Yesterday, I wrote an article angry about the way entertainers use their platforms.

I wrote about filmmakers, actors and musicians who have extraordinary access to millions of people and, instead of using that influence to bring people together, too often seem determined to divide them.

I ended with two lines:

You were given the rare power to unite millions of strangers.

What a terrible waste to use it to divide them.

And then, less than twenty-four hours later, a friend called me with a surprise.

Tickets to see Ishay Ribo in Rishon LeZion.

I could not help but smile at the timing.

Call it coincidence if you want.

Because after spending an entire article asking what entertainers choose to do with the enormous power of a stage, I suddenly found myself watching an artist show me the answer.

And what a setting in which to see it.

The concert was outdoors, underneath an open sky.

A beautiful breeze moving through the amphitheater.

Onstage was Ishay Ribo, his band, and the Israeli Philharmonic — rows of musicians, a conductor at the center, strings and percussion and guitars and keyboards all coming together beneath that same night sky.

But at different moments, I found myself looking away from the stage.

I started watching the people around me.

My brothers and sisters.

Jews from different backgrounds.

Different levels of observance.

Different communities.

Different politics, undoubtedly.

And all around me they were singing.

That is when the tears came.

Because these were not simply catchy lyrics everyone happened to know.

These were words of tefillah.

Words of praise and longing for Hashem.

Song after song, tefillah after tefillah, thousands of voices joined together.

Some people around me surely knew exactly where those words came from.

Others may simply have known them as Ishay Ribo songs.

Maybe some did not even stop to realize that they were praying.

But regardless, there we were.

Hashem’s children, together, singing to Him.

And looking around that amphitheater, underneath the stars, during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, I could not help but think:

Hashem must be so proud of us in this moment.

Look at Your children.

For once, not arguing.

Not categorizing one another.

Not deciding who is religious enough, who belongs to which camp,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)