Two Things Can Be True At Once (Venezuela, Israel + Those You Love)

Are you tired of being forced to "pick a side"? In a world that feels increasingly polarized—Red vs. Blue, Us vs. Them—we often feel trapped in a binary that doesn’t actually fit our reality. In this episode of the Kehillah RVA podcast, we explore the life-changing power of believing that when two things are true at once, a third way is needed.

🧵 The "Third Way" of Thinking

Drawing on the wisdom of Jewish legends and Carl Jung, we dive into why the "tension" between two opposites isn't something to avoid—it’s actually the birthplace of something new. Jung called it the "transcendent function." We call it liberation.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Global & The Personal: How we navigate the complex narratives of Israel, Venezuela, and even our personal family life by accepting two competing realities are true at the same time
• The Love Paradox: Can someone love you deeply and still not love you the "right" way? Processing the complexity of our most formative relationships, rabbi gets super personal on this one
• Breaking the Binary: Why choosing between "Mexican or Chinese food" might actually mean you should order Indian
• Escaping Tribalism: instead of choosing a side, confront what you are really trying to accomplish, and suddenly you'll notice it's OK for people to disagree with one another (and you)

💡 Key Quote:

"The confrontation of two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing... a new level of being." — Carl Jung

Listen now and learn how to stop arguing and start living in the "Third Way."

It's the rabbi's birthday! Rabbi Patrick turned 43. Care to give $43 to support Kehillah? You know what to do: https://kehillahrva.org/donate/

Upcoming Events

• Shabbat Dinner and Service at the Rabbi’s: Friday, January 23 
• Shabbat Dinner at Pam's (Henrico/Three Chopt): Friday, January 30
• Shabbat MorningTorah Study at the Rabbi's: Saturday, January 31

RSVP: https://kehillahrva.org/calendar/

#KehillahRVA #Kehillah #TwoThingsCanBeTrue #CarlJung #Mindfulness #Tribalism #LetThem #PodcastLife #RichmondVA #RVA #JewishRVA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

