Friday, January 27, 2017

Va'era 5777 The Executive Order halting Refugees and International Holocaust Remembrance Day

A version of this Sermon was delivered on 1/27/17 at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow

Parshat Va’era 5777

          Today is a confluence of special days on our calendar.  To start, it’s Shabbat, the 7th day which God gave us as a gift to rest and revel in creation as God does in the book of Genesis.  That makes it special.  Today is also Rosh Chodesh Shevat, the first of the month of Shevat.  In this month, we celebrate Tu b’Shevat, the New Year for the trees and the unofficial Jewish start to spring.  That makes it special.  Today is also special because it is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  On this day in 1945, January 27, was the date that the Russian army liberated the Auschwitz prison, concentration, and death camp.  Since 2005, the international community, after a UN vote, uses this day to recognize, remember, and hopefully learn from the Holocaust. 
I am of two minds about this day.  On the one hand, we Jews already have a date on the calendar devoted to this, Yom HaShoah, which falls the week after Passover and which commemorates the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  Yom HaShoah was established by the Israeli Government and has been widely accepted by Jewish Communities around the world as a day of mourning, reflection, and remembrance.  On Yom HaShoah, a siren blasts for 2 minutes throughout Israel at 10am and everything stops.  All cars pull over.  People stop in mid stride to remember the 6 million Jews who were murdered simply because they were Jews.  This date was chosen to commemorate those who fought for their lives and freedom, even though they did not succeed.  Israel has a tendency to focus more on the resistance than on the victims.
On the other hand, another day that recognizes the enormity of the Holocaust, lest we forget its lessons, isn’t a bad thing.  Remembering the liberation puts the focus on the armies which liberated the Jews from the Nazis.  On this day, the international community, not just Jews, pauses to reflect on what we’ve learned and how we’ve changed in the 70 years since the end of World War Two.  The world is asked to take a moment and think about how far we’ve come since those dark days when a minority community was ostracized belittled and systematically exterminated because of their heritage, those days when the mechanisms of state were used to divide people and frighten citizens to imaginary dangers in the quest for power, those days when fear of the other overtook our God commanded call to welcome the stranger, the orphan, the widow.  How far we’ve come since those days and yet how little we’ve progressed.
Not every act of remembrance has the same purpose.  Sometimes we remember those who perished, as the siren on Yom HaShoah asks of us.  Sometimes we remember those who fought and those who resisted, as the date chosen for Yom HaShoah asks of us.  Sometimes we remember those who sacrificed, as today’s choice of date reminds us.  Sometimes, however, we must make a point to remember those who stood idly by. 
Today, a new Twitter account has taken up the cause of remembering some of those who perished and remembering some of those who stood idly by, in recalling a blemish on our nation’s history.  All day today, a twitter account by the handle St. Louis Manifest has been tweeting the names and many pictures of the passengers on the St. Louis, fleeing from Nazi Europe, who were turned away from every country, sent back to Europe and many of whom perished at the hands of the Nazis.  Each of them has a name, and each name is accompanied by the phrase: The US turned me away at the border in 1939.
As a congregation, last May we welcomed Sonja Geissmar, a survivor of the St. Louis, a steamer ship with 937 people aboard, mostly Jews, who were desperate to flee Europe.  She shared her story, and recalled the people she met on the ship.  She recalled the captain who worked as hard as he could to get his passengers to safety.  The ship made it to the United States, close enough to see the lights of Miami, but its passengers were not allowed to disembark.  These refugees, yearning to breathe free, were actively prevented from seeking refuge in the United States, a nation of immigrants. This came on the heels of the US congress voting against opening the doors to 20,000 Jewish refugee children.  The excuses given were economic, isolationist, and based on a fear that among these Jews would be Nazi spies.  254 of the 937 people aboard the St. Louis died at the hands of the Nazis.  254 lives which could have been spared had there been an abundance of Godly compassion rather than an abundance of fear, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.  Roosevelt and our government chose not to act.
Today, though there is a resurgence in anti-Semitism, Israel ensures that Jews need not fear that another nation may prevent them entry.  However, the threat to our adopted nation living up to its highest moral character continues, and it comes from Islamophobia.  The world is in the midst of the largest refugee crisis since World War Two as millions continue to flee war torn Syria and Iraq, fleeing ISIS on the one side and Assad’s cruelty on the other, and we have already forgotten our history.  The arguments against welcoming refugees from Syria go as follows: Some of those coming might be ISIS in disguise.  They won’t fit into our country.  They bring crime and radical Islam with them.  
This is all too familiar to us and we ought to stand against it because it wasn’t so long ago that these charges were levied against the Jews.  It wasn’t so long ago that a lack of compassion for families and children fleeing war and oppression denied our relatives and families entry into this nation.  It wasn’t so long ago that irrational fear and protectionism condemned those 254 Jews, and countless more, to die.  It wasn’t so long ago, and yet here we are again.
Today, on the date the international community recalls the horrors of the Holocaust, our nation once again turns its back on the most vulnerable as an executive order places a months-long halt on any refugee coming to the United States, and cuts in half the total number that would be allowed entry in 2017—and there’s no guarantee that that number will even be met.  In addition, there has been an indication that preferential treatment will be given to Christian refugees and that visitors from certain Muslim-majority countries will be denied entry.  As Jonathan Greenblat, CEO of the ADL put it in an op-ed today:
Today, orphans and widows in Syria are trapped, caught between the
Assad regime’s barrel bombs and the unparalleled brutality of ISIS. Young men and women around the globe are fleeing for their lives, persecuted because they love another person of the same sex or because they are transgender. Political dissidents who have had the courage to speak out in defiance of authoritarian regimes fear for their lives. And the executive order would send them a terrible message: The United States will not be a beacon of hope for you. You will not find safety here.

