Sand Sticks Together - A Torah Insight

Photo credit: Simon Lichter, Block Island

Growing up, I spent every summer on Block Island - learning to sail at the Block Island Club, playing baseball in the Corkum program with the Block Island School, going on adventures with my friends Hart and Henry, and starting my first business selling lemonade. This summer, many years later, as an adult, I stepped into the role as Executive Director of the Block Island Chamber of Commerce and I experienced our island community in a new way.

I saw firsthand how, when challenges arise, the island pulls together — like the sands of our island’s beaches, countless tiny grains that form something strong when they cling to one another. I loved meeting the hardworking islanders who make our island special for all the visitors, who value community and have respect for one another, sharing a common goal: keeping Block Island a beautiful place to live and visit.

That image of sand, reminded me of what I learned this week from Rabbi Noach Karp (my friend and Torah study partner), who spoke about the Torah’s different metaphors for the Jewish people — sometimes compared to the sand of the seashore, sometimes to the stars of the heavens.

This week’s parsha (weekly Torah portion), Devarim, offers a striking moment: Moshe recalls his struggle leading the people, saying, “How can I carry by myself your problems, burdens, and quarrels?”  The Torah reader chants these words with the same haunting melody we will soon hear in Eichah on Tisha B’Av. Both texts begin with the word Eichah — “How…” — and both express the deep pain of disconnection and internal struggle.

Here Moshe describes the people as “like the stars of heaven in abundance.” Stars are magnificent, but each shines in isolation, separated by vast distance. Sand, however, sticks together. It gains strength when its pieces unite.

The Talmud teaches that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam — baseless hatred, a refusal to see the good in one another. Yet the same Talmud tells us that any generation that does not rebuild the Temple is considered to have destroyed it. This isn’t to lay guilt upon us — it’s to awaken us to our power. If baseless hatred destroyed, then baseless love can rebuild.

This Tisha B’Av, maybe we can imagine what a rebuilt Jerusalem truly looks like: not only a Temple of stone, but a community of people who choose connection over division, who choose to cling to each other like sand rather than drift apart like stars.

Simon Lichter is a volunteer with Congregation Sons & Daughters of Ruth, is the founder of UrbanDor.org, and was the former Executive Director of the Block Island Chamber of Commerce. Connected with Simon on LinkedIn. Simon's friend and Torah study partner, Rabbi Noach Karp lived for many years in Providence, RI, and now resides in Memphis, TN, learn more about his work at www.memphisjx.org.