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Shabbat Pesach 5766
By Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Congregation B’nai
Israel
Toledo, OH
When our ancestors lived
in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, they were the underclass in Egypt.
They did the jobs no Egyptians wanted to do. They spent their days in
the relentless sun making bricks and helping build cities.
Fast forward a few
thousand years and move over a few thousand miles. Today in America,
thank God, slavery has been all but abolished (there are a few pockets of
sex workers and domestic help that are basically working in conditions akin
to slavery, but they are relatively few). But we do still have an
underclass. We have people who do the jobs no one else wants to do.
Those people are
variously called “undocumented workers” or “illegal aliens.” Estimates
vary, but it is estimated that 11 million people are in this country
illegally. Many of them labor at the lowest paying jobs with the worst
working conditions—some spend their days in the relentless sun picking
oranges or lettuce, providing unskilled day labor, some working in
restaurants.
There is a big
difference our ancestors in Egypt and today’s underclass in America.
All our ancestors wanted was to get out of Egypt. All the undocumented
workers of today want is to get IN to America. For even though they
may be taking jobs that are at the bottom of heap in America, they pay a lot
more than higher status jobs in Mexico, China, the Philippines, or
elsewhere. Over the years I’ve had two nannies for my children who
held degrees in accounting – one was from
India
and one was from the Philippines. A nanny in
California
or Canada makes more money than an accountant in other places. They
happened to be in the country legally – but for workers who have no skills,
the difference between what they would earn in Mexico and what they would
earn in California is easily ten-fold.
Many Americans seem to
be afraid of this wave of poor people washing up on our shores. Go to
Google and type in “illegal immigrants America” and four of the first five
web sites you get directed too are ones screaming in bold print “Illegal
Immigation is a Crime!” Well, yes, I suppose that’s why it’s called
“illegal…”
Those who are most upset
about illegal immigration claim it causes substantial harm to America.
They claim it drains public funds, because illegal immigrants consume more
in services than they pay in taxes; they claim illegal immigrants depress
the wages of American workers, especially those without high school degrees;
and they claim it contributes to population growth, overcrowding, and a
strain on natural resources.
I would agree that
illegal immigration is a problem that should be fixed. The question
is, how do we fix it? Do we fix it by putting up big fences, making
helping illegal immigrants a felony, and hiring a bunch more Border Patrol
people? Or do we fix it in a much easier way – by making this
immigration legal instead of illegal?
The House of
Representatives passed a bill, HR 4437, that authorizes building 698 miles
of fences along the southern, it repeals the “visa lottery,” and it adds new
penalties for immigration-related crimes.
Last week I was at a
lunch with some Christian colleagues, who are appalled by this
bill—basically Section 202 of the bill defines “smuggling” so broadly that
they would become criminals for offering undocumented workers a meal at
their soup kitchen.
A Senate version of the
bill is held up in committee as Senators debate provisions such as one which
would make being in America illegally a felony – a serious crime.
There are also provisions that provide a path to legal citizenship for the
11 million people who are currently here illegally. There are those
who think the Senate bill is too strict, because of the felony provision;
and there are those who think it is too liberal because the path to
citizenship smacks of “amnesty.” This provision would not be amnesty,
because it holds that illegal immigrants would in essence need to “earn” the
right to stay here, among other things by paying any back taxes they owe on
income that was earned without withholding.
I’m not going to debate
the economic aspects and impact of undocumented workers on the American
economy. It’s a very complicated topic, and in a global economy there
are arguments that can be made on both sides. Yes, one could argue
that illegal workers willing to work at or below minimum wage hold down
wages—if that pool of labor wasn’t available, employers would have to pay
the Americans who are here legally more. On the other hand, in a
global economy, if no one here is willing to pick lettuce for minimum wage,
the alternative may be that the field lies fallow while we import lettuce
from
Mexico—which
would not help workers, and it would penalize farmers. So the real
impact of migrant workers can be hard to determine.
What I do want to look
at this morning is whether there are messages from the Jewish tradition –
especially from the Passover story we told at our seders a few nights ago –
that will help guide us in understanding what kind of immigration reform, if
any, would be in keeping with Jewish values.
