Shabbat shalom, everybody.

It has been… a week. Quite a week. 

I actually had the pleasure this week of standing together with two dozen other faith leaders from around the state in Lewiston and speaking publicly about the nonpartisan interfaith efforts that are underway nationwide to get out the vote and prevent voter suppression. It was awesome. With my colleagues from other faiths, we shared how we each navigate the boundaries between discussions of faith and discussions of civic issues, including politics, and how the inherent gray spaces between religion and the electoral process can be challenging for everyone.

One of the pastors I stood with this week shared that she approaches her pulpit with the attitude that it is her duty to speak to whatever it is that her congregants are wrestling with, whatever it is that is impacting their day-to-day lives. “If I refuse to ever talk politics”, she said, “that means that I am sometimes refusing to talk about my congregants’ pain.”

And that resonated with me, especially this week. I don’t want to be a rabbi who always talks politics, because there is so much more to life and to Judaism. However, lately, I have indeed been moved to give several sermons about our political process in Maine, specifically because I see how deeply that process is impacting all of you, the congregants of this synagogue, and how much your worries and hopes and concerns are being influenced by what is happening within the political sphere. 

Before the recent primary, I highlighted a series of leadership lessons from the parasha B’haalot’cha, and drew parallels between the experiences of leadership our people faced while wandering in the desert, and the decisions we voters had to make while choosing candidates for a statewide leader now, in 2026. 

After the primary, I used the story of the spies scouting out the Promised Land as a reminder that trauma has lasting impacts on our decisions and actions, and I urged us all to remember that different people can respond to the same scenario in very different ways, reaching very different conclusions, just because of the life experiences we carry with us.

And this week… well, this week is another difficult week for us as Mainers, as we navigate yet another surprise turn in the electoral process. I know that there are people here today and online who feel a wide variety of emotions about what has happened this week. 

And my goal is not to tell you how to feel, and not to shame or judge anyone for your reaction to these intense few days. It’s not to tell you how I feel, either. I firmly believe we are stronger for our diversity and our uniqueness, and that extends to our political beliefs, as long as we engage in our conversations about politics with good faith, and with open hearts and open minds. 

I also want to affirm, though, that we have a strength as Jews. And that strength is that we know that we are part of something bigger. We know, at the end of the day, that there is no single party or candidate that is bigger, deeper, or more important than that which goes beyond.

And so, with that understanding, we are going to look together at this week’s Torah portion. We are going to look at the Torah portion through a lens of communal exhaustion, communal hopes, communal disappointments, and communal compromise. 

And through it all, I want us to keep coming back to the refrain that we are connected to each other, and to God, in a way that transcends anything that could happen in the ballot box.

My hope is that, as with the previous two sermons during this election season, these words will provide us with a sacred framework for holding the difficult mix of feelings impacting our community, and will help guide us forward, after a series of sudden political shifts.   

This week’s Torah portion is a double one, Matot- Masei. Matot literally means “tribes”, and “Masei” means “journeys”. This sermon will mainly focus on the Matot portion, which is also what we read from today. 

We have, of course, been talking about Matot– talking about tribes, that is– pretty much nonstop for chapters and chapters and weeks and weeks. We’ve learned about how the different tribes of B’nai Yisrael marched and rested and communicated, how they divvied up tasks both ritual and non-religious, how certain tribes carried tent poles and certain tribes carried dolphin skins and certain tribes carried candelabras, and so on and so forth. While all of the tribes had certain things in common– common roots, common ancestry, and common experiences in slavery and then freedom– their day-to-day lives were not identical, and their priorities were not always the same. 

It is important to remember both how the different tribes were aligned and also how they were independent from one another.

We’ve also learned in the past few weeks that not all tribes were happy with those differences, and with the divisions of labor and power that existed while our people wandered the desert. Just two weeks ago, we read the story of Korach, a charismatic leader who believed that the status quo was unjust. He was not alone– he brought others from his tribe with him, en masse, to confront Moses and to demand change. He successfully appealed to the emotions of his followers, and those followers clearly did not anticipate that his downfall– and theirs– would be swift and merciless. 

But although Korach’s case is the most infamous one, we also know that his was not the only circumstance where certain tribes, and certain leaders within those tribes, differed in their opinions of what the future of B’nai Yisrael should look like. Pinchas, last week, clearly thought that zealotry and violence were effective means to his ends. Meanwhile, other tribes disagreed, and wanted closer relations with outsiders. 

And in parashat Matot, this week, we see the tribes of Reuven and Gad somewhat shockingly announcing that after decades of wandering together in the wilderness, their families actually don’t want to settle in the Promised Land with the rest of the tribes after all, but would, in fact, prefer to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan, and make their future there. 

And this announcement, that their two tribes were going to take a different path than the others, was painful for Moses and the other Israelites to hear. They are clearly shaken.

