Vayetzei - Living Between Two Worlds - Syrian Refugees and Us©
Rabbi David Baum - 5776/2015
Last
week, I did not here the news about the terrorist attacks in France
until I arrived to shul on Friday evening so I did not have the
opportunity to go on social media until Shabbat. When I logged on to
Facebook and Twitter, I was amazed with how so many of my friends
knew exactly how to handle the situation of the Syrian refugees which
became a bi-product of the attacks.
To
those who had your minds made up right away...I truly envy you.
It
took me time to understand my perspective, to understand a Jewish
perspective – I was stuck between my heart, seeing the suffering of
the refugees, and my head, which is aware of the potential dangers of
the refugees.
We
had a shocking Shabbat that is becoming all too familiar. Another
terrorist attack in Paris, this time, much deadlier than the last. I
remember living after 9/11, going on the city bus in Gainesville the
day of 9/11, and actually feeling fear. I remember what it was like
to live in Israel during the 2nd Intifada – the fear I
felt walking around, dodging buses and cafes. It gets you
questioning everything in your life, questioning everyone.
In
our parashah this week, Vayetzei, we see a Jacob who is running away
from his family, scared for his life. In some ways, he was the first
refugee of our forefathers – a person who is unable or unwilling
to return to his or her home country because of a “well-founded
fear of persecution” if he returned, which is the definition of a
refugee according to our government. As he is escaping Canaan for
Haran, he comes to a certain place, actually it’s called, BaMakom,
literally a place, and he sleeps there for the night. He’s in no
where’s land, between a world of terror, where he knew the players,
and an unknown world ahead of him, where he knew no one.
It’s
in this place where two worlds suddenly appear in front of him: the
world as it is, and the world as it should be. The world as it is
dark and lonely, full of fear – that’s the world that he falls
asleep in; but the world as it should be, in the very same place, a
world of angels, of a comforting, is where he wakes up.
Genesis
28:12:
וַֽיַּחֲלֹ֗ם
וְהִנֵּ֤ה סֻלָּם֙ מֻצָּ֣ב אַ֔רְצָה
וְרֹאשׁ֖וֹ מַגִּ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמָ֑יְמָה
וְהִנֵּה֙ מַלְאֲכֵ֣י אֱלֹ–קים עֹלִ֥ים
וְיֹרְדִ֖ים בּֽוֹ׃
12 He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it.
And
suddenly, Jacob realizes that he is not alone, in fact, God is
standing there next to him, and actually talks to him. He wakes up
and proclaims how great and awesome this place is, that God was there
and he didn't even know it.
Immediately
after this incident, the Torah tells us:
וַיִּשָּׂ֥א
יַעֲקֹ֖ב רַגְלָ֑יו וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ אַ֥רְצָה
בְנֵי־קֶֽדֶם׃
And
Jacob lifted his feet and came to the land of the Easterners...
Literally,
Jacob lifts his feet, a phrase that appears no where else in the
Bible – The Jewish Publication Society commentary, based on a
collection of classical commentators, give us three possibilities for
this phrase:
- The going was now easier
- He directed his feet, that is, he went with resolve and confidence,
- He had to force himself to leave the site of this holy revelation
Jacob
realizes that the world as it should be, this world of angels going
up and down, where God is literally next to him blessing him, is
fleeting – it's not something that can exist forever, if ever, in
this world. But, at the same time, the world of darkness and
loneliness, the world as it was to him, is also not something that
can last forever. His task is to live in tension between these two
worlds, and when he does this, he lives with purpose – the world as
it is can be a stepping stone to the world as it should be. He lifts
up his feet, forcing himself to leave the world as it should be
because he knows he has to enter back into the world as it is, a
world of periodic darkness, and yes, fear.
We
are also in this place, between seemingly two choices: the world as
it is, and the world as it should be.
Our
task is to bridge the gap between to the two worlds.
