DEUT202 The need for Unity with Diversity. Rabbinic sources demonstrate the necessity and legitimacy of vigorous disagreement within a unified, coherent community. It is, of course, not easy to balance the twin needs for unity and diversity; each of us must discover and examine the grounds for our own beliefs and practices, stretching to see the reasons why others believe and act as they do; and each community must determine the limits of dissent that it can tolerate and still remain cohesive. Modern theories attempt to do this in a much more diversified setting than talmudic and medieval rabbis ever contemplated, one characterized not only by physical dispersion but also by widely varying forms of being Jewish. In such circumstances, it is not surprising that the theories I have considered differ significantly in the extent to which they validate the beliefs and practices of others, but the very attempt to articulate such theories bespeaks the strongly felt need to retain unity within our diversity. According to the Talmud, just as Jews put on phylacteries (tefillin-- the leather straps worn on the arm and head during daily morning prayer), so too does God. The phylacteries that Jews wear bear the verse, “Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4). God's phylacteries bear the verse, “Who is like Your people Israel, one nation in the world.” (I Chronicles 17:21; B. Berachot 6a). Neither unity has been sufficiently achieved. Three times each day in the Aleinu prayer, Jews pray that God's unity might be acknowledged by all people. The unity of the people is real, with its vigorous diversity intact, must also be the object of our work and prayers, just as it is on the mind of God.