I'm Rabbi Patrick and welcome to Kehila. Happy 2026. It's pretty cool to think about the fact that we're in a new year. And also, um, I just turned 43 yesterday. Yeah. 43 years old with a son who's almost about to be 21. And also celebrated my 12th wedding anniversary. So if you are like I think Rabbi Patrick and Rabbit and Stephanie and their son Jayvon are just like the coolest people ever, consider giving a donation to Kihila to support this podcast and to support all the hard work we do. So KahilaRVA.org forward slash donate. Listen, the way that you can help the most is five dollars a month. Seriously, like think of it as like a subscription to this podcast. I get it. Everyone hates subscriptions. Now we used to love subscriptions, now we hate them. Whatever. Times change. Just think like five bucks a month and you get this podcast. Because that is kind of realistic. Um, if everybody who listened to this podcast gave five bucks a month, um, we'd be in a pretty good spot and definitely make this podcast worth making. But it's worth making uh for me because I really enjoy these conversations we have. So um let's find out about what's going on here at Kahila Land, and then we'll set our covenant and we will get into it because it turns out two things can be true at once, and that's what we want to talk about. But the other piece is a housekeeping. So um I'm recording this, posting this on January 5th. We have three things coming up that you need to know about Shabbat dinner and service at the rabbis here in Midlothian, Friday, January 23rd. Um, I think we have about half of the tickets left at this point. Um, so definitely sign up for that. Um, home hosted Shabbat the following week, that's January 30th, at Pam's. So Pam is in the Henraiko three-tropped area. Pam is an amazing cook. Um, she actually wrote a cookbook that I've been meaning to do some recipes from. Um, she's also a Chinese herbalist, which is kind of cool. So, um, and lastly, okay, I'm just talking too much about Pam, but I remember I'm really wanting to sell this on you. Pam has like the coolest, like, you know, single woman decorated house ever. And she has this huge record player, like the big con like console type thing, um, with like all these records, and it's it's everything. She has everything. Um, so yeah, we love Pam. Anyway, um, also, Pam is half of Kahila cares, so that's pretty cool. So uh Henraiko Three Chopped Area, that's Friday, January 30th. The next day, back at my house, Shabbat Torah Study at the rabbis. There will be bagels, there will be uh inspirational literature to read. So the 23rd, the 30th, the 31st, Shabbat Dinner at My House, Shabbat Dinner at Pam's, and Torah Study at my house. Also, this isn't up yet, but Tubishvat Seder. Friends, this stuff is gonna blow your mind. I'm gonna have to do a separate episode just about this Tubishvat Seder and what it means for us for like the next five months. It's it's it's a thing. I'm telling you, it's a thing. So that's not up yet. I'm gonna do a special podcast episode about that. Soon as it's up, we'll we'll do, we'll make, we'll be. It'll be great. Okay. Um this episode's gonna be a little bit different in terms of how we set our cover note. Um, so what I want you to do, take a minute, close your eyes. I mean, if you're driving, don't close your eyes. Um, settle yourself a little bit. Yeah, it's a new year, new you. Maybe you made some resolutions. Let's uh let's put that aside for a minute. And let's just be together in this moment. And we're gonna say the shmah. And I know we've done that before. It doesn't always have to be different each time. Let's say the shema together. Shema Yisrael Adonai Alohainu Adonai Yechad. And then I'm gonna add this part. Viruch Shem Kavod Malkotolamved. So maybe you're in carpool, maybe you are working from home today, maybe you're sick. I hope not. There's this flu going around, it's terrible. Um, and you're just like, I need something to make myself feel better. Um, and thank God we get to have this time together. It's very meaningful to me. So we're gonna talk about a reality, which is that two things can be true at once. Um, maybe you've heard that before, maybe you've said that to somebody before. I think that this could be one of the most powerful ideas that we as a society could hold on to. Um, this idea that two things can be true at once. And so I'm gonna read a story to you. Um, this is from uh a mid, this is a midrash. So this is kind of like Jewish fan fiction, okay? And this story, I think, really summarizes the idea of two things being true at once. And I want to thank the nonprofit Hazone for um using this in their Tubishvater. Um, and I sort of, that's how I stumbled on this and thought, oh, okay, we need to talk about that. It's it's completely unrelated to Tubishvat. Um, it's related to this idea of two things being true at once. So I'm gonna read this story to you. Um, so this comes from uh Midrash uh Schmuel for. Um so this is cited in another book called Sefer Haggadah, which is like the book of legends. Okay. So the way that you need to understand what I'm about to read to you is that stories were written about our sages, about important people in Jewish history, um, to help highlight um important ideas. So think of this um not quite like a fairy tale, um, but uh more just like a story that has been told and passed down for generations in order to uh promote a moral. So here we go. And I'm gonna be doing this um English a