Moses, in fact, panics at this shock announcement. He immediately worries that the decisions of the tribes of Reuven and Gad will have dire consequences for the entire future of B’nai Yisrael. It is clear in this moment that Moses himself loses sight of the fact that we are all bound by something greater than any single tribe or its actions. Calling them sinful and dangerous, he even claims that by choosing a different path וְשִֽׁחַתֶּ֖ם לְכָל־הָעָ֥ם הַזֶּֽה “And you will destroy this entire people!”

In other words, the shock announcement from Reuven and Gad shakes Moses so much that he is afraid that the entire dream of B’nai Yisrael, and the entire future he had envisioned for them, was over. 

And Moses’ fear makes sense. When a person or a group of people change their path in what seems to be an abrupt or unexpected manner from the outside, it can be unnerving. Whether we are talking about changing long-set plans, converting to another religion, coming out of the closet, revealing a deeply held secret, or another major change, other people often need time and space to adjust to the new reality. Parents, partners, children, and friends need space to let go of their old ideas about a person or a movement, and to get used to the new ideas. There may even be a grieving process, and a mourning process, as others let go of one type of dream or one type of a relationship, and begin to build a new one.

And the other Matot, the other tribes in this week’s Torah portion, probably had to go through something similar when Reuven and Gad made that announcement. Moses certainly had to wrap his head around this choice. Clearly, it had been expected that all of the tribes would journey on together and build a future together. They were so close to the Promised Land– they had just scouted out to see it!-- and a better future must have seemed tantalizingly close. 

Hearing that that future would no longer look just like they had imagined it must have hurt.

And in case I’m not laying this out obviously enough, I’m going to be blunt: there are people here today and online and in this congregation who are hurting right now in exactly this manner; people who are frustrated, and upset, and disappointed, because the future you had hoped for is no longer possible, not in the same way.

And I hope that one of the things you’re hearing through these words is that you’re not alone in those feelings, as people, as citizens, or as Jews.

There may even be people in our number who are identifying with the followers of Korach, whose strategy led not to success, but to being swallowed by the Earth. 

There may be people in our number who are scared, like Moses, and who worry that the shocks of the past week might mean destruction of an entire movement, or an entire dream.

There may also be those of us who are full of relief this week, and that is another emotion to remember and honor.

But if we stop our analysis and our empathy at this moment in the story, with the anger and frustration and fear, we are doing ourselves and our tradition a disservice, and we are missing out on a valuable lesson. 

Because as much as the tribes of Reuven and Gad did, indeed, pull the rug out from under their companions; as much as the vision for the future had to shift abruptly following their decision to settle on the East of the Jordan– as much as both of these things are true, that’s not the end of the story.

Because the end of the story is actually that despite that decision, despite that shock, the Matot, the tribes, remained united when it mattered most. They just had to be willing to pivot, and to adapt, and to unite in a new way, around a slightly different dream. 

The tribes of Reuven and Gad communicated, and they compromised. They sacrificed immediate satisfaction and the home they wanted and instead promised to fight with their brethren. They did not take the easy way out; they did not refuse to do the messy work to find a new dream together. They did not disregard the very real fear and concern from the other tribes and from Moses. 

Again, in case the metaphor isn’t clear, I’m going to be blunt: no matter what you are feeling today, whether it is anger and frustration, whether it is relief, whether it is Schadenfreude, whether it is just utter exhaustion– this isn’t the end of the story or the process for our state and its leadership, or this country, or us as a people, and the only way forward is to listen to each other. To let go of older visions of dreams that are no longer viable, and to lean towards compromise. The bigger picture are key. 

This is true when we are talking about multiple political parties learning to work together, and it’s also true when we are talking about different groups within the same political party. Surprises will happen. Shock and fear will happen. The question is, how do we respond to those shocks and those fears, and does the process lead to greater connection, or to greater division? 

And through it all, can we remember that there is no one party, no one person, and no one idea that will bring the ultimate answer?

It is not upon us to finish the work, but neither may we desist from it. 

As citizens, it can feel like we are in different tribes, in different camps, in different Matot. It certainly feels that way whenever we are handed a ballot and have to choose between this name or this name or this name. Catchy slogans, colorful flags, all of these things can make us feel good and like we belong to a special group amongst the masses.

But the masses are tied together in an even deeper way.

Just like the twelve tribes in the desert, we have to be able to set aside our flags, and our slogans, and come together when there is a greater cause, and a bigger challenge to face. The health of our community, our synagogue, our state, our nation, is always going to be bigger than one candidate or one dream.

It is a precious thing to be a part of a tribe. But it’s an even more precious thing to be part of an Am, part of a people.   

Our ancestors knew this, and they still made it to the Promised Land, in the end. They didn’t have to give up on their dream because it changed– they just had to be willing to dream it slightly differently.   

And the same is true for us, as citizens of this state. We have to learn the lesson our ancestors did– and we have to be willing, too, to dream a new dream, and to dream it together.

Shabbat shalom.