The 2016 US presidential election left families, communities, and a nation divided. A Jewish congregation just outside of Washington, DC, was no exception. 

“Our leaders stopped trusting each other and avoided situations where disagreements would have to be hashed out in public,” according to a case study written by the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation. 

After the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, several youth asked the synagogue to support members who wanted to protest for tighter gun laws, says Rabbi Michael Holzman. “Arranging buses to help congregants attend the March for Our Lives would affirm the primacy of saving a life and the virtue of civic engagement in Jewish tradition, but I knew we risked alienating our gun enthusiasts and politically conservative members.”

The synagogue’s leaders had been working on ways to help people get out of their partisan comfort zones and show up with open minds and hearts to have respectful conversations. They hosted a series of congregational conversations about whether to send buses to the march. The aim was to encourage members to share their opinions on guns while not just speaking, but also listening. 

They structured each gathering as they would services, using elements of religious life like ritual, scriptures, sacred space, clergy, prayer, song, and silence. The centerpiece was storytelling by community members personally affected by the topic. It took place in the sanctuary. 

They asked speakes “to give 80% facts and events from the storytellers’ lives, and 20% commentary, opinions, or feelings about those facts,” according to the case study. “After each story, we respond with shamati [‘I hear you’ in Hebrew] and then sit in silence for 10-20 seconds to absorb what was said. We do not take questions.”

“Responding and waiting slows the discussion and makes interruptions impossible. Following the process deflects the instinctive quick response to the previous speaker and instead challenges participants to speak from their own convictions.”

According to Rabbi Holzman, “the comments were all over the political map, many hard to place, defying the usual left-right polarities.” What shifted the conversation was when one teenager stood up and said, “Anyone who has been through a lock-down drill, please stand up.” The teens and a few schoolteachers stood. The rest sat in silence. The congregation agreed to pay for the buses and the gun-right activist congregants didn’t complain. “They listened and they had been heard,” says Rabbi Holzman.

The Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation tried many experiments like this in the last few years, described in a case study published by the Aspen Institute’s Religion and Society program. Their conclusions include “10 Faith Habits for Effective Citizenship” and six practices for using spiritual practices to rebuild democracy.