Sermon 11.24.06 - Parshat Toldot: Reconciling After the Midterm Elections

A letter from Isaac the Patriarch:

To the divided nation of America,

Though we are separated by half a world and three and a half millennia, I must say that I am intrigued by your great country. I have been watching a lot of CNN over the past few months (or at least I have been listening, as my eyesight is still not so great). And while I admire your eternal optimism and pursuit of liberty and equal opportunity, I must say that I am saddened to see your great country torn apart once again. It seems as though each election year, your country erupts into fierce polarization. The American people have spent a good part of the past months dividing red from blue, left from right, coast from heartland. And its really taken its toll on all of you. I fear for a community so often racked by dissension, bitterly divided over its future. So as a man who has lived a life embroiled in conflict, I would like to offer a bit of advice to your constituents.

While I spent the majority of my own life resolving the quarrels of my father Abraham’s generation, I myself gave birth to a generation of brutal separation in Jacob and Esau. I took this regret with me to the grave. I look at you now and see my beloved children, blood-brothers pitted against one another. First there is Esau, strong and bold Esau, a proud hunter from the red nation, the Edomites. He is rugged and firm, spending his time away from the big cities, preferring to live under the open skies. He is the biblical archetype of the modern red-stater, a proud NRA card carrier and skeptic of institutional bureaucracies, as they seem to get things like birth rights screwed up. Then there is Jacob, my tent dwelling, lentil-soup cooking intellectual. He prefers the indoors and enjoys spending time with his mother. I think he would have rather enjoyed this quaint city of San Francisco. So these are by two sons. One is Alabama, the other Barak Obama. One is former Virginia senator George Allen, the other Woody Allen. And like you Americans, my sons cannot seem to accept one another and peacefully co-exist.
I too come from divided roots, what with my half-brother Ishmael driven away from me, an aunt turned into a pile of salt, my uncle Lot who offered his own daughters up to a ravenous lynch mob, and my own experience of having to grow up across the world from my father’s tribesmen. My family sure comes with a lot of baggage! But I transcended my family’s quarrels and devoted my life to finding common ground with the other. Now I am asking the same of you. The way I see it, you have two possible futures – following my example of reconciliation or Esau and Jacob’s of division and retribution. I hope you will choose the former and reject the latter. Maybe then you can solve the quarreling which started in my house but has spread to yours like a disease. In order to accomplish this, I wish to offer you four lessons from my life. I hope these tips will help to unite your country, communities, and families, all torn apart by a violent season of accusations and stereotyping. I beg you to heed my words carefully:

1. Stay connected and engaged in your national community. Seems simple enough, right? Still, I remember two years ago, when far too many people half-jokingly contemplated emigration to Canada following the presidential election. Now two years later, others talk about leaving the elitist urban centers of the coasts and joining their bretheren in the South and Midwest. A few years ago some of y’all even threatened to boycott products created in certain regions. This approach is not going to get us anywhere. You Americans should not say, “If my candidate is not elected, I’m going to leave.” You should say, “Because my candidate was not elected, I’m not going anywhere.” True agents of change have complete loyalty to their land and people, and remain to fight for what they believe in. Just look at my life. I was the only patriarch to remain in Eretz Israel in difficult times, choosing to dig wells and provide water for the people. My father Abraham, my sons Jacob and Esau and all 12 of my grandsons left the land in times of peril. I didn’t avoid the problems of my era. I addressed them and made peace with my adversaries.
On the other hand, you could end up like my sons Jacob and Esau. They could hardly be present in the same house at the same time. Their fighting grew so violent that Jacob eventually ran away from home to escape his brother’s wrath. The brothers grew apart and raised families alienated from one another. I would hope that you would want better for your children than the strife and hurt that I provided for mine. In order to do so, you must remain present and invested in your greater community. That doesn’t mean just your street, neighborhood or city. You are one nation, bound together through shared responsibility. America is neither San Francisco values nor Bible Belt virtues. You are a careful equilibrium. Thus you must be present in the national dialogue and invite your adversaries to address you as equals.

