The state of Israel was established seventy-seven years ago, to be a safe haven for the Jewish people and to create an exemplary society in the land of Israel.

Today Israel is a wonder of innovation. It’s strong militarily, and over the past year and a half, we have seen the resilience of its vocal and participatory public. It is exemplary in each of these regards. But Israel is also a troubled country, deep in an ongoing crisis.

Research shows that a society’s sense of solidarity and social cohesion is built on both vertical trust in institutions and horizontal trust among different groups. The State of Israel is experiencing a deep crisis of trust in both these senses. On the vertical axis, many citizens are questioning whether they can trust the government, the courts, the military or the Shin Bet (Israel’s Secret Service). This lack of trust in the first two has happened before, but until now, the trust between citizens and both the military and the Shin Bet was considered sacred.

On the horizontal axis, Israeli society is also suffering from fractures between different groups: between secular Jews, religious Zionists, Haredim, and Arab-Israelis; between Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi Jews, and between government supporters and critics. These fractures are deep, and the polarization is wide. People look at those on the other side not as political adversaries—people they deeply disagree with about the right course of action but who also care about the state—but as enemies, or even traitors whose ideas endanger Israel’s existence.

From the hostage deal to the war in Gaza to legal reforms and judicial overhaul, many Israelis are finding it difficult to discuss the merits of an issue without assuming the opposing side has nefarious intentions or that they’re not true lovers of Israel. Too many Israelis view those on the “other side” like biblical lepers —those suffering with the skin disease tzaraat, who, according to the Torah, are impure and should be sent outside of the camp. Over the years, being a leper became a synonym for social and political outcasts, and in today’s Israel, those on “the other side” of an issue are often treated as total outcasts.

But the Tanakh’s portrayal of lepers is more ambivalent than we might expect, as we can see if we juxtapose King Uzziah’s case of leprosy in II Chronicles with the story of the four lepers in II Kings.

Uzziah was a great king of Israel for 26 years, but after more than two decades in leadership, he became overly enamored with power. Arrogant and corrupt, he tried to breach the balance between the two branches of government of the time—the king and the priests—by trespassing into the Temple and trying to offer God ktoret, incense, which is the priests’ responsibility. Despite a reprimand from the priests, Uzziah was determined to carry on. At that moment, leprosy broke out on his forehead, and he was hurried out of the Temple. As opposed to other cases of leprosy, Uzziah never healed. He lost his kingship and lived in isolation until the day he died.

But II Kings offers a different model of leprosy. In the time of prophet Elisha, the city of Samaria, the capitol of the kingdom of Israel, was in war against Aram. The city was under heavy siege, and the people were starving. Four men, lepers who had been sent from the city for being impure, sat at the gates of the city. They were so starved and in such despair that they decide to turn themselves in to the enemy of Aram. But when they reached the Aramean camp, they found it empty of people and filled with food and money. The four lepers ate and hid the money, gold, and clothes. They then stopped in their tracks, telling one another that they mustn’t stay quiet about what they found. They must tell the people of Israel that the enemy has fallen, and the siege is over. The four lepers then brought the good news to the very people who had earlier cast them out, transforming these outcasts into figures of redemption.

The poet Rachel used this last story in her 1927 poem “Day of Tidings,” which she wrote after a political issue prompted the cooperation of ideological enemies David Ben Gurion and Zeev Jabotinsky . At the time, Ben Gurion was the leader of the Zionist movement and the Labor party, while Jabotinsky led Beitar and the Revisionist movement. Later, of course, Ben Gurion would become Israel’s first Prime Minister, and Jabotinsky is considered the spiritual father of the Likud party.

Rachel was deeply critical of Ben Gurion’s choice to cooperate with Jabotinsky. Her poem reads:

Now there were four men, stricken with leprosy at the entrance of the gate

This is a day of good news,

For a long while the dreadful enemy

laid siege to Samaria

Four lepers brought her tidings

Brought tidings of Freedom

Like Samaria under siege – so is the entire land,

The famine is too hard to bear.

But I will not want news of redemption

if it comes from the mouth of a leper.

Let one who is pure bring news and let the pure redeem,

And if the pure proves unable –

Then let me die among the ravages of the siege

On the end of the great day of tidings.

In this poem, the story of II Kings becomes a means for Rachel to express her disapproval of Ben Gurion’s choice. In her eyes, Jabotinsky should be treated as an outcast, a leper, and she was uninterested in working with him, even if it was for the good of a society in deep crisis. As she put it, if no one “pure” is able to redeem us, I reject redemption altogether.

After the poem was published, the poet Haim Guri responded: “Rachel, add me too as fifth to these four, not as bad but not more pure.” Guri, a Palmach warrior who was part of Rachel’s political camp, was in agony over her purist approach towards the revisionist movement. By likening himself to those she called lepers, he protested her judgment of who was pure and who was impure.

In a sense, they were both right. The story of the arrogant and corrupt Uziah shows us that sometimes someone deserves to be condemned for hurting society, even to the point of being cast out. But Guri’s point is also right: people with whom I deeply disagree are likely not truly evil sinners. Even if I think the path they want to take will endanger us or cost us dearly, we must recognize that when we are all working toward the same larger goal, they are a part of me as I am a part of them.

Seventy-seven years since the founding of the state, Israeli society is in deep crisis and ongoing pain. As each side of our many divides looks at the other, we all need to ask: is this to be a permanent ailment like the one of King Uzziah? Or can we find a cure from within our pain, as the four lepers from Samaria did?

One way of answering this question lies in the difference between Uzziah and the four lepers. Uzziah’s actions were not meant for the betterment of society, but for his own glorification; when he tried to offer incense, he wasn’t functioning as the public’s (or God’s) servant, but a servant of his own aspirations. In contrast, the four lepers started to act for their own self-interest, but then thought better of it, and acted for the welfare of the people.

Israelis care deeply about the State, and they are committed to fixing its problems. I pray that we will be able to distinguish between those who seek to break our society and those with whom we share a larger vision, even if we disagree vehemently on the details. These are the divisions worth repairing for the sake of the larger society. In this time of deep uncertainty and pain, as we seek to recover from a shattering trauma, these repairs are a necessary first step toward realizing our aspirations of becoming an exemplary society in the land of Israel.