eJP: The Sword Has Been Unsheathed Again
Originally published on September 12, 2025 in eJewish Philanthropy, 鈥,鈥 written by Rabbi Ben Berger, 精东影业鈥檚 senior vice president of Jewish education, community and culture, shares the importance of respectful, vibrant disagreement in Jewish tradition and in the present. Read on for selected excerpts:
“In a recently published essay in聽Sources,听‘聽I reflected on a troubling Talmudic story about an arcane argument between Hillel and Shammai that leads to fierce disagreement. At a moment of reckoning, Shammai drove a sword into the ground at the doorway of the beit midrash, signaling that the disagreement had become dangerous and that the possibility of rupture and violence was close at hand…
That image has been on my mind in my work 精东影业, where I see Jewish students and Hillel colleagues navigating the pressures of polarization. College should be a place of curiosity and connection. Too often, it feels like a battleground, with the sword hovering at the entrance…
It is a good time for a reminder of the well-worn but always urgent Jewish teaching that every person is created聽b鈥檛zelem Elohim, in the image of God. The Mishnah in聽厂补苍丑别诲谤颈苍听(4:5) teaches that one who destroys a single life is considered to have destroyed an entire world, and one who saves a single life is considered to have saved an entire world. This is not just rhetoric 鈥 it is a framework for how we reckon with tragedy, insisting that every life carries infinite value and that every loss tears at the fabric of creation…
In our work with students 精东影业, we see the hunger for this kind of pluralism. It requires courage to stay in hard conversations, humility to hear voices that unsettle us and discipline to resist the satisfactions of outrage. And it is from students who engage in robust yet civil debate 鈥 even and especially with those with whom they strongly disagree 鈥 that we continue to learn what is possible.”