Thanksgiving Reflection - Delivered at Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association Thanksgiving Service, 2016

Even several weeks after a particularly harsh and divisive presidential campaign, I know that people are still on edge. Trump supporters are celebrating their victory, but many feel hurt by the reaction of many Clinton supporters, many of whom seem to paint supporters of the president elect with the broad brush of racism and bigotry. Many Clinton supporters, in addition to their deep disappointment serious apprehensions about the future, feel that they don’t recognize their country and cannot believe that even here, in Brookline, there are voters who supported the other side. And those Trump voters, not surprisingly, often feel misunderstood and even unwilling to acknowledge their support. How, one might ask, can we find something we’re grateful for, something to sustain us in such a situation? What is a blessing we can identify in this new reality?

Here’s my response: At work at Center Communities of Brookline  last week, I had a series of conversations with colleagues and residents who voted differently than I did. If you know me already, you probably know how I voted. If you don’t know me, I’m willing to tell you face to face, but it’s really not relevant in this context. What’s relevant is this: these were difficult conversations, full of the pitfalls of our contemporary political scene: we get news from different sources, so not surprisingly we have diametrically opposed views of the candidates and of the events that have followed the election. 

With one colleague, the conversation was especially challenging. One of us, the Trump supporter, feels threatened by the intensity of the negative feelings expressed by Clinton supporters, especially in attributions of bigotry.  The other one of us, the Clinton supporter, couldn’t understand how someone so devoted to our shared community and shared values of racial and gender justice could overlook the various factors that seemed to disqualify Trump for the office of president. The Trump supporter couldn’t understand how someone so devoted to security and economic fairness could simply overlook the various factors that seemed to disqualify Clinton for that office. 

But as we talked, we also began to listen, to pay attention to the words and, even more important, the feelings the other was communicating. We began to understand a bit more, to see the election, and perhaps even the world, through the eyes of the other. Not that she convinced me or that I convinced her, but we were talking, listening, relating, and connecting.

In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers that forms part of the Mishnah, a compendium of Rabbinic traditions codified around 200 of the Common Era, Rabbi Hananiah ben T’radyon is quoted as saying

אבל שנים שיושבין ויש ביניהם דברי תורה שכינה שרויה ביניהם.

 that “when two persons meet and exchange words of Torah, the Shekhinah--the presence of God--hovers over them.” In this conversation, difficult as it was, I felt the presence of Shekhinah between me and my colleague, and for that blessing I am supremely grateful. May we all find the capacity to listen to one another, to argue strenuously for what we believe in, and to work tirelessly for justice. And most of all, may we discover how to make it possible for the Shekhinah to dwell among us, even amid passionate disagreements.