Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, spoke at three Washington, D.C. synagogues on Yom Kippur—at Adas Israel at Kol Nidrei services last Friday night, then at Washington Hebrew Congregation Saturday morning and at Kesher Israel in the afternoon. Conservative, Reform and Orthodox Jews heard the same eloquent message, and Oren’s text is reproduced below. It’s well worth reading in full—and then you can go back and read the Book of Jonah, which is read in synagogue on Yom Kippur and which Oren uses to frame his remarks!

But for busy tea-leaf readers and policy makers, Oren’s key passages seem to me to be these: