The day after a beautiful celebration of Rosh Hashanah, 6 members of my family along with others gathered in a friend’s home for a facilitated dialogue about our current political state of affairs.

Led by Rabbi Nate DeGroot and professional coach and facilitator Aaron Handelsman, we were asked to listen and pause at the beginning of a new year to look inward and outward:

What have we done?
What can we do to make a difference?
What kind of people are we?
What kind of community do we want to become?

These are not easy questions in a time when so much around us feels divided.

The invitation to the gathering spoke about coming together with deep respect for the relationships between generations and for the Jewish values of justice, responsibility, community and care that have shaped us. It also acknowledged something equally important: sharing those values doesn’t necessarily mean arriving at the same political conclusions.

That distinction felt especially meaningful to me.

The purpose of our two hours together was not to persuade one another or to reach agreement. It was to create a space where parents, children, grandparents, friends, and family could speak honestly and listen to one another. Our facilitators guided us toward deeper connection, even when we disagreed.

We came together to be vulnerable, to be open to transformation, to practice building new relationships, and to lean into the edge of what may feel uncomfortable.

We shared our positions while also paying attention to what we were feeling inside. And perhaps most difficult of all, we practiced letting down our defenses long enough to listen and hear someone else. We were not there to persuade. We were there to listen respectfully to each other. We considered the impact of our own words. We were curious about another person’s experience rather than focused exclusively on ourselves or immediately defensive.

Our first exercise was simple and surprisingly powerful. We sat with one person we didn’t know and shared a memory of a moment when we felt proud being Jewish. I spoke about the deep love and pride I felt at my granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah at Temple Israel this past year, as she led the congregation from the Bima.

As I told my story, I could feel myself returning to that moment and feeling the joy, the love, the sense of hope and possibility.

We all carry memories like this within us. The gathering was a reminder that moments of goodness, love, belonging, courage, or connection can become something we hold onto when we encounter difficult times.

Later, we moved into small groups of three and were given questions for discussion:

• How are you feeling right now as a Jew in Southeastern Michigan?
• How do you want to be feeling?
• What do you sense is the barrier between where you are now and that memory of pride you shared earlier?
• What is something within our own power to help close that gap?

We sat at a table with our new group and acknowledged that our Jewish community is divided. We acknowledged the fear and anxiety that can accompany elections and political conflict. We acknowledged how easily these divisions can affect our families, our friendships, and our communal relationships.

In the face of such divisions, we sometimes make choices that seem easier than staying connected. We can close our minds. We can stop talking. We can remain distant. We can decide that someone else’s views make it impossible to remain in a relationship.

But we have other choices.

What if we choose curiosity?
What if we choose to listen before responding?
What if we can say, I don’t agree with you, but I want to understand how you arrived there?
What if we can remain connected even when agreement isn’t possible?

These are the things we wrestle with.

There was something remarkably beautiful about generations coming together, not to tell one another what to think, but to try to understand one another.

And it reminded me that a community like Jewish Senior Life is not created by everyone thinking alike. It’s created through relationships, responsibility, care, and the willingness to keep showing up.

The Gates of Repentance are open during these Days of Awe. And they can stay open until we can make a difference. Teshuvah asks us not only to turn inward but to consider how we repair relationships, take responsibility, and how we might become better people in the year ahead.

Listening is itself a form of teshuvah. Maybe there is repentance in acknowledging that we have not always listened well. Maybe there is repair in choosing to listen now.

I left our gathering with hope. Not the easy kind of hope that assumes our differences will disappear. Rather, a more grounded hope, that we can learn how to live with our differences without allowing them to disrupt our relationships.

We learned we can lay the foundation for generational shifts by creating spaces like the gathering in a private home… or like a senior residence… JSL, where people feel safe enough to speak their minds, courageous enough to listen, and connected enough to remain in relationships when the conversations become difficult.

We can practice pursuing justice and righteousness without losing sight of the humanity of those with whom we disagree.

This is some of the work before us in this new year…

Rabbi DeGroot advised us to “till the soil.” To prepare the ground for something that has not yet grown. To bring Jewish souls together to create deeper bonds between generations and between strangers. To nourish our relationships rather than abandon them.

We can ask: What’s within my own power to close the gap between us?

The divisions among us are real and learning can broaden our minds to many unexpected possibilities when we come from a place of Jewish tradition and values.

We can make a conscious choice to listen.
We can choose curiosity over anger and fear.
We can choose hope over resignation or apathy.
We can choose to strengthen our relationships.

We can choose to come together, not because we agree on everything, but because we share a responsibility to one another and to the future of our Jewish community.

In 5787 may we have the wisdom to know when to speak and when to listen, the humility to remain curious when we disagree, and the strength to keep our relationships open even when the path between us feels difficult.

SHABBAT SHUVAH SHALOM