little bit differently than how it's written uh in the Hebrew, but like go with me. It's fine. Um so it's told of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva that while they were walking through the streets of Jerusalem, they were accompanied by a particular man. So this one guy um is walking with these sages, Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva's the like, he's the rock star of all of this. Rabbi Akiva, you learn a lot about Rabbi Akiva. He's freaking fantastic. So, um, but that's a whole other thing. So the three guys are walking together, and a sick person confronts them and says, Masters, tell me, how shall I be healed? Right. So this is faith healing and things like that are very common in this time. So this sick man walks up to Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva and their buddy that they're walking with. And so uh Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael replied, Um, take this medication, take such and such, um, and you'll be healed. And then they're just walking along their way. Okay, great. So gave some medical advice. Um, now the man accompanying the sages, whoever this one guy is, he says um to our sages, Well, who who made this person sick? Like in kind of basically in your in your religious worldview, how is this person sick? And Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva reply, uh, the holy one, blessed be he. In other words, it's God's fault. So the man says, Wait, okay, so this is God's fault. And you bring yourselves into a matter that does not concern you, right? Like God smote this person. Why would you heal them? Right? This isn't, this isn't your thing to deal with, right? Isn't God get to decide who are you to intervene, right? So the sages decide to turn this around, um, because you find this a lot in Jewish storytelling. So the sages go, Um, tell me, friend, what's your work? What do you do? And the man says, I'm a tiller of the soil. Um, and you can see that it's obvious I have a sickle in my hand. All right. So the sages say, Okay, all right, you so you're a tiller of the soil. Um, who created the ground? And who created the vineyard? And the man says, God. And the sages say, Well, then why do you bring yourself into a matter that does not concern you? God created it and you eat the fruit from it. So you can see what they're doing. They're kind of flipping it around on him, right? So the man says, Um, don't you see the sickle in my hand? If I did not go out and plow the vineyard, prune it, compost it, and weed it, it would have yielded nothing. So, in other words, you know, if I if I don't go out there and do the work, then this land that God has provided um yields nothing. It's of no value. So the sages keep messing with them. They say, You are the biggest fool in the world. Have you not heard the verse, as for man his days are grass, which is from the Psalms? And then they go on a tree, if it's not composted, weeded, and the area around it plowed, will it not grow? And even if it does grow, if not given water to drink, it will die, will not live. So too the human body is a tree. A healing potion is the compost, and a physician is the tiller of the soil. So, in other words, they're agreeing with the guy. They're saying, like, look, you know, you go out there, you do this work on land made by God, but without you, none of this would yield anything. And the same is true with a human being, right? A human being is created by God. The disease comes from God because God created everything, and that's a whole other problem. Um, but the healing potion in our metaphor is just like your compost. And the physician in this metaphor, well, that's you, but for the soil. So they they make this big issue and they turn it around on him so that he can disprove himself, right? And so that's what you have. That's my amazing story there. How about that? So ultimately, what is the midrash doing? It's saying two things can be true at once, right? The land comes from God, but what the land yields comes from the man with the sickle. The human body and all of its processes, both good and not so good, right? That comes from God. But so does the potion, right? So does the medicine, so does the capacity to heal a person, right? Two things can be true at once. Um, so right now we're having an issue with Venezuela, right? So Maduro has been captured, he's been brought to the United States. Um, and there's this question of why did we do this? How did we do this? What's gonna come of this? Is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? How do the Venezuelan people feel who are in Venezuela? How do Venezuelans outside of Venezuela, the diaspora here in the United States, for example, how do they feel? Um we have some Venezuelans in our congregation, right? And I've reached out to them. Um, and I'm an American and I'm not Venezuelan, and I don't know what to make of any of this. And I'll be honest with you, I've been traveling. Um, so I'm just now kind of getting settled back into life here. I think maybe like you two, like maybe you know, you're listening to this around the first of January and you're getting set back into normal life, and then you open the news and you're like, oh dear God, what's happening now? Yeah, yeah. So that's that's where I am. Like, I don't, I don't know enough. I don't know, and I I really don't know that much about Venezuela. I know there's, you know, some stuff with Cuba, and obviously Cuba is Cuba, and I know a