[Avodah] A VERY CRUCIAL LESSON (Excerpted from Aish.com)

[Cantor Wolberg]

The ninth of Av is a date in the Jewish calendar in which we reflect  
on all of our suffering through the past 2,000 years. We attempt to  
correct our flaws and pray for salvation. In our time, this includes a  
respite for our brothers and sisters in bombarded Sderot and other  
Negev towns, for people who live daily with the threat of terrorist  
attacks, for soldiers who risk their lives for us daily, and for Jews  
around the world who live with the fear of anti-Semitism and what  
could come next.

As we reflect on Tisha B'Av, what it will take to get us out of this  
cycle of persecution called "exile?"

Our Sages of the Talmud teach us that we are in exile because of the  
hatred of one Jew to another. The only way to correct that flaw is to  
repair ourselves in that realm.

Perhaps each time God puts us through another round of suffering, His  
proclamation of "Again," He is waiting for us to stop identifying  
ourselves as an individual Jew coming from his separate background and  
upbringing. "I'm modern Orthodox." "I'm Reform." "I'm a Hasid." "I'm  
secular." "I'm Conservative." "I'm yeshivishe."
Those characterizations polarize the nation and make it impossible for  
us to function together as one team. As individual groups, we cannot  
accomplish what we can accomplish as one team. We are held back by  
that same baseless hatred which creeps in when we are not one unit.

Perhaps God is waiting for all of us to proclaim in unison, "I am a  
Jew." Plain and simple.

Even more importantly, perhaps God is waiting for us to stop seeing  
others as "He's modern Orthodox." "He's Reform." "He's a Hasid." "He's  
secular." "He's Conservative." "He's yeshivishe."

Perhaps the answer to our suffering and long exile is reaching the  
point where we see other Jews as members of the same team and family.  
Jews and nothing else.