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This erev Shabbat is Inauguration Day. Right after the election, This American Life broadcast a conversation between two old friends, one of whom had voted Trump and one Clinton. These two friends disagree strongly with each other, but, thanks to their friendship, mutual respect, and faith in the other鈥檚 goodness, they are able to have a civil, thoughtful, reasonable political conversation.

Parashat Shemot offers a cautionary tale of what can happen when we鈥檙e not able to do that. Moses sees two Israelites fighting and tries, unsuccessfully, to intervene. The fighters tell Moses that he has no right to interfere since he killed an Egyptian the previous day. Moses is frightened, and says 鈥溩愖涀� 谞讜讚注 讛讚讘专鈥�, 鈥渋ndeed the matter is known鈥� (Exod. 2:13). The Midrash interprets this as the middle of Moses鈥檚 ruminations about why the Israelites deserve God鈥檚 punishment of slavery, and 鈥渢he matter is known鈥� as meaning that he鈥檚 figured out the answer: God鈥檚 punishment is because of the sin of gossiping, which is so widespread in the Israelite community that word of the previous day鈥檚 incident spread incredibly fast (Exodus Rabbah 1:30).

I鈥檇 like to suggest that the sin wasn鈥檛 gossiping: it was the Israelites鈥� fighting itself. Whatever those two Israelites were arguing over, they shouldn鈥檛 have let it go so far. Moses saw two Israelites moving beyond verbal disagreement into physical violence, and realized that 迟丑补迟鈥檚 why God鈥檚 punishment was deserved.

There will be tough times ahead, when people will disagree strongly. The podcast reminds us how we should manage disagreements; the Torah cautions us of what can happen when we don鈥檛.