Jews Choose Hope (Sermon after the 2016 Presidential Election) November 11, 2016



I didn’t want to get out of bed on Wednesday morning. I pulled the covers up over my head so that the world would be as dark as I felt. I wanted to be alone, like the words of Rabbi Hillel, in Pirke Avot:[i]בִמְקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ – in a place where there are no people, you must strive to be a person. That’s how I felt, like I had to be a person all by myself.


And I want to acknowledge again all the different emotions that people are bringing into this room. Some of us are excited or surprised. Others are fearful, and heartbroken. There is anger, and confusion. This room is a churning sea of feelings. And all of them are true and real and honest. And all of it is who we are as a community of blessed diversity. 

But I think all of us can agree there is an overwhelming feeling of uncertainty. Whether you voted for the president-elect or for someone else, there is a sense that we have gone off script, that we are starting a new book, with characters and plot twists that we cannot yet imagine. For many of us, even those of us who have voted in the past for candidates who did not win, this moment does not seem normal. And for some of us, this moment does not seem safe.

And so we enter into this Shabbat holding up the candles like a torch, hoping they will shed some light on where we are going. We used to know the path ahead, whether we liked the direction or not. Now, we are struggling to find the trail, and we don’t know where we are headed.
I can only imagine how you feel. So, I’ll speak for myself. I feel numb. And I feel busted open. And I feel heartbroken. I feel like things I thought I could trust, like data and journalism, have revealed themselves to be less reliable than I thought. As if the curtain were pulled back, revealing that the Great Oz was just an old man, frantically working the controls, trying to keep the illusion going. But more painfully, I feel distant from my fellow Americans. Like many of us during this election season, I could not fathom the other side, especially its most ardent voices. But I felt comfort in the conviction that they were a small minority. Then, on Election Day, no matter who we voted for, we all found out that more than 50 million Americans voted for the other side. I felt shocked by how distant my life experience is from some of my fellow Americans. I feel like Abraham in the Torah this week, instructed by God to go out “to a land you do not know.”[ii] I feel like I am already living in a land I do not know. I want to be the kind of person who can imagine other people complexly. I’m not there yet.

But I will try. We must try. To meet the other. To know each other better. Our country cannot be like oil and water, struggling to separate themselves and to put one on top of the other. The Torah teaches that I should love my neighbor as myself. Jewish history is the story of expanding our definition of “neighbor.” So is modern civilization. But how can I love someone who I cannot even imagine. We can love people when we know them. I don’t think we have done enough loving our neighbors in recent years. I pray, and I hope that this election will lead to a greater coming together, not a greater splitting apart.

I’m thinking that Rabbi Hillel was wrong when he said, “In a place where there are no people, you must strive to be a person,” because there are other people here. And that’s how we got in this mess in the first place – our inability to see the other side as human: to understand THEIR needs and THEIR fears and THEIR dreams? Hillel’s presupposition is false. There are humans here. We are all struggling. We are all striving. We are all searching. I want to amend Rabbi Hillel, to say, “In a place full of a diversity of humans, we must strive to be humans.” Our humanity is not defined in the face of opposition, it’s defined in the embrace of it.

I don’t know yet what we will do next. But I want to say some things about what we will not do. We will not abide intolerance in any form. Certainly not within these walls. We will not let this election be a referendum on hatred. We will not abide bullies here. The Zionist pioneer, Yehiel Weingarten, writes “I won’t teach our children to hate.”[iii] And we will not give up. I’ll be honest. I think we will see some increases in anti-Semitism in the coming years, but I don’t think it will present a physical danger. I pray I’m right. But I will say that if we see our Muslim neighbors – our law-abiding Muslim neighbors – facing the same kind of intimidation and discrimination and threat of violence that we experienced in the early 1930s in Germany, we will not remain silent. And we will speak up to protect the rights people of color. We will speak up to protect immigrants and refugees. Our loved ones who are undocumented, or who have undocumented family members. Those who are gay, and those who are transgender. We will speak up in our synagogue, in our community, and in our country. Wednesday was a day of broken glass. Not the glass of a glass ceiling, as some of us had hoped. It was the 78th anniversary of the Kristalnacht Pogrom in Germany. And as we continue to pick up the pieces, we will be reminded. We will not be silent.

