fbpx Desperate Immigrants: An Ancient Jewish Story | Reconstructing Judaism

Desperate Immigrants: An Ancient Jewish Story

Article

In the Book of Genesis, we read about Abraham and Sarah’s journey to the Promised Land. Shortly after they arrive, they encounter famine and head to Egypt in search of food. Foreigners without family or clan to protect them, they are afraid. Abraham asks Sarah to pretend to be his sister in the hope that this will help them avoid trouble – an act of deceit that potentially offered them some protection from harm in the context of their times.

The gamble works out badly. Pharaoh’s courtiers notice Sarah’s beauty, and the king summons her to his harem. Only divine intervention lets Sarah escape without having to sleep with the king.

It’s a pitiable story. Abraham and Sarah lie and humiliate themselves to try to survive in a foreign nation they have not received permission to enter. It’s a story of strangers in a strange land, without protection, without connections and without a right to go about their business unmolested. It is an illegal immigrant’s story.

It’s also a story that Jews have known well many times over in many lands. Jews desperately did whatever necessary to seek a safe haven in different countries after the Spanish Expulsion of 1492. During the great Jewish immigration waves to the U.S., in order to escape poverty and anti-Semitism, some Jews faked their documents or “married” American citizens to gain entry to the country. During the Nazi era, most European Jews couldn’t legally immigrate to other countries. Some weighed their options and chose to try to escape Hitler by making their way to British-run Palestine – but even in attempting to immigrate to their ancient homeland, they had to enter Palestine as illegal immigrants. They used many forms of disguise and deceit to get there.

Abraham and Sarah’s deception is pathetic. As uninvited immigrants, these unwanted Hebrews have no social or governmental structure to protect them – no way to seek recourse against anyone harming them or taking advantage of them financially or, as the sister/bride deception points to, sexually. Years pass, they return to Canaan, and still their marginal status as immigrants continues. They face suspicion from the native citizens and do their best to try to gain a foothold in their adopted country. When Sarah dies, despite the many years Abraham has lived and worked in Canaan, he still has not so much as even a claim to a grave site where he can bury her. He ends up having to go to the country’s citizens, hat in hand, and ask if he can purchase a small cave for her grave. He ends up overpaying for it.

Abraham and Sarah came to Canaan without permission, but they brought blessings to the people of the region. Mexican and Central American farmworkers, here legally or not, bring Americans the largely unappreciated luxury of cheap and abundant produce, and poverty drives most of them across our borders.

As a rabbi, I look to Jewish history and to the Hebrew Bible for insight into the ethical questions about immigrants, labor, and justice. In the Jewish community, we know from our experience that when people are desperate and seeking a better life, and when they are in precarious circumstances, sometimes they lie or break the law in order to get by. It’s humiliating. It’s not what people would prefer to do. We can judge them for it, or we can try to empathize and factor in their circumstances and difficult choices as we try to find better national policy.

Immigration laws are important, and our country is based on the rule of law. Jewish tradition also sees law as sacred and essential to a just society. But alongside law, Judaism also places sacred emphasis on story. The law must listen to the specifics of the stories being brought before it. From a Jewish perspective, good law is not robotic. It responds to people and it recognizes human vulnerability. It resists humiliating people who are swept along by massive forces that put them in the position of needing to take unappealing and dangerous risks to try to help themselves and their families survive. As Jews, we’ve played the part of Abraham and Sarah many times. We know this story.

Leviticus 19:33–34 reads, “And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall do him or her no wrong. The stranger that dwells with you shall be to you as the home-born among you, and you shall love him or her as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Eternal, your God.”

America can do better than demonizing the Abrahams and Sarahs in our midst. Let us remember the heart of the stranger, for we have been strangers in many lands, in many times.

An earlier version of this essay first appeared on Oregonlive.com.

