America, I Hardly Knew You

When I awoke Wednesday morning to the news of the election of Donald Trump, the emotion I felt most profoundly – and expected least – was humility. The polls were so clear, the predictions so firm, the prognosticators so self-assured. On Tuesday my child’s school held mock elections – a landslide victory going to Hillary Clinton. At a staff lunch before the election, we went around the table trying to predict the results, and the only debate was the margin by which Donald Trump would lose. I had begun drafting a sermon based on an outcome that was not to be. Our pundits, our press, the business establishment, veteran political operatives – everyone so very sure – and everyone so very wrong. And so, when I awoke to the news of Trump’s victory, it was a sense of being humbled that I felt most: humbled in my self-assurance, what I thought to be true, humbled in my trust in the media, and most of all, and it is on this point I want to focus this morning, humbled in my understanding of our nation.

There is, it would seem, an America that I don’t know – that we don’t know. Americans whose narrative is not my own, an electoral majority of our country who, while bonded to me by a love of country no less fierce than mine, have fears, hopes and dreams, different than mine. Next week I’ll be driving to my in-laws in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving. I am reminded of James Carville’s description of Pennsylvania as “Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in the middle” – a middle with which, save for filling up a gas tank, I have no contact or knowledge. To live in Manhattan is to live in a bubble, to live literally and figuratively on an island. I am reminded of that famous New Yorker cover: a view of the world from Ninth Avenue depicting Manhattan as the center of the universe looking westward with the rest of the country a sliver sandwiched between the Hudson River and the Pacific Ocean. Wednesday morning we awoke to discover that it was that sliver that elected our next president. As we have been splitting hairs over what does and doesn’t constitute cultural appropriation, as we have debated what inclusive signage should and shouldn’t look like for bathrooms, as we have been policing each other on matters of political correctness, the train has left the station. This week we discovered there is a big difference between the actual West Wing and that of Aaron Sorkin’s idealized television show. The lives we lead, the papers we read, the Facebook feeds we keep, the causes we champion represent part of, but not all of, America. As my colleague Rabbi Ethan Linden explained, we may all vote in the same election, but we do so for different countries. This week those of us in the liberal echo chamber of the Upper East Side have been served a plateful of humble pie.

In the weeks and months to come there will be no shortage of opportunity to reflect on the election and the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates. In fact, next Shabbat we will be honored to welcome presidential historian Professor Julian Zelizer as our scholar-in-residence to discuss the election in its historical context. This morning my aim is to focus not on the candidates, but on the America or Americas in which we live, the one we know, and the one – the electoral majority – that we don’t. As I have said time and again from this pulpit, in a democratic society, be it here, Europe, Israel, or anywhere, leaders are ultimately reflections of an electoral will. There is much to learn about America from the election of our new president. Whatever the cabinet choices may be, whatever the agenda for the first 100 days, we can and should, even at this preliminary moment, seek to understand the emergent landscape of our country. As a Jewish community, we have lessons to learn and steps to take. As at any momentous pivot point in our nation’s history, this is a time to reflect and, equally importantly, to earnestly chart out the steps we must take moving forward.

First, foremost, and most naturally, the Jewish community must give consideration to the implications of this election for our parochial well-being. No differently than the hero of our parashah, our patriarch Abraham, sought the welfare of his family as he set out on his journey, so too we must press forward with appropriate vigilance. Professor Zelizer recently described in the pages of the Atlantic that this election season has unleashed a venomous strain of anti-Semitism filled with historic tropes, verbal and visual, the likes of which are unprecedented in mainstream American campaigns. The question I ask is not, heaven forbid, whether anti-Semitism exists in any way at the top of the ticket or in the first family – a first family that is, with great historic significance, comprised in part of Jews. Rather, it is the fear that the dog whistles blown during this election cycle have awoken and energized some of the more unseemly, incendiary, and dangerous pockets of hatred in our country. Already on its heels from anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism on the left, the Jewish community must now ask whether our present political climate has legitimized hateful white nationalists on the right. It is too early to tell, but these coming months and coming years will be critical ones for the Jewish community. Will all forms of hatred, anti-Semitism included, be publicly and unequivocally repudiated by this government? Having voted overwhelmingly Democrat, what voice will the Jewish community have in the coming administration? As we watch and work for answers, the Jewish community would do well to support and engage those advocacy organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee whose purpose is to fight anti-Semitism and represent the interests of our people and the State of Israel in the public sphere. Just as Abraham understood his first responsibility to be the protection of his own flesh and blood, this is a time that we must work vigorously on behalf of our people’s concerns.