Which brings me to the prevailing emotion of this election season – fear. Fear on both sides. Fear of each other. Fear of the other. It started to feel like fear was the central emotion of our modern age. But it is not a default position. Fear is a choice. Fear is a monster knocking on the door of the house, hoping to be invited in. But we need not let it live in here.

And there is an opposite choice. The opposite choice is hope. Fear may be the easier choice. But hope is the more transformative one. Hope is not a thing that happens to you. It is not only a noun. It is a verb. It is a thing you choose every day. It is not a coincidence that the national anthem of the Jewish state is called Hatikvah, “The Hope.” It is not a coincidence that it contains the words עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִּקְוָתֵנו – Our hope, a hope of two thousand years, is not yet lost. Because Jews choose hope.

Hope is an audacious choice. It is a countercultural choice. It is a revolutionary choice. Think of the story of Hanukah. It is an inherently hopeful story. When the days are shortest and the darkness creeps in, when the winter winds blow, Jews choose to light candles. We choose to bring light to the darkness. And we celebrate a miracle of light. But not only a miracle. A choice. The Maccabees found oil to last a single day, and they needed eight days to purify a new batch… And they lit the lamp anyway. That is the audacious choice of hope. To know that the oil cannot last and to light the lamp anyway. To choose to hope. Jews choose hope.

When Abraham heard the call of Lech L’cha, to leave his father’s house and his homeland and head out to a land he did not know, he didn’t argue. He just went. Because Jews choose hope.

When the Egyptian pharaoh commanded Israelite mothers to cast their baby boys into the Nile, one woman chose to weave her son a basket instead. Because Jews choose hope.

When the sea would not part, one Israelite walked into the waters until they lapped at his lips, because Jews choose hope.

When the Israelites were parched in the desert and thought they would die, Miriam prayed and a miraculous well sprung up for her out of nowhere. Because Jews choose hope.

When the Temple was destroyed and we could no longer sacrifice, the rabbis created the siddur, a new way to worship God that they could take with them wherever they went. Because Jews choose hope.

During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews found ways to practice their faith in secret, at risk of death – choosing to maintain their relationship with their God even if it cost them their lives, because Jews choose hope.

Our ancestors left behind their homes and their families and sailed across the sea to this country because they wanted to build a better life for themselves and their children. Because Jews choose hope.

We will not let the temptation to choose fear rule our lives, because we will make the bolder and more powerful choice. Because Jews choose hope.

I will not teach our children to hate. I will not let them learn the wrong lessons from this election. I will not let them learn that bullies win in the long run. I will not let them learn that some people are worth less than others. I will not let them let them learn that strength is a more virtuous than kindness. I will not let them learn that hate is a more powerful than love. Because Jews choose hope.

The prophet Isaiah says that God’s house will be a house of prayer for all people.[iv] And that will be true of this house, no mater who is president. This will be a house of prayer for all people. Gay and straight. Black and white and brown. Native American and Latino. Cisgender and transgender. Documented and undocumented. This will be a house of prayer for all people. A house of prayer for Jews and Christians and Muslims. And this will be not just a house of prayer, but a house of hope. Because Jews choose hope.

Psalm 89 contains the words עוֹלָם חֶסֶד יִבָּנֶה A world of love will be built.[v] I will build a world from love. And we will build a world from love. And if we build this world from love, then God too will build this world from love. עוֹלָם חֶסֶד יִבָּנֶה Because if our thousands-year story has taught us anything, it is that love is stronger than hate. And hope is stronger than fear. And so, in spite of losses in the short term that want us to choose otherwise, Jews choose hope.

עוֹלָם חֶסֶד יִבָּנֶה the glue with which we will repair this broken world isn’t hate, or fear. It’s Chesed. It’s love. I might not see it yet. I’m not even sure I can believe it yet. But I will choose it. Every day. Because I’m a Jew. And Jews choose hope.




[i] Pirke Avot 2:5
[ii] This is not actually a line from the Torah, but from Debbie Friedman’s midrash on it for her son Lechi Lach
[iv] Isaiah 56:7
[v] Psalm 89:3