First They Came – Parashat Vayikra 5785

Photo credit: Wikipedia
By Dmitry Dzhus from London – Toledo, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68164390

I’m excited that our trip to Portugal, Spain, and Morocco is sold out.

When the Spanish tour company heard I had never been and I was the rabbi “leading” the trip, they were disappointed.

Generously, they said, if you can get over here, we will take care of the rest.

And I said… “OK, if you insist….!”

So a couple of weeks ago, we went and explored this amazing country, which was such an on-and-off center of Jewish life and culture from around 900 C.E. through the 1300s.

We connected with the reviving liberal Jewish community in Madrid over Shabbat and had other experiences that I will share over the coming months.

One evening, we were walking and we stopped in a T-shirt store where we saw a picture of the Grand Inquisitor from the 1492 Inquisition with Darth Vader’s face.

It was a strange juxtaposition. We had seen little chatzkes with mini-grand inquisitors being sold around the country, which were in bad taste to say the least.

Photo credit: Picryl

That Grand Inquisitor, Tomás de Torquemada, tortured Jews, burned them at the stake, forcibly converted 50,000 of them to Catholicism, and rounded up and deported some 40,000 Jews, expelling them from the country.

This didn’t feel funny.

However, since this T-shirt store seemed more inclusive than the others, I decided to speak with the young Spanish salesperson. Since “no hablo Español,” I took out my phone and used Google Translate to ask her about what this meant.

It wasn’t so easy to understand each other, even with our phones.

“Why do you have this shirt?”

“We are selling it.”

“Right, but why?”

“Because it’s on the rack.”

“No, no, but why THIS shirt? Isn’t it offensive?”

“No, no, no…, it’s an Easter Joke.”

Given the blood libels, violence, and pogroms that would take place around Passover and Easter, I struggled to find the humor…

* * *

Walking through beautiful Spanish cities with their rich Jewish history, I was struck by the loss of Jews who were just taken off the streets and forced to flee the country or hide their Jewishness.

Arriving back in Boston, I watched the two-minute video of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and a doctoral student at Tufts, who is here legally on an F1 visa, being taken off the street by ICE agents.

The agents do not show their badges.

They cover their faces.

They handcuff her.

They take her into a plain, unmarked car.

They do not tell her why she is being arrested.

They do not read her her rights.

She has no rights – watch it; it looks like a kidnapping.

She is taken away to some unknown place.

No reason is given for why she is taken away.

Eventually, we found out that she was accused of supporting Hamas.

Now, I am no fan of Hamas, which perpetrated the October 7 pogrom, continues to hold our people hostage, and murdered two of my dear friends.

Still, as far as I can see, she wrote a one-sided op-ed supporting the Palestinian perspective. I strongly disagree with what she wrote, but even if she did write something else worse or even if she is a supporter of Hamas and deserves to be deported, how she was arrested is wrong, and I am calling it out.

* * *

Now, before I continue, I want to pause in this sermon.

I usually do not stop as I am trying to teach and am about to say what Judaism has to say about this.

But, I want to ask: is this an important topic?

Is it essential to mention this unlawful arrest in shul?

Maybe you came to shul only to take an escape from illegal arrests that strike fear in our hearts, and you don’t want to hear about “politics.”

You want to sing our Shabbat melodies.

Photo credit: Temple Emunah

I hear you.

I respect you, your positions, and what you need.

Whatever your view, I am proud and dedicated to serving as your rabbi.

It is the great honor of my life that you place your trust in me and this shul.

That said, sometimes we disagree.

But I always listen and take in other viewpoints and not only learn from them, but also modify my understanding because of them.

Second, let me clarify what I am speaking about today; it is not politics, this is not just current events; this is our reality.

Third, a few people have told me that they DO come to hear thoughts about these topics.

In fact, they are upset when I do not comment on the world as it is.

* * *

So, I believe we can and should do both – we can come and sing and daven and read Torah and celebrate, but we can also talk about what is happening in the world.

And that is what we do.

Our tradition considers every human being to be created in the image of God. We ALL have sparks of the Divine, and if WE do not want to be treated poorly, then WE better stand up when others are treated poorly.

Photo credit: Wikimedia

As Isaiah teaches us in the haftarah, we are supposed to be “edai, witnesses.”
God says, “YOU ARE MY WITNESSES!”

Witnesses of what?

We are supposed to be witnesses for God, for God’s presence in this world.

We are supposed to notice and see the beauty of the world, nature, and God’s world.

But it’s also to see God’s spark in every person, in each of us, in community. We are to witness God’s presence in our Jewish community.

But, it’s even more than that.

We are supposed to be witnesses like in a court case. We see a crime, we witness it, and then we speak out, we tell the truth.

We are called to that moral vision.

We tell it to each other and to the world.

We are God’s witnesses.

* * *

This is not new.

When Abraham is called by God, God says, “For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of יהוה by doing what is just and right.” (Gen. 18:19)

The Torah mentions 36 times that we were strangers in the land of Egypt and therefore, we are commanded to welcome and never oppress the stranger.

The prophets like Amos, Micah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah were not afraid to speak truth to power and call out injustice.

Photo credit: Wikipedia
By family member – received from author, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15923819

Even specifically on the topic of arrests, our tradition teaches that arresting someone can have a deep psychological impact on the person arrested. It should be done carefully. Rabbi Hayim David HaLevi, the late Sephardic Chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, saw modern police as equivalent to the biblical shotrim or officials in the book of Deuteronomy.

He wrote: “Halakha [Jewish law] assures us that no person will be arrested without cause, whether for a serious crime or a minor one such as those related to prices and measures and such things, and those who are charged with making arrests are in the realm of judges.”

This woman was not a serious threat.

This was not meant to be a lawful arrest.

It was meant to scare and intimidate.

Is this what we want our democracy to become?

* * *

I will end with this.

Officials and governments and other religious leaders have been coming after us as Jews for centuries.

Photo credit: Wikimedia

After the Shoah, after the Holocaust, the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller wrote this poem:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a socialist.

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—

and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

First they came for others…

Be God’s witness and speak out.