I will be with him in distress;
I will rescue him and make him honored;
תנו רבנן בזמן שישראל שרויין בצער ופירש אחד מהן באין שני מלאכי השרת שמלוין לו לאדם ומניחין לו ידיהן על ראשו ואומרים פלוני זה שפירש מן הצבור אל יראה בנחמת צבור
תניא אידך בזמן שהצבור שרוי בצער אל יאמר אדם אלך לביתי ואוכל ואשתה ושלום עליך נפשי ואם עושה כן עליו הכתוב אומר (ישעיהו כב, יג) והנה ששון ושמחה הרוג בקר ושחוט צאן אכול בשר ושתות יין אכול ושתו כי מחר נמות מה כתיב בתריה ונגלה באזני ה' צבאות אם יכופר העון הזה לכם עד תמותון
Our Rabbis have taught: When Israel is in trouble and one of them separates himself from them, then the two ministering angels who accompany every man come and place their hands upon his head and say, ‘So-and-so who separated himself from the community shall not behold the consolation of the community’.
Another [baraita] taught: When the community is in trouble let not a person say, ‘I will go to my house and I will eat and drink and all will be well with me’. And if he does so, about this person Scripture says (Isaiah 22:13), "And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine — ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die." What follows after this [verse]? — And the Lord of Hosts revealed Himself in mine ears; surely this iniquity shall not be expiated by you till ye die.
Our Rabbis taught: If at the present time a man desires to become a proselyte, he is to be addressed as follows: ‘What reason have you for desiring to become a proselyte; do you not know that Israel at the present time are persecuted and oppressed, despised, harassed and overcome by afflictions’?
אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: מֵת שֶׁאֵין לוֹ מְנַחֲמִין — הוֹלְכִין עֲשָׂרָה בְּנֵי אָדָם וְיוֹשְׁבִין בִּמְקוֹמוֹ. הָהוּא דִּשְׁכֵיב בְּשִׁבָבוּתֵיהּ דְּרַב יְהוּדָה, לֹא הָיוּ לוֹ מְנַחֲמִין, כׇּל יוֹמָא הֲוָה דָּבַר רַב יְהוּדָה בֵּי עַשְׂרָה, וְיָתְבִי בְּדוּכְתֵּיהּ. לְאַחַר שִׁבְעָה יָמִים אִיתְחֲזִי לֵיהּ בְּחֶילְמֵיהּ דְּרַב יְהוּדָה, וַאֲמַר לֵיהּ: תָּנוּחַ דַּעְתְּךָ שֶׁהִנַּחְתָּ אֶת דַּעְתִּי.
Rav Yehuda said: In the case of a deceased person who has no comforters, ten people should go and sit in his place and accept condolences. The Gemara relates the story of a certain person who died in Rav Yehuda’s neighborhood and who did not have any comforters, i.e., mourners; every day of the seven-day mourning period, Rav Yehuda would take ten people and they would sit in his place, in the house of the deceased. After seven days had passed the deceased appeared to Rav Yehuda in his dream and said to him: Put your mind to rest, for you have put my mind to rest.
Rav Soloveitchik, Kol Dodi Dofek
A preacher of the last generation put it well: He said that the Jewish people may be compared to the man with two heads, concerning whom the question was posed in the house of study: How is he to be viewed for purposes of inheritance? Does he take two portions as a dual person? Or does he take one portion like a single, unified individual...
The answer - the preacher continued - to the question of the unity of the Jewish people is identical with the ruling issued in the house of study regarding the question of the unity of the two-headed heir. Let boiling water be poured on one of his two heads, stated the judge, and let us see the reaction of the other head. If the other head cries out in pain, then both heads blend into one complete and unified personality, and the heir will take one portion. However, if the second head does not feel the pang of the first head, then we have two personalities coupled in one body, and they take two portions.
The same holds true with regard to the question of the unity of the Jewish people. The authoritative ruling is that as long as there is shared suffering, in the manner of "I will be with him in trouble" (Psalms 91:5), there is unity. If the Jew upon whom divine providence has shed a beneficent light, and who consequently believes that, at least with respect to him, the venom of hate and rejection has been expunged from his surroundings, still feels the troubles of his people and the burden of a fate-laden existence, then his link with the people has not been broken. If boiling water is poured upon the head of the Jew in Morocco, the fashionably-attired Jew in London or Paris has to scream at the top of his voice, and through feeling the pain he will remain faithful to his people. The fragmentation of the people and the blearing of its image are concomitants of the absence of the feeling of sympathy.
From Sarah Wolf (https://www.sourcesjournal.org/articles/we-need-to-stay-in-the-conversation)
A few weeks after the October 7 massacre, an undergraduate whom I’ll call Jennie sent me an email letting me know that she might be late to our Talmud class because she was at the UN, demonstrating for the return of the hostages in Gaza. Later that week, Jennie rushed out of the beit midrash at the end of class to help block doxing trucks on the Columbia campus. These trucks—which have appeared on the campuses of several elite colleges and are funded by a conservative organization called Accuracy in Media—broadcast the names and faces of students who signed pro-Palestine petitions. The students featured on the trucks that appeared at Columbia had signed a statement calling on their university to cut ties with “apartheid Israel,” and their personal information was displayed under the caption, “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.” I heard later from another one of my students, “Akiva,” that many Jewish students had turned up to help block the trucks. They came armed with their bodies, with signs, and with balloons from the campus stationery store. Akiva is a List College senior, and he had been out of class the prior week after losing a close friend to a missile attack. He was so worried for his Israeli friends and family that he didn’t know how he’d manage to finish the semester. He was also the one who procured the balloons to block the trucks. He told me that it was one of the most powerful moments of his four years at college.
At a moment of fear, anger, and antisemitism on campus, why would Jewish students devote their already-stretched time and emotional energy to defend supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement? I want to suggest that such a moment represents the fulfillment of the highest potential of an academic community, with an emphasis on the word community. My students and the pro-Palestinian students they were defending may be on opposite sides politically, but they are all young people on campus together. They sit in seminars together, they share a dining room, maybe even a bathroom. My students see faces that have been familiar to them for the last three or four years plastered on the side of a truck alongside personal information meant to endanger them, and they feel called to stand by them. In fact, I would conjecture that the Jewish juniors and seniors I teach at JTS already know what it means to be in community with people with whom they passionately disagree, because that is what college, at its best, provides.