A Message from Rabbi Maurice (October 2007)

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"My Sister/My Bride": Abraham, Sarah, and Illegal Immigration

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

It’s also a story that Jews have known well many times over in many lands. Jews desperately did whatever was necessary in order to seek a safe haven in different countries following the Spanish Expulsion of 1492. During the great Jewish immigration waves to the U.S., some Jews faked their documents or “married” American citizens to gain entry to the U.S. During the Nazi era, most European Jews couldn’t legally emigrate to other countries. Some weighed their options and chose to try to escape Hitler by making their way to British Palestine – but even in attempting to emigrate to the one place on earth to which Jews actually had an historical claim they could make, they had to enter Palestine as illegal immigrants. They used many forms of disguise and deceit to get there.

 
Avram and Sarai’s deception is pathetic. As uninvited immigrants, these first 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 this “sister / bride” story 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.

 
Are things so different for America’s illegal / undocumented immigrants?

Jewish history has an important place in our consciousness as we try to understand the current American debate over illegal / undocumented immigrants. 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 Avram and Sarai many times. We know this story. We also know the law of the land. What are we guided to do?

Shalom,

Rabbi Maurice