little bit of that history from you know high school and college, but you know, I I know there's a thing there, and obviously we're concerned about drugs coming into the country, but then also there's stuff related to oil. Um, so I went online and a Venezuelan I follow on social media, didn't even know they were Venezuelan, posted uh their comment. And their comment basically said, I'm paraphrasing, um, Maduro was a tyrant. Um, the Venezuelans deserve better than him. And also, I don't agree with how any of this went down. So uh so that's their opinion, right? One Venezuelan's opinion. Um that doesn't speak for everybody. I'm sure there's other people who feel different ways. And I know that there are protests and counter-protests, right? They're going on right now. And again, don't claim to know anything about it, right? Simple small town rabbi, even though we're more of a medium-sized city. Um, so that's the thing, though. And and this is what this person who posted on social media is trying to say. Like, two things can be true at once. Terrible dictator. Maybe this shouldn't have gone down the way it did, right? Uh reminds me a little bit about how people feel about Israel sometimes, right? Um, it's beautiful country, guys. Like, go there, experience it. The people, um, I would say the people are wonderful. Sometimes they're not wonderful. Don't get stuck in traffic and it's not fun. Um, but yeah, but you know, Israel's the kind of country where you rear end somebody, they fight in the street for an hour and a half, and then at the end of it, they're like, okay, uh Shibatchlov, you know, right? Like it's kind of that. Um it's a flawed democracy, but it's the only democracy in the Middle East, right? It's the only country that's not a theocracy, a monog monarchy, or a country that has a proxy government that is a democracy, but like kind of not really, right? Um, it's a country with equal rights, and yet at the same time, there is differentiation between peoples, right? There are signs in Israel that say no Jews allowed, right? Um, and there are customs, cultures, ideas, practices that keep uh Mizrahi Jews and keep Arab uh Israelis um in positions of poverty. And then of course there's the Israel-Palestine issue, right? Um two things can be true at once. Beautiful country has problems, right? A democracy, but but also under attack. A country that can defend itself and yet other countries come to the defense of it. Two things can be true at once here, friends. Um let's talk about the idea of disproportionate numbers, right? So you know, you can look at let's say the war that Israel is having uh with Gaza, and you can see that the numbers disproportionately, October 7th versus the past few years, right? Definitely disproportionate numbers. And also, how many rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome? Right? We don't talk about that, right? If those bombs had dropped and those people were killed, how many people would be killed on the Israeli side if it weren't for Iron Dome? And also why don't the Palestinians have their own Iron Dome? Right? Disproportion, definitely, but also going back to two things can be true at once. Um there's an anti-Semitic canard that floats around the internet. And it's uh why are there a disproportionately high number of Jews who are Nobel Prize winners? And there's all these videos, some of them are like weird and racist, and then some of them are um very pro-Jewish and like wahra rah-rah, like we have all the Nobel Prize winners, which we don't, but okay, sure, whatever. Um, and so, you know, you have this kind of strange thing here where this Nobel Prize winner thing is is used to kind of promote a certain idea of like who the Jewish people are. Uh okay, fine. Um, there's it's true, there are a disproportionate number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, okay? And also there are a disproportionate number of African American NBA players, right? So these are disproportionate, meaning they are not in proportion with the rest of the total population. Okay, now the question is, is that discrimination, right? Are there more Jews by proportion of population winning Nobel Prizes because someone's doing something bad? There's some nefarious thing going on, or is there something that we're supposed to be very proud about, but in a kind of weird way? No, right? It just kind of is how it is. It's how kind of how it landed. Um, the NBA, right? Disproportionate number of African American players. Does that does that mean there's like a weird racial thing going on? No, it just kind of landed that way. Two things can be true at the same time. It is disproportionate and it's also not discriminatory. It just kind of landed that way because of culture, history, all kinds of other things, right? Let's make it a little bit more personal. So um, two things can be true at once. It could be that someone really loved you um, but didn't love you the right way. So my mom uh was mostly raised by her grandmother. And the reason why she was mostly raised by her grandmother is that uh my my grandmother's home was not a particularly good place for a little kid to live for a certain amount of time. And we can think about how my great-grandmother loved my mom and how good she was to her. And by the way, I I never got to meet this woman. I've been told time and time again she was like the greatest woman in the world, right? Just like cared for everybody, didn't smoke, didn't drink, never