Since mid-November, I have been meeting weekly for lunch with Imam Khalil Abdur-Rashid, the Muslim chaplain on our Harvard campus.

We started meeting because he wanted to gather Muslim and Jewish student leaders after a public statement from the undergraduate student association following the October 7 Hamas attacks caused great consternation and tension at Harvard and far beyond. Khalil hoped to create a space where students could acknowledge their pain and loss, prevent further division and animosity, and initiate broader campus efforts at dignified discussion and action. 

It was a beautiful idea, but not one that has yet been able to come to fruition. Our students have felt too hurt, too angry, and too scared to be able to do anything together this academic year. 

We have tried several experiments to bring them together: a communal mourning circle, an outdoor meditation experience, a joint trip, and an interfaith iftar. Each one fell apart because of the deep divisions on campus and external pressures. Everyone feels isolated and unable to sit with the isolation of the other. 

Khalil and I have continued to sit, eat, mourn, and get to know each other. Over the year, our families have met, and we have trusted each other deeply as we negotiate a sharply divided campus. 

While our students have been unable to cosponsor any events, we have taken it upon ourselves to help heal the divides on campus when possible. In December 2023, we and other chaplains hosted a joint prayer vigil. While it might seem like an uncontroversial ritual experience, praying publicly for the welfare of innocent people on both sides of this horrific conflict made national news. 

To love one’s neighbor, we cannot ignore our differences. We must lean in and explore these matters honestly and dignifiedly.

In January and March 2024, Khalil and I facilitated programming on being a good neighbor with someone you profoundly disagree with.  We tried to offer a different engagement model to the Harvard community, one I consider to reflect the best Jewish values essential to life at Hebrew College. We suggested that to love one’s neighbor, we cannot ignore our differences; instead, we must lean in and explore these matters honestly and dignifiedly. Nearly 1,000 Harvard affiliates attended these events. 

Because of our friendship and camaraderie, Harvard asked Khalil and me to give the opening benediction at the undergraduate commencement ceremony. We have the honor of blessing almost 35,000 graduates and their families. In the history of Harvard, there has never been a graduation benediction given by two chaplains of different religions. We intend to speak about the power of feeling alone together. 

Even though we continue to struggle to bring our communities together as individuals–as friends, teachers, and symbolic exemplars–we have attempted to model authentic bridgebuilding throughout this challenging year. 

My Hebrew College Rabbinical School training equipped me to build bridges with someone like Khalil. My classmates and I often disagreed about theology, ideology, and sacred practice–and we continued to be in a relationship. When I reflect on these disagreements, I often think of the following teaching from the great Hasidic master, Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav (d. 1810): 

“Know that disagreement (machloket) is analogous to the creation of the world, which consisted of creating an empty space … 

For if it were not so, everything would be infinitely divine (ein sof), 

and there would be no space for the world. 

Therefore, G!d contracted the divine light … 

leaving space in which the world could be created … 

So too with disagreement: 

For if all the wise ones were united, there could be no [further] creation … 

It is only when there is disagreement among them–when they move apart–that space is created … analogous to the empty space … in which the world itself was created.” 

Rebbe Nachman makes brilliant use of Isaac Luria’s (16th century) image of cosmic tzimtzum (“contraction”) as a model for the creative potential of those who engage respectfully across differences. For such a creative encounter to occur, however, we must be willing to let the other be themselves and be brave enough to express our differences of belief or opinion. For Rebbe Nachman, this is essential to fruitful Torah study and religious creativity. 

As with my Hebrew College peers, Khalil and I have promised to create the necessary space to explore our spiritual and ethical positions honestly and respectfully. While we certainly agree about some things, we also have genuine disagreements; ignoring them will not help us or the people we serve. 

Editor’s note: This article was first published on May 28, 2024, by Hebrew College. It has been lightly edited for clarity and length.