This morning was hard for many of us – those who find ourselves in physical and psychological danger due to the expected policies of the incoming administration, the almost 80% of American Jews who voted for Kamala Harris, those who simply hope for an America with less polarization and acrimony. We are asking ourselves: What do I do now? What can I do?
There are many ways to respond. There are certainly political actions we can and should take. As a rabbi, I want to point us toward the possibility of personal, spiritual actions.
One of the major things I object to, in addition to Donald Trump and his party’s policies, is the way Donald Trump and his closest proxies conduct themselves. I’m dismayed at the swearing and insulting of opponents. The joking about killing people. The slandering of immigrants. The outright and constant lying. The callousness to others’ pain. The assaults. The lawbreaking. The attack on the peaceful transfer of power.
This is where to start: Do the opposite. What is important, personally and spiritually, is not to let this situation turn us into people we don’t want to be. While trying to fight what we see as wrong, we must guard against using those same techniques we disagree with. The potential to slide into some of these behaviors is within all of us.
Combat moral failure with moral rigor.
Here are seven steps we can take, personally and spiritually, to recreate the world we live in. To manifest the world we want to see. To counter the meanness and disregard for life that is being ushered back into The White House.
1. Bring more kindness and compassion into the world.
Even when people don’t deserve it. Even when you disagree with them. Even for yourself. Seize any opportunity to show compassion and kindness, until your life overflows with it. Remember to show extra compassion to those more endangered by the election results than you. In Hebrew, we call this chesed. Strengthen your chesed muscles.
2. Practice humility.
Even if you think you really are right. Especially when you think you really are right. Hold your rightness and righteousness gently. Practice not-knowing. Practice changing your mind. Look for others to honor above yourself.
3. Be honest. Speak ethically.
Guard your speech – in Jewish tradition, literally translated from shmirat lashon. Don’t disparage, mischaracterize, slander, exaggerate, or target others. Don’t spend all of Friday night dinner trash-talking someone, famous or otherwise, just because it’s something to do together that you and your guests can all agree on. Praise others. Encourage others. Praise and encourage yourself.
4. Be vulnerable sometimes.
The strongman and the idolization of strength above all else is not what our tradition values. The set of Jewish law about kings is aimed at reducing their omnipotence. Allow softness. Cry and grieve. Do not let a hard, uncaring leader make you hard and uncaring in return.
5. Recognize the impact of your words and thoughts to create the world.
God created the universe through speech. Insult, meanness, vilification, and even sarcasm and jadedness, create negative clouds that replicate and compound. Create pockets of earnestness, wholesomeness, hopefulness. For no good reason. Just because that’s the world you want to live in.
6. Make beauty and joy.
If you disagree with a dark view of the world that suspects immigrants and minorities, that insists that we are on a tragic march toward destruction, then do the opposite. Insist on delight. On joy. On trust. Believe. Create beauty. Take an art class. Play music. Join with neighbors on a mural. Lavish attention on something delightful with a loved one. There is a reason that the Jewish tradition understands hiddur mitzvah, performing a mitzvah beautifully or beautifying the ritual items needed, to be praiseworthy in and of itself.
7. Give yourself permission to have a personal life, regardless of the headlines.
Carve out space to live in your body, family, home, and community. Like the wisdom of Shabbat, create a separation between sacred and profane, between holy time and battle time. Your doom-scrolling won’t change or help anything. (It didn’t last time either.) Put the phone down and look at your beloved or your children across the dinner table. Preserve pockets of your life that the news headlines can’t reach.
The last eight years have been full of impossible situations. From a first Trump administration to a worldwide pandemic and shutdown to a devastating war in the Middle East and its accompanying rise in antisemitism. I can’t brace myself anymore against this. I can’t continue like this, worrying and despairing, wincing and hiding, standing rigid and unfeeling because, as a colleague said to me recently, if I feel it all, I won’t be able to pick myself back up off the floor. There is only so long I can go in a heightened emotional state of danger. I need to change tactics. This is me trying.
We are needed. Even when the world seems mean, arrogant, deceitful, callous, jaded, and ugly. Our kindness and compassion is needed. Our humility and honesty is needed. Our earnestness and hope is needed. Our vulnerability and beauty is needed. Our love is needed. Let us start right here, with ourselves, in our bodies, lives, homes, and neighborhoods. We are needed.
Rabbi Julia Appel is Clal’s Senior Director of Innovation, helping Jewish professionals and lay leaders revitalize their communities by serving their people better. She is passionate about creating Jewish community that meets the challenges of the 21st century – in which Jewish identity is a choice, not an obligation. Her writing has been featured in such publications as The Forward, The Globe and Mail, and The Canadian Jewish News, among others.