Second. Even as we put our shields up, so too we must break out of our bubble to understand the America we do not know. One need go no further than the opening lines of our parashah to see that the mission of the Jewish people was never to stay insular. “Go forth,” God instructs Abraham, “from your land, your birthplace, from your father’s house.” (Genesis 12:1) Abraham understood well, as evidenced by his intervention on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, that to be a Jew demands that we move out of our comfort zone, that we put the well-being of a wider humanity at the forefront of our concern. So too, the spiritual heroics of our day may just demand that we reach out to the neighbors we don’t know, to that America we don’t know, but should. There is no guarantee, I suppose, that that America is interested in speaking to us, but it strikes me as indefensible not to make an effort to reach out. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to read “Hillbilly Elegy” by JD Vance. By all accounts, a determinative factor in this election was the hard-hit heartland of our country, who, having watched their livelihoods hemorrhage to China and Mexico, feel cast aside and forgotten. To be dismissive of their pain is both wrong and counter to the interests and ethic of our nation. Their anger, their frustration, their cry for change as expressed at the voting booth is not only not insincere, but necessary to understand if our country as a whole is to heal. The faith community has a critical role to play in this dialogue. How amazing would it be for our synagogue to partner with a church in central Pennsylvania and share our respective hopes and anxieties for our nation? To ask together, with empathy for one other, how we can all share equally in the American dream. Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, urban or rural, the calling card of any faith community is the belief that every human being is created equally in the divine image. With that as our starting point, nothing is insurmountable. Again, there is no promise or expectation that such a dialogue will yield agreement, but if we fail to try to at least understand one another, then the next and necessary step of binding our nations wounds is an impossibility. Now is not the time to curl up in the shell of self-righteous parochialism, now is the time to “go forth” beyond our comfort zone and look for America – the America we know, and the America we need to know.

Third. Finally, and perhaps most important of all, as a Jewish community we must redouble our commitment to the values we hold dear. It is a mystery why Abraham was chosen to be the founder of our people. The Midrash explains that Abraham can be compared to a man on a journey who sees a birah doleket, a palace ablaze in flames. The man wonders, “Is it possible that the palace lacks an owner?” Just then, the owner of the palace calls out from the blaze and says, “I am the owner of the palace,” and the man understands his duty to help extinguish the fire. So too Abraham, and by extension every Jew since, has a calling to see a world in need of rescue, in need of repair, in need of putting out the flames of injustice wherever they are set ablaze. There may be, as Ecclesiastes taught, a time for everything – to mourn and to dance, to laugh and to cry – but I am pretty sure now is not the time to be complacent. As Jews, we know our obligations to the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger in our midst; we were once, after all, strangers in a strange land. We know, as Jews, that the power of any community, or nation, is to be measured by its attention to the weakest, not the strongest link. In this room and in this nation there are and will always be differences on matters of politics and policy. But as a Jewish community, our commitment to the dignity of every man and woman, our commitment to protect, care for, and repair the world in which we live, our commitment to maintain a dogged pursuit of tzedek u-mishpat, righteousness and justice – these are non-negotiable. A democratic society confers upon us both the privilege and the obligation to actualize the values we claim to hold dear – by exercising our right to vote, speak freely, and peaceably assemble. The fires of injustice are ablaze and we dare not turn away. Now is the time to leverage our passion toward getting involved, engage in the political process, and build a future that reflects the love we have for our country, our children, and grandchildren. This is what it means to descend from the line of Abraham; this is what it means to be a blessing to the families of the earth.

Friends, we have lived through a week and an election that will be discussed for generations to come. Emotions are high, the rhetoric charged, and the future not yet clear. We are all in need of pastoral guidance, myself included, as we seek to regain our bearings. Of all the questions put to me this this past week, the one that sticks out most was one congregant’s inquiry as to whether, given the election results, he still needed to recite the prayer for the country. My answer to him, my answer to all of you, is “absolutely and all the more so.” To protect our people, to seek out the other, and to work towards actualizing our values – these are good starting points. But the real calling of the hour is uninhibited gratitude for the blessing of our country. Gratitude that we live in a democratic society where sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but you can always seek effectuate change. Gratitude that we live in a country founded on the premise that all men and women are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That we live in a country whose promise is larger than any one individual and any one election cycle. These are blessings deserving of our unrestrained patriotism, blessings worthy of our innermost prayers. We pray with gratitude for the gift that is America, we pray for the continued strength of the values that are the foundation of our democracy, we pray wholeheartedly and without hesitation for the elected leadership of our country and most of all, we pray, each of us and all of us together, that God bless these, the United States of America.