EXOD307 The larger the group we try to persuade to live together, the harder it is to make everyone happy. One is fortunate, then, if one lives in a community where the justice system is sound and the political life healthy. But even the best social systems require a moral citizenry. The founders of America warned coming generations against fractiousness and factionalism. The need for social unity is equally strong in the Jewish tradition: "Hezekiah said: Great is peace, for the Torah says about the wilderness journeys of the Israelites, 'And they journeyed… and they pitched' [Num. 33:5]. There was sufficient dissension that that people are described in the plural. When, however, they came to Mount Sinai, they all became one camp, as it is stated, 'And there Israel camped before the mount' [this verse]. God noticed that Israel had come together and knew that this was the time to give the Torah to the people of Israel" (Lev. R. 9.9). Knowing the degree of contention and existing between Jews in our time, we are inclined to imagine the notion of a unified Jewish community as another of the Bible's miracles! More significant, though historically questionable, is the report: "Although the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel were in disagreement--what the one forbade, the other permitted--the school of Shammai did not refrain from marrying women of the families of the school of Hillel, nor did the school of Hillel refrain from marrying those of the school of Shammai. This should teach that they showed love and friendship toward another, practicing, 'Love truth, but also peace' [Zech. 8:19]" (Yev. 14b). Trying to extend these attitudes from family and neighborhood to our nation and the world is a critical moral challenge of our time.