Congregation Beth Shalom

 Torah Portion: Behar/Behukotai
Book of Leviticus
Chaps. 25:1-27:34
May 18, 2012

This week a person approached me bemoaning the dearth of American visionary leadership and the moral/ethical erosion of American values.  I agreed with her that these are tough times economically, politically, and religiously.  Nonetheless, I still attend the school of thought that sees life as a glass half full rather than half empty.   We possess great potential and the means to achieve it.  We just need the courage to open our hearts and minds, and therein lies the challenge.

This final Torah portion in the Book of Leviticus states no less than four times, “if your brother [or sister] should be reduced to poverty. . .” this is your responsibility to them and the poor among you.  In addition to addressing their immediate needs, one ancient rabbi suggests the Torah is particularly concerned about the feelings of the needy.  They should not be made to feel embarrassed about their plight.  Other rabbis warn against shaming the poor with embarrassing questions: “Why don’t you go out and get a job like everyone else?!”,  “Do you realize how much you are costing us taxpayers?!” The Midrash (Jewish legend) teaches that this sort of behavior “will bring evil upon themselves because they do not honor others as images of God.”

Emma Lazarus was born in New York City in 1849 to Jewish immigrants from Portugal.  From an early age Emma took a strong interest in literature and writing.  For a number of years she corresponded regularly with American author Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Emma became deeply involved with her Jewish heritage in the late 19th century after learning of the pogroms in Eastern Europe and the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.  The result of these events were the arrival of thousands of destitute eastern European Jewish immigrants to New York.  Lazarus became an advocate for this population and worked to create the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to help the immigrants learn to help themselves.

Emma Lazarus will undoubtedly be best remembered for the sonnet, “A New Colossus” whose words appear on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.  In keeping with the words of Torah and Jewish tradition, this poem has come to express the American dream and the kind of people who make it possible:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.

"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!"

As Americans, I have to believe we can do better.  We are an immigrant nation founded by a persecuted few in search of a better life.  This is who we are.  This is our greatness. America is the flaming torch in the darkness of poverty and persecution.  We can reclaim our birthright and, in doing so, re-discover America.

Rabbi Howard Siegel