did drugs, um, you know, I think cooked every meal she ever ate, you know, one of those kinds of people, right? Like, um, and we're talking like depression era type stuff, right? Um and then my mom grew up in poverty. Um, you know, but she could she made great biscuits, apparently, like very southern woman. Everyone called her nanny. Um so uh so Nanny cared for my mom, and and that's a wonderful thing. Um, and also the reason that she cared for her uh was because my mom's home would wasn't really necessarily a good place sometimes. Um so nanny would bring mom back to her house, like where she lived during the week, and um they would clean up because it was messy, it wasn't being taken care of. And I'm I'm not giving you all the details here because this is personal family stuff, but um, you know, years later, I said to my mom, you know, it was kind of wrong that that uh you had to go back home as a little kid and like clean up after the adults. And my mom said, Yeah, but but nanny didn't want me to be in a home that was dirty and disgusting and and unsafe. And I said, Yeah, that's true, and that's good, but also as a child, you shouldn't have been responsible for cleaning up after the adults. That's not a thing. Okay, but like two things can be true at once. And yeah, and so that's kind of where that landed. Uh, by the way, recognizing that two things can be true at once is the core of dialectical behavioral therapy. Um, sometimes the stories we tell ourselves, the way we talk about things, we put things into these binaries, right? I stay with him or I leave. I'm at the job or I'm not. We buy this product, we sell this product. We have this money, we spend this money. Everything's on a binary in most human thought, right? I want this. Thing to happen because if that doesn't happen, then this thing happens, then this thing happens, and then it all falls apart, right? That kind of stuff, right? We tell ourselves these stories about how the world operates, and oftentimes um we're trying to sort of spin lots of plates at once, right? I don't want the person to be mad at me, so I'm gonna do this so that then this happens, and then this makes this other person happy. And that may seem like it has a lot of parts to it, but it's really a two-part decision. The decision is do I follow the path I know I'm supposed to, or do I manage everyone else's relationships to me? Right? We like to think of ourselves as being these like complex creatures who can really think deep thoughts, but uh oftentimes it's like an A B type thing, and we get stuck because something has to be true. Like A has to be right or B has to be right. You either do it this way or you do it that way. And oh my gosh, how do I make a decision? But Carl Jung offers this quote, and it's a bit of a word salad, but just go with me on this. The shuttling to and fro of arguments and effects represents the transcendent function of opposites. The confrontation of the two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living third thing, a movement out of the suspension between the opposites, a living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation. So, yeah, kind of like woo-woo. Um, let me try wording that a little differently. So um, when we accept the tension of two different positions, right? So we do it this way or do we we do it that way? Is this thing the right way or is this thing the right way? When we accept that there's this tension between these two things, they're not separate things. There's there's actually like a cord or something like that in the middle, and it's like pulling, and you can feel that tension between these two positions, these two ideas, these two values, these two ways of seeing a world. That tension, that cord that connects these things that's being pulled, that energy between those things, um, that's kind of like a third thing. It's something that maybe goes beyond binary, beyond he said she said, Beyond us versus them, beyond red versus blue. Um, and that tension, that whatever energy, that gives us something new to talk about. The old arguments, this or that, him or her, those old arguments cease to function. And that means that on a certain level, we get a fresh start, not by focusing on A or B, by focusing on us or them, but by focusing on the tension in the middle, this third creation that exists as the result of the tension. So often, in my experience, with one of these two things can be true at once phenomena, and that's what that tension is. The tension is there's actually some value there, right? Both of these tension generating things, A and B, us and them, this way, that way. That third thing, that tension in the middle, is actually the truth. Um, that third answer is the two things that can be true at once. Um, what we need to do when we recognize that pull of the binary is that the third thing is about to happen. Um, silly example. You can't decide between Mexican or Chinese, order Indian food. Okay. The tension between do we get the house in Midlothian or do we stay in the fan apartment? Well, you get a condo in short pump. Do we raise our kids Jewish or do we raise them with more than one tradition? Well, well, how about instead of talking yourselves into oblivion, talk to the rabbi? Right? See, all of these things are about recognizing that the tension between two different ways of thinking actually means there's a third thing that's about to be born. There's this middle way, there's this other path, there's