First,
we must open our hearts and empathize, we must be able to see
ourselves in the story of others. The story of the Syrian refugees
should hit close to home for us, not just because we are Jews, but
because we are Americans. Every one of our ancestors came here by
boat, or recently, by plane. They were all looking for a better life
– some had choices of where they could go, others didn’t.
My
grandparents, my mother’s parents, lived in Communist Poland after
they were liberated from Auschwitz. They went home, and lived life
as they did before the war, except for one main thing – they hid
their Judaism. My grandfather became a factory foreman in a coat
factor, but in order to make extra money, he tailored these coats,
which were one size fits all, in his apartment to passersby. In
Communist Poland, this was illegal. He was arrested several times,
and his family wondered after every stint in jail: would he come
back next time? But it wasn't just his tailoring, but the family's
religion. For years they had to hide their Judaism. My mother, aunt
and uncle only knew they were Jewish because my grandmother took them
out of class when the priest would teach the class Catholicism. In
the early 1960’s, my grandfather saw his chance for freedom – it
was only a matter of time until the next time he got arrested, that
he wouldn’t come home; or if someone found out they were Jewish who
could hurt them. They left Poland for America, on a boat, after a
deal was struck between America and Poland, they told me they traded
wheat for skilled workers. Here was the catch: they could only take
$5 per person and they had to fit all of their possessions in a large
wicker basket.
My
story isn’t that unique – I’m sure all of you have relatives
with similar stories. Think about the story of Jacob, Rachel, Leah
and their children as they flee Lavan, gathering what they can –
Rachel taking Laban’s gods, a reminder of a home she will never
return.
And
this story is playing itself out here in Florida with Syrian
refugees. Rather than focus on the estimated 10,000 refugees from
Syria that we are debating about now, I want to focus on the mother
of one family, Amal
Saleh, whose family recently settled in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida from
Syria. The family was screened before their arrival in Istanbul,
Turkey. After the family home in Aleppo was destroyed — one they
had bought just a few weeks before — they paid about $200 each for
a smuggler to take them to the Turkish border. Her husband, who
suffered multiple strokes after Syria's civil war erupted, was unable
to walk by that point. After waiting for a Turkish police patrol to
move past, the family rushed across the border, a friend carrying her
husband on his back.
They
reached a small city and bought bus tickets to Istanbul, where they
spent the next 21 months trying to find a home. They were let into
the U.S. after six interviews as a family and individually where the
government officials knew strange specific information about their
lives in Syria; after fingerprint checks, and more.
Now,
they live in Florida, and they are scared of Americans because of the
rhetoric her family has heard in recent days, she said: "The
same way that Americans are afraid of us, now we are afraid of them.
She continued, “I would tell them that we, the Syrian people, are
very peaceful. These are children, women and elderly who have no
blame for what's happening. We have been vetted very thoroughly. We
deserve to live."
Properly
vetting these refugees is vital, it's where we access our heads, it's
where we stand with one foot in the world as it is, and the heart
calls out to us, God calls out to us, to climb the ladder to the
world as it should be.
Before
Jacob grows into the Jacob we know, he was a scared boy fleeing his
home land. When he comes the well in Haran, again knowing no one, he
says, “My
brothers, where are you from?”
He
calls them, “my brothers,” as a way of establishing
commonality—a 14th
century Turkish commentator Moshe Al Sheikh says this means, “You
are people of equal value to me.” Then he asks where they are
from—again to establish connection.
It
shows me what most refugees want – not our jobs, not to terrorize
us, but a new beginning, to be our brothers and sisters, to establish
a common connection – to be equals.
It's
a scary time – it's times like these when we are stuck in the world
as it is, a dark world, a lonely and fearful world – but we have to
remember that refugees are also living in the same world. The
question is, how can we move to the world as it should be? We have
to bridge the gap between to the
two worlds. We have to use our heads, but at the same time, never
close our hearts.
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