Keeping Our Goodness Flowing

By Sam Fine

Image Description: Blog image with a photo of a tree with golden, fall leaves. Text reads, “Cheshvan 5787 By Sam Fine”

With the midterms less than three weeks away, many of us are in the thick of campaigning. We're organizing, supporting political candidates who reflect our values, fighting for policies that protect our neighbors, and planning for what could come next. We're also navigating a political climate that thrives on division, where dehumanization is normalized.

For over a decade, I've been involved with organizing that aims to move the American Jewish community toward support for Palestinian liberation. I've witnessed the devastating consequences of dehumanizing Palestinians, often in the name of Jewish safety.

Challenging that dehumanization has been central to my work and to how I understand my responsibilities in the world.

Last week, I felt pain at another instance of what can happen when we refuse to see one another's humanity. News coverage of the counterprotests at the October 7 memorial vigil attended by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stayed with me. People had gathered to mourn, and I was pained to see that grief met with dehumanization. 

These experiences raise questions that feel especially urgent right now. How do we remain committed to justice while continuing to reach for one another's humanity? What does it mean to see the divine image, b'tzelem Elohim, in another person without setting aside our values or pretending that all harms are equal? I believe that how we practice being with one another, especially when it's difficult, matters. It may help us find our way through these questions.

This past summer, I had an unexpected opportunity to put that belief into practice.

My husband, parents, and I went on a fishing excursion from Vancouver. Our guide was a captain, angler, and hunter who had spent his life working on the land. We found common ground quickly in our dislike of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. I held onto that connection and listened as he shared his views on American and Canadian politics, including Indigenous land rights and immigration. On many of these issues, our views were very far apart.

I was surprised to learn that despite his deep connection to the natural world, and his own observations of shrinking fish and crab populations, he didn't believe in human-caused climate change. My family was listening, too. My husband was too angry to engage calmly, and my parents worried that some of our guide's views might intersect with antisemitism—all very valid reactions! But I stayed curious. I don't know much about Canadian politics, and I genuinely wanted to understand how he saw the world.

At one point, he asked why I opposed a border wall. “If you had a house, would you have a fence?” he asked. I had never really considered it. I grew up in Midwestern suburbs where some houses had fences, and others didn't. I thought about the question honestly before answering, “Only if I had a dog so it could run around.”

We kept talking. We still disagreed about plenty, but we also discovered unexpected points of connection here and there. 

We didn't change one another's minds. But it felt like a rare conversation for both of us, and perhaps that was enough. After the trip, my husband and parents expressed surprise at my ability to stay in the conversation, even when our guide said things that infuriated us all. The truth is that the conversation left an imprint on me. I felt that we had connected, and I came away with a clearer sense of my own values and beliefs.

I kept thinking about the hypothetical fence around my home. It became a recurring theme for me throughout the rest of the summer. What do we protect when we build boundaries, and what might we lose? When is a boundary necessary, and when does it keep us from encountering the world and one another more fully? I kept returning to these questions, thinking about that conversation on the fishing boat.

I credit much of my ability to stay present during that conversation to my Mussar practice and my experience co-facilitating Fight Like a Mensch, Kirva's program for cultivating the spiritual practices we need to sustain our work for justice and grow a multiracial democracy.

Two of the sessions focused on savlanut, or forbearance: bearing the burden with the other. We practiced tools for staying connected across differences, including a “keeping my goodness flowing” meditation and the “curiosity pivot,” a way of responding to opposing views with questions rather than immediately moving to judgment or rebuke.

I'd encountered the curiosity pivot before, and I knew intellectually that I wanted to remain curious. But teaching these practices and returning to them regularly helped them take root in my life. When the conversation on that boat became difficult, I had something to reach for to regulate my nervous system, to remember that I was safe, to keep my goodness flowing toward our guide, listening for the burdens he carried, and remaining curious without pretending we agreed.

This doesn't mean every difficult conversation is worth having, or that we should remain open to someone who is causing harm. There are times when setting a boundary, speaking out, or leaving a conversation is the most important thing we can do. And curiosity alone cannot dismantle unjust systems. Recognizing another person's humanity doesn't mean excusing their actions, ignoring differences in power, or treating all harm as equal.

But the ability to stay present, resist reducing another person to their worst beliefs, and remain grounded in our own values is a practice worth cultivating. It can help us discern when and how to engage, and sustain us in the longer work of building a more just world.

As we approach the midterms and whatever comes after, I invite you to keep your goodness flowing. To stay rooted in your commitments while remaining open to the people and possibilities beyond the boundaries we build. To notice when a boundary protects what matters, and when it keeps us from seeing one another more fully. And to keep asking what our responsibilities to one another demand of us in this time.

I'm excited to host Fight Like a Mensch again in Los Angeles this January, alongside cohorts forming in communities across the country. If you're looking for Jewish spiritual practices to sustain your work for justice and democracy, I hope you'll join us. 

Chodesh tov,

Sam Fine Kirva's Communications and Development Director