One of the most
fundamental messages of the Passover story is to be kind to strangers.
Over and over again in the Torah we are commanded “do not oppress the
stranger, for you know what it is like to be a stranger.” The Torah
clearly forbids us from having blind prejudice against people who come from
different places to dwell among us.
Jews, of all people,
should be sympathetic to people coming to America in search of a better
life. While some of our ancestors were fleeing anti-Semitism when they
came to America, many also came simply seeking a better more comfortable
life for their children. To say “we’re here, now you can close the
door behind us,” would be a kind of meanness of spirit characterized by the
tradition as
midot S’dom, the traits of the people of Sodom – those nasty people God
wiped in a storm of hail and brimstone.
In fact, hachnasat
orchim, hospitality, welcoming visitors, is an important mitzvah.
There are several examples given in the Torah, including both Abraham and
his nephew Lot
who provided warm welcomes to visitors from afar who showed up on their
doorsteps without warning.
This does not mean we
should take down any fences or border controls and let anyone into the
country who wants to come. Jerusalem has been a walled city for
thousands of years. Security is certainly a valid concern. The
government is not only entitled, it is obligated to check the credentials of
people who want to come to this country to attempt to ascertain that they
are not a security threat. If a fence is needed to keep terrorists
out, build a fence. However, if we’re going to build a fence for
security reasons, we need to look at more than a fence along the border
between California or Arizona and Mexico—we also need to look to the north.
The border between the US and Canada is the largest unprotected border on
the planet. A fence on the southern border only might stop Mexicans
wanting to work here, but it won’t stop terrorists, as a terrorist from the
Middle East could just as easily smuggle himself into Canada and into
America from there as from Mexico.
What would the Jewish
tradition suggest we do with people who are already here illegally?
We can look to this
week’s Torah portion for guidance. We have a special Torah reading for
this morning, the Shabbat that falls during Passover. It is from the
book of Exodus. Moses asks God hareini na et k’vodecha, “please,
God, show me Your glory!” God responds with the thirteen attributes of
mercy: “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord,
The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.”
The Torah (Deuteronomy
13:5) commands us “You
shall walk after the Lord your God.” How do we walk after the Lord?
The Talmud tells us that the way we walk after the Lord is to imitate his
qualities. As God is forgiving of iniquity and transgression and sin,
so we should be forgiving of sin. It is appropriate for us to find a
way to forgive those who entered this country illegally—yet at the same time
we’re also told that God “will by no means clear the guilty.”
The application of “will
by no means clear the guilty” would seem to be in applying yet another
principle from the Torah: mishpat echad yiyeh lachem kager
kaezrach,
you will have one form of law for both the native born citizen and the
stranger. People who came here illegally need to comply with the laws
of the land—they need to pay their taxes, if they drive they have to have
car insurance, etc. The proposal in the Senate bill which provides for
undocumented workers to normalize their status here by learning English,
paying any back taxes, etc., seems quite sensible and in accordance with our
values.
Immigration reform is a
very hot topic in Congress these days. Senators and Congress-people
are nervous about which way to go – they don’t want to be seen as soft on
security or not concerned about job loss, yet they also don’t want to be
seen as lacking in compassion and prejudiced against Mexicans – especially
at a time of a growing base of Latino voters.
I encourage you to write
our Senators, Mike DeWine and George Voinovich and Congresswoman Marcy
Kaptur and encourage them to support immigration reform which is both
compassionate and sensitive to security considerations. Prejudice
masquerading as security has no place in the foreign or domestic policy of a
nation built by immigrants.
We sit and eat our
matzah in the most comfortable exile the Jewish people have ever known.
Jews are now the wealthiest religious denomination in America. This
makes it more important than ever that we remember one of the fundamental
lessons from the Passover story – we know what it is like to be a stranger.
We know what it is like to be oppressed. Even if our children are born
with golden spoons in their mouths, we have institutional memory of what it
is like to be poor, to be the underclass, to be working the jobs no one else
wants.
May God help us to walk
in His ways of compassion, and may He strengthen the efforts of those who
work to create a more compassionate and loving community, country, and
world,
Amen.
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