a fourteen-year-old Christian boy. The trial revived the ugly accusations of the blood libel and exposed state-sponsored antisemitism in the Russian Empire. Beilis was ultimately acquitted and released, but only after spending two years in prison.

The prosecution sought to prove that Jews regarded non-Jews as subhuman. They pointed to several alleged examples of Jewish discrimination, including the Talmudic statement (Baba Metzia 114a) that the word adam refers exclusively to Jews. Adam is the Hebrew word for “man.” The prosecution therefore argued that the Talmud teaches Jews to regard themselves as human and non-Jews as subhuman. Many prominent rabbis and Jewish leaders contributed to Beilis’s defense because the trial was about more than one man’s fate. It was an indictment of the entire Jewish people and an attempt to provide legal justification for antisemitism. Among those involved was Rabbi Meir Shapiro, who would later become the founder and dean of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin.

Rabbi Shapiro offered an astounding response that reveals the Talmudic statement in an entirely different light: In Hebrew, there are four words for “man”: ish, enosh, gever, and adam. The first three have plurals: ishim, anashim, and gevarim. But adam has no corresponding plural. We do not say adamim.

Rabbi Shapiro argued that the Talmud never meant that only Jews are human. Non-Jews are certainly human; three of the four Hebrew words for “man” can refer to them. Adam, however, is used in a singular sense for the Jews because Jews are more than a collection of individuals. We are a single collective. The absence of a plural is the point. We are not simply a united nation. We are a nation of one.And, Rabbi Shapiro argued, the Beilis trial itself demonstrated this: One Jew was on trial, yet Jews throughout the world felt threatened. Jews who never met Beilis, lived thousands of miles away, and had nothing personally at stake felt as though they were sitting in the defendant’s chair with him.

Family alone cannot explain that response. Family explains why we care deeply about one another. But the Jewish response to Beilis went further. One Jew’s fate became the fate of the entire Jewish people. That can only be explained by oneness. We are not merely connected. We are one.

The Army of One

This brings us back to the Torah’s strange military exemption. Some have argued that this oneness is precisely why the Torah exempts a man who has just married, built a home, or planted a vineyard. As we noted earlier, it makes little sense to thin out the ranks simply because the war has arrived at an inconvenient time for certain people. Does the destiny of the nation not outweigh the destiny of the individual?

A Nation of One

The answer is that for Jews, the destiny of the collective is not more important than the destiny of the individual, because the collective and the individual are one. A Jewish soldier cannot destroy another Jew’s fledgling household and send the husband to the front because he experiences that man’s pain as his own. They are not merely connected; they are one. It really is his pain.

Under ordinary circumstances, such a military policy makes little sense. That is why no other nation has adopted it. But Jews do not operate that way. Jews are unique because we are not merely a collection of individuals. We are one.

A Jewish soldier who forces a groom out from under his wedding canopy feels as though he has been forced out himself. It might make perfect sense to send him to battle, but no one has the heart to do it to themselves.