A Different Response: Faith Leaders Model the Power of Building Trust to Work Through Challenge

Rabbi Fred Reeves, The Director of the Jewish Faith Network at the One America Movement, shares his experience of inviting his Muslim Co-worker into his sacred space.

Photo: Hebrew Union College

Human beings are social creatures, and our brains have developed in such a way that not only is participating in a group comforting, it is also beneficial for our health. We also respond to people in our group very differently than those from out of our group. It is not only that we are relaxed, but our limbic system actually has different responses in those different situations.

It is with that in mind that I was looking forward to my workshop at the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. This seminary is my alma mater; the participants in my workshop would be rabbinic students. Not only was this an inside group for me, I was inside for them, and as a rabbi in the field for twenty years, I had an unspoken position of authority with the participants.

As our four-day session began, my expectations in this regard proved to be true; the participants reacted in predictable ways, and I was able to lean into the learned behaviors of facilitating groups and my rabbinic presence that made the first two days quite easy to manage. I’m not trying to say that the workshop was an easy one; our material is robust, we had a tight schedule, and the participants asked challenging questions. BUT, we all were able to remain in our comfort zones.

However, on our third day, we welcomed Shaykh Ibad Wali into our space. Shaykh Wali is the Senior Muslim Advisor for the One America Movement, and I had invited him in to share the experience that he and I have been working through in order to create some Muslim/Jewish dialogue. After Shaykh Wali had shared some of his own personal story, we talked in generalities about some of the challenges that we had been facing in getting the dialogue group functioning.

Next, we shared with the group the core values of the One America Movement: Challenge, Difference, Dignity, Faith, Substance, and Trust, and we explained that one of the ways that we live out those values is by being involved in the work ourselves, not only facilitating it for others. We explained that we had begun having one-on-one conversations to create a model of the Muslim - Jewish dialogue that we wanted to see.

I can only imagine what it was like for Shaykh Wali to come into the space; he is a gracious man and thanked us for welcoming us into our sacred space, but it was clear, as he said, that it was not his space. I was at home with very similar people; he was the lone Muslim. As we began to talk about the conversations that we had had, however, I moved out of that place of extreme comfort and into a very vulnerable space.

Ibad and I - I am purposefully switching to his first name here - have built a deep relationship, but it has not been an easy process on either side. Another way we live our values is by applying the idea that “stories stay and lessons leave”; in other words, I am not going to discuss the exact conversations that we had, the stories that we told, and the feelings that we expressed. The lessons of those conversations, I can share.

Relationships are essential. As we started our journey to address toxic polarization within our communities, we soon learned that we had to first address it within ourselves. We realized that we needed to step back a bit and develop more trust in our relationship before we could talk about things that challenged us. As that relationship has deepened, we have been able to be more challenging with one another.

As we shared the development of our relationship with the group of rabbinic students, I felt the echo of the physiological responses I had felt during the challenging moments, and I shared those with the group, both the original and the echo. One of the challenging elements of the work that we do at the One America Movement is that, by definition, it takes us out of our comfort zones. If we do not feel challenged, we haven’t spoken across a line of difference. But in order to make the Risk/Reward calculation come out on the reward side, relationships have to be established and cultivated throughout. By sharing the development of this relationship with the participants, we were able to model for them not only how to engage in conversation across lines of difference, but also how to pay attention to what physiological responses you are having and how that will affect the conversation. As I told the participants, it turns out deep breathing actually does slow down your heart rate, reduce the flow of adrenaline, and make listening more possible!

There is an irony that the responses that we developed to keep us safe are also the ones that can keep us from recognizing the humanity in those around us. And so, the One America Movement builds our work on our faith traditions, engaging the idea that in our diversity is a shared humanity that comes from a divine source, and whether we are in-group or out-group with another individual, we all deserve respect and dignity.