this other answer. Now, here's the thing about when you discover whatever that third thing is by looking at the tension, it's gonna piss everyone off. Pardon my French. I don't know. Is that a bad word? I'm not sure. Um, it's gonna make everyone angry. So, like if you have friends and they feel a certain way about an issue and they say, Well, look, our friend group, we we all believe this one thing. This is what it means to be part of this culture, this group, this society, this tribe. Okay, and if you believe the opposite thing, okay, then you're out. Well, maybe the tension, this thing in the middle, is like, did I ever belong? Or are there rules that I'm not being made familiar with? Or uh am I just here for no particularly good reason? Or are there other people out there who feel differently than you, but also that I could get along with, right? That that tension in the middle, that's that's probably where the answer is. And the thing is, that doesn't satisfy anybody, right? If you say to someone, well, I don't exactly agree with this thing, and I also don't agree with that thing, but hey, have you heard about this nonprofit that's doing this other thing? Well, here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna upset the two people, the two camps, the two tribes who are trying to pull you in opposite directions, right? Because you haven't satisfied them. And what's amazing about that is that when you see that tension, you're like, oh, it was never about the issue, was it? It was about us versus them. But I care about the issue. So I'm gonna now find this other thing. I'm gonna go to this other place. I'm gonna go talk to these other people because they actually care about the issue. It's not just you look this way or you look that way, or you vote this way or you vote that way, or you live in this place and we live in that place, right? It's it's actually that there's this other tension there, and that's where I want to be. I don't want to be stuck in an us versus them on this thing. I want to actually deal with this problem. And yeah, when I tell you what I've chosen, when I tell you this other option that I've found that helps to satisfy the tension, which is the real issue, and you say to them, that's what I'm gonna do, you're gonna get kicked out of both camps, right? The friend on one side and the friend on the other side are going to disagree with you and they're gonna think less of you. Okay, fine. Um, that just is the way it is sometimes. When we sort of recognize that the tension is this third thing, that it is when the moment when two things are true at the same time, two opposing things, two things that that don't seem like they can work together, but actually there's this third option. Oh my gosh, the people who are on the binary of a thing, uh you're you're just oh my God, like it's awful. It's almost worse than choosing a side, right? Because now instead of upsetting one group, you've upset both. Um but what's really cool about this, when you when you really lean into the idea that two things can be true at the same time, and that there's a third narrative, there's a third option, there's a third place that really needs you. It's actually very liberating. Um, and it can liberate us especially from tribalism. Now, I'm a big fan of peoplehood. I think everybody needs to belong to groups. Um, but sometimes things can get toxic. There can be this unspoken set of rules that if you don't follow them, you get kicked out. And of course, you never know exactly what those rules are until it's too late. Being told to choose a side or else might lead you to say, Well, did I really want to be around these people? Or perhaps you print present the idea of a third way, a compromise, a way out, uh, a new vision for something, and people fight back. Or you don't get the promotion. Or the difficult client chooses someone else for their project. Well, okay, fine. Uh, to quote Mel Robbins, who kind of stole this from a poem, um, but I'm gonna quote it anyway. Let them like let them. Let the two parties decide that they didn't really want you anyway, and then you go do that third thing. Let the two jobs that you're trying to decide between fight for somebody else because you're gonna go start that business, or you're gonna go back to school, or whatever, right? You might discover that the money can come from somewhere else, or that the house is much calmer now that both roommates are out instead of one or the other. Or you find a new community that offers something better than the two you felt pulled between. Either way, it's liberation. Because the reality is that two things can be true at once. We've found that in the midrash. It's true, probably, I assume, of Venezuela, of Israel, right? It's true of disproportionate numbers and discrimination. It can be true in love and in family and in friendship. It can be true in the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. Two things can be true at once. And when you know they are, it's really a third thing. There's this third element. And it doesn't satisfy the question. You have to drop the question entirely of is it this or that? Because it's this other thing. So when you feel that pull, when you feel that tension, when you feel divided, when you are having that disagreement, right? Look for where that tension is and let it give birth to the real answer. When two things are true at once, there's a third thing that's just waiting to be born. Thanks a lot.