And so are most of the congregational rabbis in America, it seems. I know the topic came up at several of the services I attended this weekend.

. . . some Orthodox leaders say that the key thing this year is to use the holiday to help understand how the Jewish people can overcome disunity by moving forward and maintaining hope.

"To me the most important issue is not what is happening, but how we are responding to it and how we can maintain our love for each other and some modicum of unity within our people despite the fact that we have such strong divergent views about the decision that's being made," said Rabbi Yosef Blau, the spiritual counselor at Yeshiva University's affiliated seminary and president of the Religious Zionists of America.

A couple of weeks ago, the liberal Orthodox group Edah released a Kavanah, or meditation, to be recited before the traditional prayer for the State of Israel, that stresses the need for internal unity in times of conflict.

For example, Avi Weiss, who has been leading anti-disengagement rallies here in NYC:

. . . greater than the sense of desolation over our loss at this time must be our renewed commitment to the value of achdut Yisrael, the unity of Israel. Both the left and right must guard their language. The settlers are not "occupiers," and Prime Minister Sharon is not a "fascist." While a word is a word and a deed is a deed, words lead to deeds.

Neither side should malign the other by impugning its motives. Sharon is not doing this to save himself from indictment, nor is the right fighting the disengagement to turn the state into a theocracy. Unity also means that no side has a monopoly on love for the land of Israel. Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein and Rabbi Yehuda Amital, who support the principle of land for peace, love Israel no less than I do. Nor does the left have a monopoly on wanting peace. The right wants peace just as much, but believes that withdrawing from Gush Katif will yield the opposite result.

. . . As an expression of a unified Israel, the left should praise the settlers for their great sacrifice during the wrenching process of disengagement, and empathize with their suffering. The right, for its part, should conduct protests that are civil and peaceful, with an eye toward the much greater value of preserving Israeli unity.

One of the rabbis I heard had just come back from a month in Israel, and noticed the same thing Shai talks about here:

. . . over the last months it has felt increasingly like there are two different societies living in Israel: the orange people (orange being the official anti-disengagement color) -- those who angrily oppose the disengagement and mourn the loss of land; and the non-orange people, the silent majority who have been vaguely following the events on the news.

From the NY Jewish Week:

Ironies abound regarding the confluence of Tisha b’Av, which [was] observed Sunday, and the disengagement, which will begin two days later. A people forced into exile and expelled from hostile countries throughout its history finds its own once again being forced to leave their homes, this time by a Jewish government. It’s a bitter thought. But just as Tisha b’Av is tinged with messianic optimism in the belief that someday it will become the most joyous of days, there is the hope that in removing the Jews of Gaza to within Israel’s established borders, the preservation of Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state will be assured.

. . . Whatever one’s attitude toward the politics of disengagement, it should be recognized and commemorated as a time of deep pain within the Jewish people. The lasting message of Tisha b’Av is all too relevant now. The Talmud instructs that the Temples were destroyed not because of outside enemies but because of internal strife among the Jews of ancient Israel. Today, each side in the bitter disengagement conflict believes the other side’s position weakens the state and threatens its future. Both the government, the settlers and their supporters are guilty of demonizing their political or ideological opponents.

The antidote is for Jews to love each other beyond logic and reason, to appreciate that unity is our key to survival. That is the only way to ensure that the tragic lesson of Tisha b’Av has been learned and that our people will remain one, for always.