July 18, 2025
Watch Rabbi Rick Kellner’s Sermon (starting at 52.25): Rabbi Rick Kellner’s Personal Meeting Room – Zoom
In late January of 1948 Woody Guthrie awoke one morning and opened the NY Times. He discovered a story about a small plane crash in an agricultural section of the San Joaquin Valley in California called Los Gatos Canyon. There were 32 passengers on the plane, including 28 Mexican farm workers who were returning home to Mexico. Some of the Mexican workers had finished their contracts with the Bracero Program, the WWII initiative which brought Mexican citizens to the US for temporary employment. Others on the plane were undocumented workers and were being deported.
News reports following the crash reported all the Mexican passengers as deportees, and the four Americans on board were mentioned by name. The migrants on the flight were buried anonymously in the largest mass grave in California’s history. The remains of the American passengers were returned to their families. The families later identified and named all 28 laborers who were killed. Guthrie was so moved by what he read, that within days of the crash he wrote a poem, entitled Deportee, which is also known as the Plane Wreck at Los Gatos. He has one single recording of the piece which he performed as a song and was recorded on collection entitled Woody at Home which is being released next month. Other artists subsequently performed the song and modified the lyrics.
In the song Guthrie writes:
Some days I’m not legal, some days I’m not wanted,
Our work contract’s out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles you chase me to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
I died in your hills, I died in your deserts,
I died in your valleys and died on your plains.
He killed me in trees, and he killed me in bushes,
Both sides of the river, I died just the same.
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria
I don’t have a name
when I ride the big airplane
They just call me one more deportee.
(Listen to Woody Guthrie’s version; listen to Highwaymen’s version)
Looking closely at these lyrics we note Guthrie’s first-person telling of this story as he tried to give voice to the nameless and take on their identities. He notes the otherness with which the American public has treated these individuals, and he tries to bear witness to this pain.
In explaining the impact of this song, Guthrie’s granddaughter, Anna Canoni said, “After reading the article, which only named the four Americans that perished, Woody wrote this song in—I don’t want to say anger or frustration, but perhaps in observation of the 28 Mexican nationals who were not named in the article, and moreover, an observation of how the U.S. treats foreigners.” Historian, Tim Hernandez added, “Woody understood that to be nameless in death was an injustice of the highest order…to hear these words in Woody’s own haunting voice is to hear a prophetic voice from the grave, warning us about where we’ve been, who we’ve become, and where we are headed.” [1]
I am struck by Guthrie’s observation and power of what it means to be nameless in death and therefore nameless to the world. Without a name, we lack an identity, we have no story. In the case of that plane crash there were 28 who were killed, and no one shared their names.
These reflections leave us wondering about America’s journey when it comes to immigrants and how we treat foreigners. With ICE raids, arrests and deportations increasing, it leaves many of us feeling a sense of shock as we wonder how we can treat people the way we do. And yet, I wonder if such actions towards immigrants is a reflection of the sentiments that has been passed down in this country from one generation to the next.
Today we see immigrants living in fear because they might be picked up in the next raid. They are afraid that if their children go off to school, they would become orphans because they would have been picked up and sent off to a detention center, never to be seen again. They are living in the shadows because if they step into the light, they might be scooped up.
Our Torah portion parshat Pinchas, recalls the famous story when the daughters of Tzelophehad were concerned about inheriting their father’s land. He had died in the wilderness, and they wanted to be sure they would have access to the land he might pass on to them. The law, however, only allowed for land holdings to be passed from father to son. These five daughters approached Moses saying, “Why should our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son?” After consulting with God, Moses informs these five daughters that their claim is just, and the law is changed.
I want to examine closely the names of the people we learn about in this story. First Tzelophehad, in looking closely at this name, Sha’ar HaPesukim, a Kabbalistic commentary on the Torah notes that the name is made up of five letters tzadee, lamed, pey, chet, yod. The commentary further explains that they spell the words tzel pachad, which means the Shadow of Fear. Perhaps these five daughters are living in the shadow of fear since their father’s death. They were afraid of becoming nameless because tradition would have only left land and an identity to the sons through such an inheritance. To be nameless is to be completely lost and invisible. When we think about the current situation and how we are treating immigrants, we speak about the large numbers of people being deported. We never learn their names; we never learn their stories. To be a number is to lack an identity. To be a number is to be dehumanized.
You will notice that I did not name the daughters when I just spoke about them. In chapter 27:1 of the book of Numbers, we meet them as the daughters of Tzelophehad, they are nameless. By the end of the verse, we learn their names – Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. In a modern Midrash collection written by Israeli women entitled Dirshuni, Rivkah Lubitch asks, “Why were they referred to, first, as the “the daughters of Tzelophechad” and only after by their names? Lubitch explains that this is because of the tzel and the pachad. At first, they lived in their father’s shadow and were afraid to raise their heads. In the book of Numbers, raising your head is to be counted and seen. Lubitch continues by saying, once they drew near to one another, they were empowered and became known by their names. In explaining her teaching, Lubitch adds, “the patriarchal society in which they lived dictated their role as subservient to men. In the wake of the problem created by the division of land, they gathered to consult with one another and found strength in numbers and they were able to consolidate their identities as individuals.”[2]
Society often will dictate through established norms what a person’s role and identity can be. In our society, immigrants have often lived as other because of fear. Citizens have expressed such fear as a result of different customs, a lack of understanding in communication, or they were afraid of losing jobs to outsiders.