The truth is that refugees from any country go through the most complicated vetting system of anyone who is admitted to this nation.  The process takes over 2 years, often, and involves 20 steps of redundant interviews and background checks involving the United Nations, Homeland Security and US immigration services.  This is not people getting on a plane and showing up.  We are not talking about an easy process, here.  As was explained to us when Rabbi Rachel Grant Meyer from HIAS, formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, came to speak last year, the refugees who come into the United States today are the most closely screened in history and more is asked of them than was asked of any previous generation of refugee.  And with all that they have to do, they still desperately want to come here, they still know that this nation has always been a beacon of safe haven and welcome.
They want to experience what we’ve all experienced since our parents, grandparents or great grandparents came to these shores: welcome, opportunity, peace, and a place to raise a family.  These American ideals are being denied them by the new administration.  Once again our nation will be forced to answer the question of why we didn’t do more.  
As the administration continues to sow fear of our Muslim brothers and sisters, lumping them all into one category, let it not be said we stood alongside silently.  Let it not be said that we ignored the plight of those our nation barred from admission.  Let it not be said that we agreed with this bigoted policy.  Let is not be said that we did not embody the Godly compassion that is so lacking in our leaders today.
We can and should call our representatives, donate to causes like HIAS and sign petitions.  All of these actions are good, necessary and important, but the truth is that until and unless the President changes his mind, his order will stand, halting months of progress made toward welcoming refugees into the United States.
In this week’s Torah portion, Va’era we learn something important not from what we find in the Torah portion, but from what we don’t.  This week, we read the first 7 of the 10 plagues.  Now, because we get to this story every year, both in the Torah and when we celebrate Passover, we know that three more are coming before Pharaoh finally accedes to let the Israelites go.  But the Rabbis who divided up the Torah into its weekly readings had choices.  They could have divided them equally.  Or, what would have made more sense, they could have decided to put them all in one portion.  They are all of the same narrative, after all.  Why stop this week’s Torah portion after just 7 of the 10 plagues?  I think this is meant to teach us that sometimes, we must wait for redemption.  Even when we know it’s what God wants and demands, we must wait.  Sometimes, through forces out of our control, we cannot get to where we want when we want to get there; we are halted in our progress.  Sometimes it has to wait.  But make no mistake, redemption is coming because we know it and because we believe it.

