11/05/2024
With the election today, roughly half of this country will be awarded a victory for their candidate. It’s vital that when the dust settles, the victors turn with love, empathy and dialogue towards those who lost and feel forsaken.
Whether your candidate wins or loses, it’s important to recognize that life isn’t over – there’s a higher plan in place for us. Don’t forget that behind the king on the chess board is a guiding hand maneuvering it and all the other pieces.
This point was made clear to us 24 years ago when in a nation of 282 million people, George Bush edged out Al Gore by 537 votes in Florida to win the election, a margin of only 0.009%. Whether you deem that result good or bad, after 9/11 and two Mideast wars, who knows how differently the world would look if 0.046% would’ve gone differently?
Judaism teaches that life in this world is a paradoxical blend of radical free choice & a grand Divine plan. Before something happens, it’s on you alone to decide. After it happens, it happened the way it was meant to. Work hard to achieve what you believe in, but understand that there’s a greater vision at play here that we’re not privy to. Instead of ecstasy or depression, let’s be humble in victory and hopeful in defeat. For ultimately, we know so very little.
A friend of mine who works in emergency care, once told me of a patient who clinically died and was resuscitated. The patient later remarked: “One thing I can say is that in those moments I felt an overwhelming sense that everything happens the way it’s meant to.”
I’ll leave you with the final words of President Richard Nixon’s concession speech in 1960:
“I have great faith about the future of this country. I have great faith that our people, Republicans, Democrats alike, will unite behind our next president in seeing that America does meet the challenge which destiny has placed upon us. And that challenge is to give the leadership to the whole world which will produce a world in which all men can have what we have in the United States: freedom, independence, the right to live in peace with our neighbors.”
