Dear Friends,
In the week after the election, we are still largely polarized in our own camps, our echo chambers, hearing reverberations from the same voices, which we have been heeding for months. It still sounds the same, though for many, emotional reactions have been fluid.
It is extremely difficult to hear other voices, especially when one has been strongly invested in a given position. However, this is just when it is truly vital that we listen more carefully to every voice.
Here is an example: likely, we all know the Sodom and Gomorrah story, or at least, it’s basics.
Essentially, the people of those two cities near the southern edge of the Dead Sea had evinced such brazen depravity – in interpersonal, sexual and unjust behavior – that God determined to destroy the cities, leveling them both to ash.
Yet, just before God was to destroy the corrupted cities, we read this extraordinary verse, “The Eternal One said… ‘Let Me go down and determine whether they are wreaking havoc in equal measure to the shrieking that is coming to Me. If not, I will know.’” (Genesis 18:20-21)
Amazing: God said to God’s all-knowing self, let me double-check and be sure of this situation. Let me hear all sides, for Myself.
The midrash teaches that a judge must scrupulously examine a case before pronouncing judgement; and further, that just as God “went down” to see, so must we not judge another until we have come to see things from the other’s viewpoint.
This can be very challenging. Not only often we are invested in our own points-of-view, but we become extremely certain and unbending in our postures. The last thing we want to do is hear another or the other side. In recent weeks leading up to and following the election, many not only strongly espoused their positions, but vilified those who differed. Listening to, or even simply hearing, the other, was not about to happen.
Yet, along comes Torah to demonstrate that such care is essential for a judge when rendering judgment, and therefore, no less obligatory upon each common person when standing by a belief. One is to firstly “see things from the other’s viewpoint,” before one can be so certain of one’s own.
As the weeks go by and America settles into the next post-election reality, it is good advice. If we truly care to be heard and to be respected among our neighbors, let’s do no less: let’s emulate God and listen and hear the other’s viewpoint, too!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
In the week after the election, we are still largely polarized in our own camps, our echo chambers, hearing reverberations from the same voices, which we have been heeding for months. It still sounds the same, though for many, emotional reactions have been fluid.
It is extremely difficult to hear other voices, especially when one has been strongly invested in a given position. However, this is just when it is truly vital that we listen more carefully to every voice.
Here is an example: likely, we all know the Sodom and Gomorrah story, or at least, it’s basics.
Essentially, the people of those two cities near the southern edge of the Dead Sea had evinced such brazen depravity – in interpersonal, sexual and unjust behavior – that God determined to destroy the cities, leveling them both to ash.
Yet, just before God was to destroy the corrupted cities, we read this extraordinary verse, “The Eternal One said… ‘Let Me go down and determine whether they are wreaking havoc in equal measure to the shrieking that is coming to Me. If not, I will know.’” (Genesis 18:20-21)
Amazing: God said to God’s all-knowing self, let me double-check and be sure of this situation. Let me hear all sides, for Myself.
The midrash teaches that a judge must scrupulously examine a case before pronouncing judgement; and further, that just as God “went down” to see, so must we not judge another until we have come to see things from the other’s viewpoint.
This can be very challenging. Not only often we are invested in our own points-of-view, but we become extremely certain and unbending in our postures. The last thing we want to do is hear another or the other side. In recent weeks leading up to and following the election, many not only strongly espoused their positions, but vilified those who differed. Listening to, or even simply hearing, the other, was not about to happen.
Yet, along comes Torah to demonstrate that such care is essential for a judge when rendering judgment, and therefore, no less obligatory upon each common person when standing by a belief. One is to firstly “see things from the other’s viewpoint,” before one can be so certain of one’s own.
As the weeks go by and America settles into the next post-election reality, it is good advice. If we truly care to be heard and to be respected among our neighbors, let’s do no less: let’s emulate God and listen and hear the other’s viewpoint, too!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