Shabbat Shalom.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Shemot 5777, When Rule Becomes Unjust

A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow, January 20, 2017.

"וַיָּ֥קָם מֶֽלֶךְ־חָדָ֖שׁ עַל־מִצְרָ֑יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יָדַ֖ע אֶת־יוֹסֵֽף׃"

“A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.”  This verse, the 8th verse of the first chapter of the book of Exodus, which reading we begin this Shabbat, cries out to us to be heard.  The Torah is always right where we need it to be, but some weeks it just seems all the more so.  This is one of those weeks.  "וַיָּ֥קָם מֶֽלֶךְ־חָדָ֖שׁ עַל־מִצְרָ֑יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יָדַ֖ע אֶת־יוֹסֵֽף׃"  A new king indeed. 
What does it mean that he did not know Joseph?  Who was Joseph, anyway?  The most beloved son of our patriarch Jacob, he rose to be the viceroy of Egypt, responsible for saving the nation from calamity and famine, due to his innate abilities.  He was also an immigrant, victim of human trafficking, and ex-con, brought out of prison to serve the King.  Symbolically, Joseph is the past of Egypt.  The past of a nation which welcomed those in need, allowed for second chances, gave out food to those who were suffering and hungry, and planned ahead for the ravages of an unpredictable climate.  That’s who Joseph was: a patriot for his adopted nation, working hard to ensure his home’s success, and the success of all who lived there. 
When the text tells us that the king didn’t know Joseph, it’s talking about a king who didn’t respect the ideals of the past, a king who didn’t care what progress had been made, because he knew better than anyone what had to be done and how to do it.  He had a vision of an Egypt made for Egyptians, hearkening back to a time and a reality that probably didn’t even exist.  This Pharaoh solidified his control and power by casting an immigrant population as the other, demeaning them, scaring his populace on account of them, and ultimately enslaving them and condemning the baby boys to death.  A new king, a new kingdom.  Make Egypt Great Again!
In the face of such a power grab, upending generations of norms of behavior and tacit rules of governing and coexistence, how is one to respond?  How should the Israelites respond to their new reality?  How can they work to redeem themselves from the nightmare that has befallen them?  The Torah, again demanding, begging, us to see its continuing relevance, provides us with two blueprints of a response.  Two reactions, a generation apart, that teach us that our tradition recognizes that we are called to stand up when we witness injustice.  Reactions that teach us that we are called to work for immediate response, and long term change.  Reactions from two very different places, with the same intention of resistance. 
When we read that Pharaoh decrees that the Hebrew boys are to be killed, we read that Pharaoh himself comes to see the midwives, the women who help deliver the babies, to give them the instructions that the boys are to be killed and the girls are to live.  But, the Torah tells us, “The Midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.”  A simple sentence belying a powerful response. The midwives stand up against a law they know is unjust.  They resist the imposition of a decree that they know to be against God’s plan.  They don’t allow the Pharaoh to meddle in the Israelite women’s personal healthcare decisions.  
We read next that Pharaoh comes to see them, demanding to know why they’re not doing what he commanded.  They make up a story about the Israelite women’s cunning and strength, saying that they don’t even know about the births before they happen.  Rather than Pharaoh throwing the midwives to jail or executing them, we read that God dealt well with them. 
Moreover, we know that these women are to be noticed for this first recorded act of civil disobedience, for even though we only read of their story via a handful of verses in the Torah, we learn their names, Shifra and Puah.  Because of its rarity, when a woman in the Torah is named, it teaches us that she is to be noticed, payed attention to.  These women put their lives on the line to disobey a law they see as unjust, and our tradition recognizes the valiant nature of their actions by telling us their names.
A generation after the midwives, only a few verses in the Torah, we read of Moses, who would work not just against one unjust law, but against the entire corrupt system.  He doesn’t come to it naturally or immediately.