2. Rather than dismiss those who disagree with you, try to understand their perspective and work with them. In your country, the blue-states label the red states as illiterate, gun-loving, bible-thumping fanatics, who don’t deserve respect, much less governmental representation. They act as though the knuckle-dragging Neanderthals of the midwest are lucky to be book-ended by the culture, intelligence and creativity of coasts. Meanwhile, the red-states call the blues ostentatious snobs, too obsessed with creating a media elite to consider family values. By creating these vicious stereotypes, each group robs itself of the opportunity to take one other seriously. Political debate is hashed and rehashed on 24 hour cable as a series of demeaning stereotypes in which neither side learns anything about the other.
I’m just glad that my sons Jacob and Esau weren’t alive in this age. They had enough problems on their own. Esau always looked down on Jacob as a wimp and a mama’s boy. He never wanted anything to do with him. And Jacob spent his entire lifetime underestimating his bigger brother, taking advantage of Esau’s trust in order to beguile him. Their preconceived stereotypes blocked each brother from ever getting to know the other.
Rather you should follow in the steps of me and my half-brother Ishmael. Despite being born by different mothers of different peoples, we not only played together (which made my mom plenty nervous), but when we grew up, we even married our children to one another. And look! Esau and Ishmael’s daughter Mahalath became parents of an entire nation. I hope that your children should get along so well! This can only happen in an environment of engagement and mutual understanding. Baseless stereotypes only serve to draw us apart.

3. Stop fighting the battles of your past, lest they become your future. Your election is over. Please stop wearing the “Friends don’t let friends vote Republican” shirts. Republicans, please give us at least a year before you begin to demonize Hillary Clinton. Time is precious and you both need to move on. I learned this lesson at an early age. Like my father, I visited Abimelech, the Philistine King of Gerar. At first, I continued in my father’s errant ways. Like him, I pretended my wife was my sister so that I wouldn’t be in danger of being harmed. But unlike my father, I changed course and eventually made peace with Abimelech. I was able to break a tradition of strife and together Abimelech and I founded the city of Beersheba, now one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse communities in all of Israel. All of this because I refused to continue fighting my father’s battles and did not want to pass them onto my children.
Sadly, my children found their own way to senseless feuding. From the moment of their births, Jacob and Esau constantly fought for my birthright and blessing. They should have thought less about receiving my blessing and more about making blessings of their own. After all, what’s the point of inheriting the birthright of a broken home? As a country a century and a half removed from complete division, you Americans would be well advised to quit wrestling for silly birthrights and start settling on fair compromises. So enough of the Mark Foley jokes and political pot shots. And to the Democratic members of congress, the American people did not elect you in order to usher a golden age of subpoenas, impeachment hearings and ethics investigations. There is much work to be done, and the public is waiting. Make your peace and start rebuilding your communities now.

4. Prioritize important issues of empowerment and diversity; ignore all others. You have spent the past months bogged down in divisive issues concerning the few (Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff) rather than integral issues which obligate the many (the war in Iraq, medicare, the minimum wage and the environment to name a few). You have spent so much time squabbling that it sometimes seems like you have forgotten what you originally started fighting over.
I faced similar attempts to derail my efforts over flippant arguments. For instance, when I built a well near the town of Gerar, the people claimed ownership even though I had built the well alone. Did I fight the people to recoup the fruits of my labor? No, I moved on and started again. When the same thing happened again, I moved farther from their land and founded a new city altogether. This city, Rechovot, still stands today. I could have engulfed myself in a ticky-tack dispute over well ownership. But where would that have gotten me? Instead I carefully picked my battles and built for the future. I dug wells to support a city having a hard time coping with its water supply. I encourage you to do the same in New Orleans. Or you can choose to be like my children – they’re stuck in history, forever fighting over a bowl of lentil soup.

I admit that I have personal reasons to see you succeed, as my own efforts as a father failed miserably. I fear that you will follow the path of my children and become estranged to the point of not knowing one another. My family went through its own sort of civil war, a situation which none of you want to relive. Thus you must wrestle with your personal angels sooner than later, and then move on towards cooperation. So for you the American public, go find your private Yabbok river (where my son Jacob wrestled his nameless angel) and take a good look within. Then take a deep breath, cross the river, and meet your brother on the other side.

In closing, I’d like to share a story with you, the American people of 2006. An elderly is hunching over on the side of the road, planting an oak tree. A traveler comes upon him and asks, “Feeble old man, why do you spend your last days planting a tree which you will never see grow?” The man responds, “I plant today so that my children should receive the fruit, just as I am supported by those who planted before me.” Likewise, you Americans face crucial issues whose impact will be realized only in future generations. You have already passed on a gigantic financial deficit which your children will have to climb out from. Don’t add to this the gift of division, as I bequeathed to my sons Jacob and Esau. I urge you to follow the example of my life and not the circumstances of my death, and stand united towards a better future.

Your friend,

Isaac the Patriarch