The Morning After Election Day: Let’s Hevrutah?
Republicans, I think it’s time for us to do some hevrutah.
Hevrutah is the Jewish method of studying a text in partnership with someone, and I think it would be good for us all — especially if we disagree politically — because it isn’t about imposing our truths on each other. Hevrutah is about being vulnerable with your partner, realizing the common humanity between each other and loving that person for who they are in the moment.
Hevrutah is a helpful way to navigate the various ambiguities and vagueness of Jewish texts that create space for disagreement. That room for disagreement over important texts could potentially develop weeds of division and dehumanization, but instead bears the fruits of mutual understanding and fellowship because of the personal, emotional nature of hevrutah.
Not unlike the space for disagreement found in Jewish texts, there exists a great deal of room for disagreement on practically all of the major issues facing us as a nation.
The problem is, we have grown to view disagreement as hostile and have grown to reason that those we don’t agree with are our enemies rather than friends who have a different perspective.
Abraham Lincoln once said that “passion may strain, but must not break our bonds of affection.” We have forgotten how to be both passionate and cognizant of the fact that our political opponents lead lives awfully similar to our own.
Though nastiness and derision have become increasingly common aspects of our political system since at least the 2004 election, that’s not how it has to be. Even when it comes to issues like abortion that divide us along religious lines, we can disagree passionately and still come together at the end of the day to celebrate life and our common fellowship as Americans.
Some of you out there might be reading this and thinking I’m some yuppie idealist, but I am tired of seeing us destroy each other as if we aren’t all still human beings.
Amidst the ugliness of this election, I have thought often of my own hevrutah, Connor. We’re not people who naturally would have become friends in college. He’s white and from the suburbs. I’m a person of color and from an inner-city neighborhood. We’re different people, and likely have different opinions on some issues.
Yet, we are willing to be at least a little bit vulnerable with each other, and we are willing to remain open to learning from each other. I look at him, and for all of our differences, I see a little piece of myself looking back at me. He has such a warm energy and a loving, supportive personality, and I find myself wanting to be there and see who he becomes.
There’s an incredibly smart wanderlust in him that I would not have discovered had we not kept in mind that we had more in common as Americans than we were perhaps conditioned to believe.
Really, how Connor and I treat each other is how we should all treat each other. At the risk of sounding more cliche than a poster of a cat holding onto a rope, whatever divides us is not nearly as potent as that which brings us together.
There is no issue in society that should ever create a gulf between us too wide for mutual understanding and partnership. The Jewish tradition of hevrutah is so similar to the American aspiration of unity, and it seems like we could all use more of both. Once we put this political season behind us, let’s start understanding and respecting each other, okay?
John F. Kennedy once remarked, “Let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness.” For the sake of our country, I hope we can remember his words.
