We See It So Differently: Creative Ways for Jews to Make Peace When Family Members or Colleagues Disagree About Religion, Politics, and Other Issues

By Leonard Felder

Bestselling author and award-winning psychologist Leonard Felder, PhD explores how to respond to the political and religious disagreements that are currently causing painful moments at family get-togethers, workplace conversations, and congregational meetings.   When people in your life get on your nerves about red versus blue, or

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781641115551

Book preview

Chapter One:

WHAT TO DO WHEN IT STARTS TO GET INTENSE

O

n a Sunday evening in late July in Detroit when I was 14, the humidity rose to such an unbearable level you could spot which of my extended family members were wearing antiperspirant (and which were unable to raise their hands and be sure).

On this particular night, more than 60 souls had squeezed into my immigrant grandparents' small two-bedroom home (with no air conditioning) on Freeland Street near Seven Mile Road in the northwest part of the Motor City.

The Fahrenheit got up to 97 degrees that day, but now at sunset it cooled to only 92. I looked out the front window of my grandparents' living room and noticed that another 25 male relatives were gathered outside under the street lights along Freeland Street toward Pembroke Avenue listening to the Detroit Tigers baseball game on their car radios.

Suddenly one of the male relatives called out from the front door, Time for a minyan.

I was the youngest person in the room. I had been asked to wear a white shirt with dark pants. A small, torn black ribbon had been pinned to my shirt pocket at the cemetery.

My mom had died 48 hours earlier after four exhausting years of cancer treatments. She was 46. The burial a few hours ago had been followed by platters full of deli food at my grandparents' home.

My grieving dad was a Holocaust survivor from Plauen, Germany who had lost most of his relatives in the camps and who didn't like to show emotion. My older sister felt deeply sad but she was trying to hold it together.

I was the younger kid and I had been up most nights the past seven months unable to calm my noisy brain and my pounding heart because I was terrified of losing my mom.

To my maternal grandfather and his religiously observant family members who were wedged into the living room for a chance to be part of the prayers that my grandfather's rabbi was about to lead, the word minyan meant at least ten men and definitely men only.

Suddenly I heard one of my much older cousins using a gruff voice to one of my elderly female cousins who was resting in a comfortable chair in the living room. Go! You should go in the kitchen, he told her, the minyan is about to start. He pointed with his index finger to make sure she took him seriously.

That elderly female cousin rolled her eyes in frustration, but then she stood up slowly and surrendered her comfortable chair to one of the middle-aged men streaming in the front door as the rabbi handed out small prayer books to the men.

I felt my face turning unusually warm and my heart started pounding. I thought about keeping my mouth shut, but then I flashed on a memory of my mother's gentle and caring face as she stood happily in front of the congregation a year earlier at my bar mitzvah with a tight, constricting lymphedema sleeve on her swollen right arm where her surgeries were still sorting themselves out in her fragile body. I thought, Maybe I should say something for the women to be included.

Then I silently told myself, Don't say anything. Don't make a scene.

But in the next moment, I heard my own voice shouting out loud, This isn't right. Mom would have wanted the women to be in the living room. She would want the women to be part of the prayer service. This is wrong.

Several of the older men who were sardined into the corners of the packed living room looked at me with anger and disgust. One elderly cousin glared toward my father, as if to say, You need to get this kid to shut up.

My grandfather looked at me with sadness in his eyes.

Immediately, my dad and my older sister grabbed me by my short-sleeved shirt and pulled me into my grandparents' dimly lit bedroom that smelled like numerous years of deep fried potato latke smoke as well as the lingering fragrances of several hundred Friday night boiled chicken, noodle kugel, and pickled cucumber dinners that all of us loved so much.

My father's face was bright crimson as he warned me, Stop it right now! You’re being ridiculous.

With tears in my eyes, I insisted, No, I’m not being ridiculous. This shiva thing (the first week of mourning) is about Mom. She would want the women to be included. The women should stay in the living room.

My older sister said, Dad's right. You’re being ridiculous.

My father added, This is your grandfather's house. Show some respect.

I felt numb. Confused. Agitated.

I eventually went back into the living room and watched in silence from the corner of the room as the men raced through the prayers.

A QUESTION FOR THE READER

Have you ever been in a situation somewhat like this, where someone you care about had a particular way of doing a religious event or an important life cycle moment so very differently from what you would have preferred…and it made you feel all bottled up inside?

Have you ever tried to shrug it off, but the frustration leaked out through your words, your tone of voice, or your facial expressions and it caused friction between you and this other person?

When you and the people around you are clashing about religion, politics, or other important issues, how do you stand up for what you believe without alienating those who see things differently? What's it been like in your own family, in your own workplace, or at the congregation where you are somewhat or very involved? Or in your marriage or when raising kids? How do you disagree without being disagreeable?

A LIFELONG QUEST FOR CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

I don't have all the answers. But I do have a lifetime of working as a licensed psychologist who has counseled several thousand families, numerous companies and non-profits, and dozens of congregations on how to prevent and resolve the conflicts that tend to arise around certain topics that seem to divide passionate people more than ever these days.

Topics such as:

How do you talk about your personal beliefs or your most-cherished religious practices (or your discomfort with specific religious rules or political choices) without becoming adversarial with the person who sees it differently from how you see it?

How do you talk about Israel (at family gatherings, at school, in your congregation, at your workplace, or at argumentative public forums) with someone who has a point of view that is painfully different from your own and somehow be able to stay on good terms and appreciate the merits of each of your clashing perspectives?

