Hitting “reset” on Rosh Hashanah is like shifting your car into neutral before changing gears. We have this moment of transition in which we can set change into motion.

The year 5777 gave us plenty of matters worthy of teshuvah, and ample opportunity for “resetting.” The political fighting and incivility that swept across America didn’t spare the Jewish community. But I find inspiration in a story from our not-so-distant past that illuminates the way forward.

Some may remember, back in 1969, the War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt fought along the Suez Canal. Israel, the David of 1967, was now recast as Goliath and roundly condemned by the world. The United Nations was one of the most vocal arenas of anti-Israel rhetoric. And one of the most eloquent anti-Israel spokesmen was the British ambassador to the United Nations, Lord Caradon.

In the midst of all this, to the surprise of many, Yeshiva University’s Political Science Club invited Lord Caradon to speak during club hour. There was an uproar on campus and calls for demonstrations against the speaker. Rabbi Joseph Soloveichik, who served as the head of YU, noticed the commotion and called for an ad hoc meeting of the student body on the night before the event.

Speaking to a room packed with students, the Rav gave an incredible charge. He cited a principle in Greek logic, which did not allow one to live within the framework of two contradictory ideas. Hence, for example, man was either a lowly creature or an exalted being, but not both. Faced with a choice, the Greeks chose to deify man.

In Judaism, he went on, we live with a dialectic of delicately balanced contrary ideas. On the one hand, man is created in G-d’s image, and on the other hand, we say that man is little different than an animal. We believe in capitalism as expounded in detail by the Talmud, and we believe in the socialism of the Jubilee year and the seventh “shemittah” year, in which all debts are forgiven. We believe that G-d is both transcendent and immanent.

Similarly, the Rav said, we are the Jewish people and must defend our nation. On the other hand, we are a nation among nations, and must behave with dignity and civility to the British representative to the U.N. It is a critical balance of contrary ideas — imperative for the Jewish people to master.

There are so many matters that confront our politically and religiously diverse Jewish community. They are important to all of us. But we must uphold the Jewish people as a community that practices unity in diversity as a principle for all of us. We must advocate for that which is important for us, while being acutely sensitive to the realities of others. Let us hope that as we pray and work to rectify our errors of the last year, we are able to elevate ourselves into a dialectic of unity in diversity going forward.

Rabbi Hershel Billet is the rabbi of the Young Israel of Woodmere. He is the past president of the Rabbinical Council of America and an executive committee member of the Beth Din of America.

This essay is part UJA’s High Holiday publication Hitting Reset: A Fresh Start for 5778.