This weekend, Bend the Arc, The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), our own Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center (RAC) and others are joining together with Jewish communities across the country to demand an end to our current government’s policies that are endangering, incarcerating and deporting refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants.
This weekend was chosen because Sunday is the commemoration of Tisha B’Av. On the ninth of Av, Tisha B’av, the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Since then, this solemn day has become a kind of spiritual repository for pain, grief, sadness and anger.
On this Tisha B’Av we lament a different kind of destruction – the destruction of the value of welcoming immigrants and being a beacon of freedom and safety to those fleeing violence and oppression. This was once central to our identities as Americans, and it does remain central to our identity as Jews.
Our tradition teaches that although the Romans physically destroyed the Temple almost two thousand years ago, the responsibility was in fact our own. According to this lesson, the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, the hatred between the people. It’s important to note that sinat chinam does not refer to the hatred and anti-semitism of the Romans. It recalls the hatred amongst our own people.
...
A few days ago, I read this quote:
Terrible things are happening outside ... poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.
The reality of the ICE raids, the detention camps, and the separation of children from parents should remind us of our own story and of who we are. We were strangers in the land of Egypt, and we are commanded - not once - not twice - but thirty six times - to remember this very fact. We are commanded to love thy neighbor as yourself. And yes, the immigrant, the alien, the stranger, the person who has a different skin color, or sexual identity, or heritage - is your neighbor. Hillel said that if we were to live by one commandment and one only, it would be: Do not do what is hateful to yourself.
These days, everything has a label on it. If you’re for or against something, you’re supporting the “liberal agenda” or the “Republican agenda.” But what I’m taking about tonight is the Jewish agenda. This is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves every year during Passover, when we celebrate our freedom.
...
The quote that I read is painful. It is particularly so, because it was not written this week, or even this year. It was written by a teenage Anne Frank in 1943.
Sinat Chinam...
These sorts of parallels are why I join my colleagues and other Jewish organizations this weekend in saying that Never Again means Not Now.
We are a people well acquainted with hate and tragedy and despair. And we are also a people with blessing and community and here in Athens, we are a respected community with strength and power. Amongst ourselves, let us end the sinat chinam that separates people into “us” and “them.”
...
Tonight, we started the last book of Torah, Deuteronomy. It’s name comes from a Greek word meaning retelling. Tradition teaches that the first four books of Torah are directly from God, and then then the fifth is from Moses - it is Moses’ understanding of the Torah, and it is up to Moses to decide how to communicate the precepts of the Torah. Some of these are shortened, some are lengthened, and some are changed entirely.
On this Shabbat, I think that our country needs a kind of Deuteronomy, or a second-telling. What is the soul of our country? What do we want it to be? As an American, there are lots of answers. But as a Jew, it is simple. It is the opposite of sinat chinam; - Love your neighbor as yourself.*
