Reconstructing Passover: ‘Welcoming the Stranger’ Here and Now
Throughout the Tanakh, we’re commanded to love the stranger, for we were strangers in Egypt. In this interview from early 2018, Rabbi Elliott Tepperman of Bnai Keshet in Montclair, N.J., describes how his Reconstructionist community is moving from words to action in welcoming and caring for outsiders by becoming a sanctuary congregation for undocumented immigrants. On Passover, he says, when we open the door and recite, “Let all who are hungry, come and eat,” it’s often just meant as a nice metaphor. But this year, the meaning of that phrase has been reconstructed. “This year, we painted a room. We’ve put a bed in that room. We can say that with a whole heart, knowing that we mean it.”
Listen to the interview on Episode 10 of the Hashivenu Podcast.