How do we respond to Lindsey Graham’s death? It matters.

(RNS) — I found out the way I find out about everything now. My phone buzzed, and I looked at it before I was even fully awake.

Senator Lindsey Graham had died of a sudden illness, at the age of 71.

I gulped; he was my age.

Let me say this plainly, and this is hardly the place for a full examination and evaluation of his political career, which is necessary and which will doubtless emerge.

I believed that Graham, a Republican representing South Carolina, was a mixed bag. I will simply say that I disagreed with most of his domestic politics. But he served this country well.

He was also one of the most steadfast friends Israel had in the United States Senate, through administrations of both parties and through the worst years in Israel’s history.

That’s not a small thing to me. There’s a Jewish value that names this — “hakarat ha-tov ,” the recognition of the good that someone has done.

“Hakarat ha-tov” doesn’t require that you like the person. It only asks that you be honest about the good, specifically, on its own terms, without letting the rest of your feelings erase it.

That is how I can hold “I disliked Lindsey Graham’s politics” and “I am grateful for what…