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I set up Google Alerts to notify me when anyone uses the term open to difference, and I quickly found it in the title of an article at Harvard Magazine called, “Open to Difference - Three alumnae rabbis help redefine an ancient calling.”

This article explores how female rabbis, who would have been banned from the rabbinate just a few generations ago, are pressing forward. Today, nearly one-third of the rabbis working in the United States are female.

Though the stories of Toba Spitzer, Jennifer (Kirsch) Flatté, and Julia Andelman differ, they have changed the rabbinate and Judaism in significant ways, challenging norms that were held onto for centuries. For example, these and other female rabbis have introduced and legitimized new prayers and blessings for particularly female life-events. Even more controversial is that Rabbi Andelman, who feels strongly about the detrimental impact of hierarchy, stands at the same level as her congregation when she leads services rather than on a raised platform looking down on them.

Some congregants have had a difficult time accepting female rabbis, leaving their place of worship in response. Others have embraced the different perspectives and new ways of thinking that female rabbis bring to their congregation.

Many years ago when I attended temple regularly, I didn’t think twice when a female rabbi in training stood before us during Friday night services. Though provocative today, few will likely think twice about female and male rabbis standing side by side in years to come.

Jason Simon

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Organizations have been created and studies have been conducted to foster improved relations among different generations, as they are thought to be less united than years past. Retirement communities where residents must be 55 years of age or older ensure that like-minded older adults or at least people with similar interests, socioeconomic backgrounds, and education live behind the same gated fence together. These regulated and age segregated communities, which may foster an increased sense of security (physically and physiologically) are commonplace and popular in states such as Arizona and Florida.

A recent article titled, “The Big Sort” in the Economist explores how some people in Texas recently decided to start a new community restricted to 100% Ron Paul supporters. The decision to live in neighborhoods where people share similar points of view is becoming less unusual, as more conservatives are choosing to live near other conservatives, and liberals near liberals.

According to Mr. Bishop, author of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart:

We now live in a giant feedback loop, hearing our own thoughts about what’s right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear and the neighbourhoods we live in.

I understand that some people prefer like-minded neighbors; those who reflect their own ways of thinking. I see how the clustering of homogenous groups, those who are less likely to be exposed to contrary points of view, become more extreme and more harsh towards those with views different from their own. Liberals who go out of their way to isolate themselves from conservatives and vice versa are more likely to assume that their counterparts have views more radical than what they may actually be.

However, will the lack of communication between conservatives and liberals and/or young and older adults tear America apart? Not necessarily.

While some conservatives and liberals seek to isolate themselves, others move in the opposite direction, wanting to learn from others, and possibly changing their party affiliation altogether. In a similar fashion, some older adults seek age-isolated retirement communities, but others seek to rejuvenate themselves by surrounding themselves with younger generations.

Forcing people to talk to each other is no different than forcing people to isolate themselves from each other. Nevertheless, when social conditions (e.g. economic recession) require that liberals and conservatives along with young and old work together to realize common goals, communication will transpire. Or maybe not.

Jason Simon

Open to Difference suggests an openness rather than resistance towards different, controversial, and uncomfortable points of view. Exploring present ways of thinking and opening spaces for new ones to emerge is what an attitude of openness towards difference is all about.

Jason Simon