How do you talk about election controversies, health care policy, economic fairness, immigration, LGBT issues, discrimination, environmental concerns, or other hot-button issues with someone who sees things very differently from how you see them?

How do you talk about the details of planning a wedding, a bar or bat mitzvah, a celebration of a newborn, a holiday gathering, a funeral, a Shabbat gathering, or what to do about Jewish education for your children or grandchildren, without getting on each other's nerves or falling into a power struggle?

How do you talk about your personal quest for meaning, purpose, healing, renewal, integrity, and sacredness in your life when you are talking with someone in your family or your workplace who has a very different belief system or a tendency to judge or minimize your feelings about these important topics?

A PERSONAL REALIZATION

When I was 14 at my grandfather's house, I didn't have much guidance on how to deal with my intense feelings. All I knew was that my heart was racing, and my thoughts were exploding.

But several years later I was taking a series of classes on Jewish spirituality and ethics from a wonderful teacher who guided us on the ideas suggested by the twelfth century physician, astronomer, theologian, and ethicist Maimonides (or Rambam, pronounced Rahm-bahm, which is an acronym for Rabbi Moses ben Maimon). Maimonides recommended three crucial steps to follow if you want to offer an opposing view to someone…and how to deliver it with love and decency, rather than blurt out some in your face comments with self-righteous anger or dismissive snarkiness.

If I had taken a class on the mindfulness methods of Maimonides prior to being faced with the upsetting situation of the men kicking the women out of the living room at the shiva gathering following my mother's death, I would have known how to:

MAKE SURE NOT TO PUBLICLY EMBARRASS SOMEONE. Maimonides and many other Jewish writers describe the importance of keeping in mind that the person you disagree with also has a precious soul, an easily wounded spirit, and a hidden spark of the Divine within him or her. Even if that person is loud, pushy, opinionated, or stubborn, the fact remains that he or she is still a vulnerable soul who gets hurt or even crushed by being criticized or contradicted in front of people.

There's a fascinating word in Hebrew that explores what happens when we act in a way that is cold, harsh, or dismissive toward someone with whom we disagree. The word is Mahlbeen and it has several meanings. On a physical level, it means to make white or cause the blood to drain from the face. On a spiritual level, it means to crush someone's spirit or essence because you have treated them harshly with your words or your tone of voice. In terms of Jewish law and tradition, the Talmud says that the person who makes someone else ashamed in the presence of others is as if this person has shed blood.

So when you or I are engaged in a heated conversation with someone, or a power struggle over whose way is going to prevail, how do we avoid causing the blood to drain from the face and how do we make sure not to crush the hidden spark of the Divine that is contained even in that family member or colleague who is so relentlessly opinionated?

In the Jewish mindfulness guidelines of Maimonides and many others, the first step is to breathe, remember this person in front of you has a holy spark of goodness and Divinity somewhere deep inside, and then make sure you talk with this person calmly and respectfully one-on-one where he or she will not be humiliated or embarrassed.

For example, if I had known these Jewish teachings when I was 14, I could have gently asked my beloved grandfather to have a short conversation in a side room where the two of us could hug, open up our hearts, admit that we are both in pain, and then brainstorm together on what options there might be for accommodating both what his traditional rules required and what several others in the family wanted for that shiva gathering.

Instead of confronting and embarrassing my grandfather in front of his rabbi and the many guests, I might have found him to be sufficiently caring and loving if I had taken him aside one-on-one and started by saying, We both are in grief and we both want to do something holy to honor Mom's beautiful soul that is making its transition right now. You go first on what you would like and then I’ll have a turn and then we’ll see if there is a way that both of us can feel heard and included in whatever we come up with on possible ways to do this.

It's not easy to approach someone with whom you disagree and have an open heart and a willingness to listen respectfully. The adrenalin rushing through our bodies and the thoughts racing through our brains make it hard to do this mindfulness step and not just go off on the other person.

But if you breathe calmly for a moment and visualize the precious soul or the spark of the Divine that is hidden deep within this other human being, it can give you a shift in energy that allows you to approach this person with caring and teamwork rather than with harshness or self-righteous anger. I didn't know how to do this when I was 14, but after taking (and eventually teaching) many classes on Jewish methods for creating peace between clashing loved ones, I have seen how amazing these methods are for coming up with creative alternatives and win-win solutions.

MAKE SURE YOU AREN'T DUMPING ON SOMEONE ELSE FOR WHAT FIRST NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED IN YOUR OWN CHARACTER OR PSYCHE. Here's a second step that can help enormously. Maimonides and other Jewish teachers had the brilliance to know that quite often we human beings blurt out at someone else for what we need to clean up in our own habits. In Jungian psychology it's called Shadow Work (examining and working on your own shadow self and hidden tendencies, rather than projecting them outward by accusing someone else). In Twelve Step programs, it's called, Taking your own inventory rather than taking someone else's inventory.

In Jewish spirituality, we are urged each year at the High Holidays and each night before bedtime, to take a Heshbon, an accounting of where we tend to miss the mark and what we can do to grow closer to the kind of person we know we can be if we overcome some of our reactive habits and tendencies.

At the age of 14, I was quick to accuse my grandfather and my older relatives of being closed-minded and rigid. But in fact, I was not yet able to see that I probably had quite a strong tendency to be closed-minded and rigid myself. Like most people who feel passionate about their beliefs and preferences, I was sure on that night that my grandfather was 100% wrong and I was 100% right, and I had no willingness to hear another point of view from what I was certain was the correct point of view.

I didn't know yet the many