Community Blog

This d'var Torah was originally written for T'ruah's listserve, and appears here with some differences for a congregational delivery.

Shabbat Shalom. The first “work” I did after returning from Switzerland was to speak with Senator Kaine’s office staff along with other T’ruah Chaverim to advocate for asylum seekers. We are fortunate that the VA senator has already made clear he will not be voting in favor of the two bills we were advocating against (S. 1473 and S.1600), and this meeting was mostly to ensure that he knows the Jewish community wants him to continue to push against any attempts to limit immigration and ban asylum seekers. I wish for blessing and strength for those of you who need to actively lobby for your elected officials to support human rights.  

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Shoftim, includes the commandments for Sanctuary Cities, “Thus blood of the innocent will not be shed,” (Deut. 19:10). These sanctuary cities are different from what we may think of in the modern sense, as they were specified to be places someone guilty of manslaughter may go to prevent being killed in violent revenge by a family member of the person they accidentally killed. It was a means of ensuring that true justice is served, not a system of punishment based on personal vengeance. I think the concept of a sanctuary city as we now know it would seem absurd to our ancestors, and would be a totally unnecessary designation for God to command amongst the laws of an affective justice system as we find in this parasha. The Torah is riddled with commandments to welcome the stranger and to have one law for all residents, citizen and non-citizen alike, for “you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Every city and town and village in the land of Israel is to be a sanctuary, a refuge for those fleeing any life-threatening danger.

Similarly, a self-proclaimed “melting pot,” a country that declared its independence by asserting that all men are created equal, should continue to be a sanctuary and refuge. The base of the Statue of Liberty, the beacon of hope of all that the United States has claimed to be, tells the world to “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Lady Liberty no longer welcomes in new Americans, and not just because they no longer come into New York harbor on steamships. American history is unfortunately tainted by periods of non-welcoming – from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the 1924 US Immigration and Nationality Act, which was largely used in the 1930’s and ‘40’s to keep out Jews fleeing Nazi-occupied lands – and we appear to be in another such episode. While our current presidential administration has sought to distinguish itself from the previous regime, in actuality has not implemented more just or humane immigration policy. In fact, President Biden’s “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways” rule, as part of a broader regional migration strategy, is having the effect of preventing vulnerable people from the ability to even ask for asylum. The humanitarian impact has been and will continue to be egregious and devastating.

The point of the cities of refuge in Parashat Shoftim is to prevent ongoing cycles of violence. We are commanded to protect people from harm they do not deserve, even if they have also already harmed someone else by accident. How much more so should we be expected then to protect people from harm they have done nothing to incur? Innocent people escaping gang violence, parents trying to bring children out of the line of fire in war-torn nations, ethnic or religious minorities and LGBTQIA folks fleeing persecution: these too must be welcomed in to cities of refuge, to spaces where they can be safe and protected while they wait for citizenship. All manner of sanctuary cities, from the sort described in this parasha, to the legal status of municipalities refusing to cooperate with CBP or ICE, to simply humane border checkpoints that welcome in the stranger, are for the purpose of pekuach nefesh, preserving life. May we soon see a day when every city, town, village, and border checkpoint in our nation is seen as a place of sanctuary.