Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro discussed his faith, finding common ground and living a life of public service at a Jan. 29 speaking event at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., part of the tour for his new book.
Right off the bat, U.S. Sen. Reverend Raphael Warnock, who moderated the talk, brought up the April 2025 arson attack on the governor’s residence and asked how Shapiro “kept the light” — a nod to the Pennsylvania governor’s memoir.
Shapiro was about four months into writing “Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service,” when the attack occurred.
“Someone broke in wielding a metal hammer, smashed a window, climbed inside the state dining room — where an hour earlier, we had been together for our Passover seder — with Molotov cocktails in hand,” Shapiro said at the event. “He threw them, [they] exploded all over the house, and then, with this metal hammer, began racing through the house, and he later said [he meant] to find me and kill me.”
The arson suspect is now in prison for up to 50 years, but Shapiro hasn’t forgotten the attack.
“That moment brought extraordinary darkness to our family, but in the moments after the attack, all we saw was light,” he said.
Shapiro said people from “all walks of life” and backgrounds prayed for him. “It was the first time in my life where I could feel myself being strengthened by other people’s prayers,” he recalled.
Perhaps the most notable moment the governor recorded in his memoir takes place about three days after the attack. Shapiro, his wife, Lori, and their children wanted to thank the firefighters who responded to the emergency. The Shapiros had a chef prepare a home-cooked meal for them.
The chaplain of the Penn Township Volunteer Fire Department — an elderly Christian man who’s registered Republican — handed Shapiro a handwritten prayer.
“As I was reading it in English, I began to weep, and I brought Lori over,” Shapiro said.
The prayer — known as the Priestly Blessing — is the same prayer Josh and Lori Shapiro recited over their four children every night.
“That, to me, was a moment where I saw our shared humanity,” he said. “While I set out to write this book about the light that I saw, it was through that experience that brought us even closer to the light.”
Shapiro and his family have dealt with the trauma stemming from the attack through prayer: “Since that attack, my connection to prayer and to faith have been far deeper than ever.”
Shapiro spoke to finding goodness in the world, guided by Jewish values.
“Light, obviously, is a central theme in the religious text that I’ve studied throughout my life. It is a theme that has always caught my attention and caught my interest, this desire to find goodness in the world, to see the goodness in people, to not allow the negative of the moment to crush your spirit, but to know there’s something positive that might come,” he said.
Shapiro said he’s a strong believer in creating opportunities for dialogue.
“I sit at the table at dinner at the governor’s residence pretty regularly with people from the other party, because I think it’s important that we find ways to work together,” Shapiro said. “When I sit down across the table from people that I disagree with, … I’m searching for that piece of light, that one area where we might find some common ground.”
And often, he can. “We’ve gotten a lot of stuff done by sitting down and having a conversation,” Shapiro said.
The governor’s father, a retired pediatrician, played a large role in Shapiro’s decision to pursue public service.
“I was called to serve because of what my faith taught me and how my parents raised me,” Shapiro said, recalling childhood trips to the hospital where his dad made rounds. “I would go with him to the hospital and see him do this incredible work and make people who were worried and scared and hurting feel better.”
Shapiro’s father’s beeper would frequently go off when the family was eating dinner together and he would answer a call, assisting the concerned parent of a sick child. But instead of dispensing medical advice, he would ask, “Mom, what do you think your kid needs?”
“As I grew up, as I became a parent, I realized that what my Pop was doing was empowering people, helping them find the answers,” Shapiro said. “He obviously had the medical training. He knew how to ‘fix’ a kid; he knew the medicine; he knew all that stuff. But what he did was even more powerful than that. He helped these parents find that.”
The governor took that approach as he went door to door to meet Pennsylvania voters where they were. “Instead of giving a speech, I learned how to listen,” Shapiro said. “I’d knock on the door, I’d say, ‘What’s on your mind?’ and I was blown away by what people would share with me.”
He added that he’s listened to his constituents for the past 20 years. In response to a question about how Democrats can win elections in 2026, Shapiro pointed to his slogan: “Get stuff done.”
He hopes that improving Pennsylvania schools, making local cities safer and opening jobs will show residents that the government can be a “force for good” in people’s lives.
“We cannot be a reactionary party,” Shapiro said. “We cannot be a party that is simply defined by opposition to Donald Trump. We have to be a party that gets stuff done for people and that has a vision that people can feel in all communities across our country.”