On the other hand, when we tell the story of America, we share that we are a nation of immigrants. The fantasy story is one of being welcomed in through a golden door to a place where the streets are paved with gold. Many of our ancestors, if they could still tell us their stories, would share their excitement at seeing Lady Liberty welcome them in with her torch filled hand reaching heavenward and with Emma Lazarus’ words etched into her pedestal, saying “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.” Several years ago, Ken Burns released a three-part documentary on PBS entitled the US and the Holocaust in order to shed light on the role of the US during the war. Out of the shadows of history, Burns shined a light on America’s history as it related to immigrants. He explained that prior to the Civil War, aside from the forced immigration of Africans, immigration was open and free. Most immigrants came from Northern European countries and people only had to fill out a landing card. In 1882, the United States passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in which, for the first time, the US restricted immigration. From 1870 through 1914, 25 million people came to the United States. But these immigrants were largely from Southern and Eastern Europe bringing with them strange customs, new languages, and different ways of worshipping God. Quotas were established and thousands of Jews seeking refuge and safety from the Nazis and the nightmares of the Holocaust were denied entry. Daniel Greene, a professor of history at Northwestern writes, “We tell ourselves stories as a nation. One of those stories is that we are a land of immigrants. But, in moments of crisis, we often find it difficult to live up to the promises made in those stories. Indeed, as historian Peter Hayes says in The U.S. and the Holocaust, keeping immigrants out of the country has been “as American as apple pie.”[3]
Much like the Guthrie’s understanding of history, when nameless individuals were buried in an unmarked grave, we too must give a name and a story to the people being rounded up and put into places like Alligator Alcatraz and other detention centers. While the Supreme Court may suggest it is legal to send individuals to countries different from their origins or to places where they might be harmed, we have to ask ourselves, is this humane?
Bishop Mark Seitz is a Catholic priest who has served the border community in El Paso for many years. He has witnessed first-hand the challenges immigrants face. He reflects that most Americans, because of the way we teach history in school and portray it in the media see the border in a binary way, it is here and there. He explains it is much more fluid and writes, “We are bound to our community on the other side of the border by ties of history, culture, language, and family. People cross every day to be with family, to work, to trade, and to worship. Some of my Catholic schools might have to close if students from Ciudad Juárez, our sister city in Mexico, weren’t able to cross. Students from El Paso also go to Juárez for the technical school there.” He adds that people are far more valuable than things. Human beings are God’s creation of greatest beauty and worth. Anything of great value also has the potential to do harm if misused, but human beings present far more potential for good.[4] Bishop Seitz’s words echo some of the core teachings we share in our own tradition. Sometimes it feels a bit cliché to remind ourselves that we are commanded to love the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt and that every human being was created in God’s image. However, we need to be reminded of these lessons because policy and the carrying out of such policies may lack a humanity that speaks from the compassion that lives within our soul.
Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, were concerned they would not inherit anything from their father, Tzelophehad. The Talmud, in tractate Baba Batra (119b), describes them as wise and virtuous and they spoke up at the right moment. We are living in a moment now when we are witnessing the tension between the story we inherited in our minds and the crisis we face on the ground. While we have inherited a story, we have also inherited a reality of American life that is harsh to immigrants. Like Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah spoke up in the wilderness, there is a time to speak up and seek change. Many of us have contributed to supporting and settling Obaidullah Houtek, the Afghani refugee who arrived in March. I am so grateful to our core team of volunteers who are doing the sacred work to help him feel comfortable in his new home. While this work is sacred, and we are saving a single life, we know that there is more work to be done. Over the next several months, we will be exploring opportunities and ways to support immigrants and live out our value of caring for and loving the stranger. If you would like to hear Woody Guthrie’s song, there is a half sheet with the lyrics and QR code to scan right outside the sanctuary and on the tables in the social hall to grab during oneg. Like Guthrie, who was moved by the nameless of this plane crash in 1948, may we be moved by this moment of history to give a name to the nameless and to allow the compassion to emerge from our hearts and into our hands. As we explore this work, may we respond to the call to help immigrants in our community navigate these difficult times. Kein Yehi Ratzon.
[1] The story about Woody Guthrie’s Deportee was adapted from the following: https://americansongwriter.com/listen-to-the-only-recording-of-woody-guthrie-singing-deportee/
[2] Dirshuni, ed. Tamar Biala p. 77
[3] https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-land-of-immigrants
[4] https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/living-vein-compassion
