In December I gave a sermon entitled, The Joy of Welcoming the Stranger. http://www.theenergizerrabbi.org/2017/01/03/the-joy-of-welcoming-the-stranger/
Today I got an email from one of my congregants urging me to take a position on the Muslim travel ban. I told him I already had. Which is true. I have signed every petition. I have encouraged those who are able to join the airport protests. I have joined with other rabbis to decry this ban. And I preach about the topic frequently.
But here is my more complete statement. It is simple. 36 times it says in the Torah to welcome the widow, the orphan, the stranger. It even says that we need to love the stranger. 36 times. It only tells us twice not to eat pork. So if you want me to live out my Jewish values, I need to love the stranger. Period. It is that simple.
Not relevant to 2017? The security issues are too big? The security risk is actually bigger if we allow the ban. And I say this having worked in competitive and military intelligence before becoming a rabbi.
I live in two civilizations (thank you Mordechai Kaplan). The Jewish one and the American one. The Jewish one is clear. Very clear. The American dream is at risk here. My ancestors were immigrants. Most in the 1840s. In 1971 I got up early and thrilled to see the Statue of Liberty after a long summer in Europe and a transAtlantic crossing on the Queen Elizabeth II. I have taken countless classes to see Ellis Island and the Lower East Side.
We are a nation of immigrants. 9/11 happened when I was an intern at Refugee Immigration Ministry. At that first Friday staff meeting, there were tears when case managers reported the fear our clients were feeling. Having run from their countries and seeking asylum here, they wondered, where could they flee to next? Where would they be safe?
In the summer of 2006 I was in Germany (ironic, huh?) for a team building week at SAP. It was the same week as the World Cup soccer finals. I learned that every one on my extended team had significant foreign experience. People had lived in another country, gone to school in another country, worked in another country. My team had people from the US, Germany, France, Israel, Jordan, India. It was a bright, enthusiastic group. There was a funny moment when the Orthodox Jew and the Jordanian, a Muslim, came to me to see what they could eat at lunch. The answer–not much except the beer. Almost everything was pork based. The Jordanian was routinely stopped at customs because his name matched someone else on the no fly list. The head of the team, my boss, a German citizen, on an H1B visa and living with his family in Pennsylvania was routinely stopped and fingerprinted going through US customs. The Indians were stopped just because they were dark-skinned (so they believed). My team would not have been as rich without any one of them, We could not have done our work. And that is precisely what Google, Apple, Harvard, the University of Michigan and many other companies have said.
The world is a scary place right now. It was scary in 1972 when the Israeli athletes were murdered at the Munich Olympics. It was scary when my first finance was murdered by a terrorist bomb in Lebanon in 1983 (today is his yahrzeit). It was scary after 9/11. It was scary when the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon. It was scary when I decided and then AJWS echoed that decision, not to travel to Kenya. It was scary when terrorism struck Paris more than once. And Belgium. And Nice. And Germany. And Turkey. And San Bernadino and Orlando. Too many to count. All of them are tragic.
Reb Nachman of Bratzlav said, “Kol ha’olam kulo, gesher tsar me’od. V’ha’ikar lo lefachad klal. All the world is a narrow bridge. The important thing is to not be afraid.” Fear is a powerful and dangerous emotion. We cannot afford to be afraid.
Every single major Jewish organization that I can think of has decried the ban. I don’t know how much clearer or stronger I can be. It is what we are called on to do, as Jews and Americans.
I serve a congregation that lists “Embracing diversity” as one of four planks in its vision statement. The congregation has 17 people born in foreign countries. Those countries include: Japan, China, Mongolia, Mexico, El Salvador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Canada, England, France, Germany, Poland, Israel. Our congregation has been enriched by their presence.
Love the stranger. Lift the ban.