 

Pursuing Justice
Associate Director for Thriving Communities and Israel Affairs Specialist, Reconstructing Judaism

Related Resources

News and Blogs

Responding to antisemitism by growing community, deepening commitments and building coalitions

On Sunday Oct. 28, 2018 — one day after the deadliest day in American Jewish history — I mourned with members of Congregation Dor Hadash. The Pittsburgh Reconstructionist congregation met in the Tree of Life building and had lost one of its own, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz (z”l). Another member, Dan Leger, clung to life. Virtually every member of the congregation had gathered in solidarity. People were understandably raw, numb and devastated. Yet, in their commitment to mutual support, I was reminded of the awesome power of Jewish community to cultivate resilience in the face of pain and threat, including violent antisemitism.

In these polarized times, discourse over how best to confront antisemitism has often been visceral and sometimes taken on hyperbolic tones. At Reconstructing Judaism, we believe there are several steps toward a vigorous and constructive fight against rising antisemitism.

News
News and Blogs

‘Love your neighbor as yourself’: How Torah is helping me process Derek Chauvin’s conviction

Many people have asked how I feel about the Chavin verdict. Whenever I struggle to find words, I’m grateful for the teachings in the Torah, and this week is no exception.

News
News and Blogs

'A Beat to Which We All Can Move’: A Call to Jews to Embrace the Pursuit of Racial Justice

From its very beginnings, the Jewish story is full of journeys. When it comes to racial justice work, the Reconstructionist movement is in the midst of a profound journey.

News
News and Blogs

Jews, Race, and Religion: An Online Lecture Series

Jewish experience offers a valuable entryway into the study of race. Jewish identities and experience complicate conceptions that are overly simplistic or that lack nuance. Jewish history illuminates both the difficulty and the imperative of grappling with race and racism. To deepen our understanding of race, we have organized a series of online talks that will bring leading scholars of race, religion and Jewish life to a broad public.

News
News and Blogs

Counting Every Vote

Many American Jews considering voting to be a mitzvah, a commandment. It is essential that every vote is counted so that every voice is heard and so that our full-throated democracy can flourish.

News
News and Blogs

Mourning, Recovering and Rebuilding

News
News and Blogs

Day of Learning on Homelessness Combined Learning With Action

Reconstructing Judaism’s 2020 New York Day of Learning: Jewish Response to Homelessness, combined deep learning and practical action to help those among us who are homeless.

News
News and Blogs

Welcoming a Guest Into a Sanctuary Congregation

“One who destroys one life destroys the entire world. One who saves one life saves an entire world.” This  dictum has new meaning to me since my congregation, Temple Beth Hatfiloh (TBH), welcomed our guest into physical sanctuary, making the commitment to provide housing and shelter for an asylum seeker who is at risk of deportation.

News
News and Blogs

Reconstructionist Affiliates, Rabbis Push for More Just Immigration System

Rooted in the Jewish textual tradition and lived experience, Reconstructionist communities are aiding immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers through direct service, education and advocacy.

News

How Your Community Can Help Immigrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Looking for ways your community can get involved in immigration issues, directly assist a family, or advocate for systematic change? This resource offer a number of concrete steps your community can take.

Article
News and Blogs

Rabbi Elliott Tepperman: Bringing a Community-Organizing Model to the Pulpit

Rabbi Elliott Tepperman’s vision of a synagogue: a community that sustains itself through prayer and Torah, while also “trying to be a powerful force for making change in the world.”

News
News and Blogs

Facing Death, Rabbinical Student Teaches Others About Living Life

Emet Tauber, a rabbinical student facing terminal illness, devoted his last days to supporting causes and institutions that he values — including affordable and accessible rabbinic education. 

News
News and Blogs

Evolve: Sowing the Seeds of Constructive Evolution

Reconstructing Judaism has just rolled out Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations with the intention of hosting difficult, groundbreaking conversations that are nevertheless mutually respectful and supportive. We invite you to visit Evolve and to join the conversations!

News
News and Blogs

Notes from the Border

Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president of Reconstructing Judaism, reports on her participation in the national leadership mission to the San Diego-Tijuana border organized by HIAS and the Anti-Defamation League.

News
News and Blogs

The Poor People’s Campaign, a National Call for Moral Revival

The RRA recently became a partner of the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC). In the last two weeks the PPC has coordinated rallies and acts of civil disobedience in over 30 state capitals, including the participation of over 15 RRA members. 

News