“Assemble and hearken, O sons of Jacob; Hearken to Israel your father.” (Bereishis 49:2)

I once heard an amazing explanation from a world-renowned speaker on why there are so many different strands of original Judaism? Litvaks. Chasidim. Sefardim. Teimanim. And more! If you take away the ‘spice’, they are all exactly the same. The differences between each of these sects are really rather small when you look at the totality of what a “frum” Jew is supposed to do. Despite that, there seems to always be a bit of tension between the different sects. However, on the higher levels of the Gedolei Yisrael, we find that they were and are able to work together without any impediments.

About 40 years ago I heard an explanation of this from a wise man, who said, “The Jews of every community tend to absorb some of the secular mindset of where they live. The gedolim, however, rebuff any such influence, and remain true to the Torah. Therefore, on the lower levels there may be some kind of a conflict based on where each sect existed. But, on the truly religious levels, where there is no secular impact, they are all able to get along.”

Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky (1891-1986) addressed this exact point at the Agudah Convention in Jerusalem in the year 1980. He said that when Yaakov had his sons come to him, before he gave each one their individual blessing, they all said, “Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad!” They were saying to their father that they had no secular influences regarding their individual means of service to Hashem. They said this because even though he was about to send them off in 12 different directions of Avodas Hashem, they wanted Yaakov to know that at the core, they would be serving one G-d with no exterior influences.

We know from the Arizal that there are really 12 nuschaos of prayer, as each tribe had its own way of serving Hashem and had a corresponding nusach. This seems to contradict the Medrash which states that when the princes of each tribe brought their offerings in the beginning of the month of Nisan, they all brought the exact same offering, while they each had different kavanos which corresponded to their unique ways of service. However, if this is true, why do the 12 tribes have to have different nuschaos of prayer? Why not just pray the same words with different kavanos? It seems to me that since prayer is the ultimate “service of the heart”, therefore what is in one’s heart must be expressed with words, whereas offerings are an act of physical service, and not a “service of the heart”. Therefore, what one was thinking was enough to impact his action.

When we say “Shema Yisrael”, our goal should be that our service of Hashem is pure and not impacted by secular culture and ideas. With that in place, we can all find our own self-expression. However, it is usually difficult for most people to tread their own path in the service of Hashem.  Therefore, by and large for most of us, it is worthwhile to just follow the trodden path laid out by the gedolei Yisrael. This way we will surely be on a non-externally influenced path of avodas Hashem and be part of the “shema Yisrael” of the 12 tribes.

May we merit that our service to Hashem is totally holy with no foreign influences.