In the animated Midrash Prince of Egypt, we see Moses’s nightmare where he begins to learn the truth about what happened some 20 years earlier with the decree concerning the baby boys.  His nightmare is confirmed when the Pharaoh explains why he did what he did.  Moses at this point begins to truly learn who he is and where he comes from.  He begins to see that though he has benefitted from the regime, he is no longer comfortable with what it stands for, and so he runs away.  Even many years later, Moses is not quite ready to hear the call to fight against what he knows in his heart and soul to be unjust.
Moses, in our Torah portion, speaks to God for the first time at the burning bush.  God calls on him to lead the people against Pharaoh, to bring them out of bondage, toward freedom and the promise of the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.  But Moses doesn’t want it.  He doesn’t see himself in that role.  He’s not a rabble rouser.  He fled that place and is content with his sheep.  Time and again, Moses tells God that he is not the right one to speak out.  He doesn’t have the right words.  They won’t believe him.  He’s just a shepherd.  He’s not the right guy to lead this revolution.  But God insists. 
God tells Moses that he will not be alone, God will be at his side, and he will have help from Aaron as well.  Moses, reluctantly, assumes the mantle of leader of the resistance.  Unlike the midwives, he is not just tasked with disobeying a single law or ordinance, he is sent to upend the system and bring God’s people out toward the Promised Land, to serve God and be a kingdom of priests.  
It won’t be easy.  It will take weeks of work, overcoming the Israelites’ skepticism, working with Aaron in the face of a recalcitrant Pharaoh who seems to take pleasure in toying with the Israelites lives, because he can.  It will take miracles and marvels, God’s outstretched arm and mighty hand, and attempt after attempt to persuade the Pharaoh.  Even once that happens, it will take a generation to undo the damage to the Isrelites’ psyche.  We all know how it ends.
Moses is reluctant to speak out.  “Who am I?” he says.  What can I do?  This scene is about more than Moses’s humility.  God wants us to recognize that if we all were to take Moses’s first instinct and run with it (or, as Moses does, run away with it) nothing would ever change for the better.  Even if the work ahead is hard, we can’t simply give up before we even try.  We cannot desist from the work even if we don’t think we’ll complete it.  We must take the first step and say we will commit to bringing about redemption.
When we are willing to commit ourselves to working toward that redemption, we have taken the first step in upending corrupt systems.  The first step toward that redemption is indeed a divine call.  And that call comes from our tradition through the prophets who time and again remind us to take care of the least fortunate, feed those who need it and heal those who are sick.
God wants us to take those first steps toward redemption by saying that we will be counted when necessary, marching alongside those who will fight back against unjust rule, a rule that focuses on the few and not the many.  A rule that sees some as better than others, and institutes that into law. A rule that seeks to institute its own prerogative over the welfare of the population. 
What will be our moment at the Burning Bush?  Will we respond when we see injustice in our midst?  Will we fight back like the midwives?  Will we, like Moses, question our place until God insists?  Will we take our God commanded place in the bringing of redemption?  
One of the subtle changes that Reform liturgy makes is in our Amidah, where rather than describing God as mevi go’el, the bringer of The Redeemer, we say, mevi ge’ulah, the Bringer of Redemption.  This change was instituted because don’t believe we’re waiting for one person to redeem us.  There is no sense in awaiting one person when there is all this work to do.  We’re actually not waiting for anyone but ourselves to take up the mantle of redeeming this world.  We are all supposed to work toward it together, hand in hand, heeding God’s call and command to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be holy, as God is holy, and to seek out and pursue justice. 
May we all hear the call, and respond.

Shabbat Shalom