April 25, 2025
Throughout the Pesach holiday, as I ate matzah day after day, the bread of affliction reminded me of our people’s journey through the wilderness. The obligation to tell the Passover story brings with it the idea of working towards freedom. I recently learned from Yossi Klein Halevi in the Passover episode of the For Heaven’s Sake podcast, that one of the reasons why Pesach has resonated with so many different people and cultures around the world is because it is a promise of renewal and the breaking out of “the seemingly immutable.” Halevi explains that our Pesach story is the first instance where people born into a condition of slavery suddenly emerge into freedom. As part of this powerful conversation, Rabbi Donniel Hartman added that our story has universal resonance because the power of the Jewish people lies in the fact that this story empowers us to see ways in which we relate to the “other.”
When I was at the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis several weeks ago, one of the major programs focused on the importance of respectful dialogue. We were asked to think about stories or moments in our lives that shaped our morals or our political opinions. I still recall as a high school student watching a movie in one of my Spanish classes in which the young teenagers in the film are filled with excitement as they plan the quinceañera of one of the girls. The film takes place in Los Angeles, and I recall the scene where someone yelled out la migra, la migra and the immigration police come to round up the people who were undocumented. This was an older film, likely filmed in the 1980s, but the fear in the young people and their families pierced my veins. As a Spanish major in college, I shared many classes with native Spanish speakers, who brought their personal stories to our classes. Never once did anyone ever ask or assume anything about their immigration status, they were our classmates.
Reflecting on these experiences—the emotions stirred by the film, the real-life connections I formed in college, and the enduring message of the Passover story and the Torah’s call to “Love the stranger, for we were strangers in the land of Egypt”—I’ve come to recognize a deep moral obligation to care for those who are different from me.
During Passover, I studied my daily pages of Talmud. The cycle has brought us to tractate Makkot, which focuses on legal proceedings in cases of manslaughter. Jewish law teaches us that in such cases, we are to send people to what we call “Cities of Refuge”. The Torah tells us in the book of Numbers that Moses was to establish these cities so that the one accused of murder or convicted of man slaughter can go there for their own protection from revenge. Essentially these cities are a prison. In the Talmud (Makkot 10a) we learn that every necessity must be taken care of for the person imprisoned there. Their basic needs, including food, clothing, and shelter must be provided for. Makkot 10a also teaches that we must attend to their spiritual needs as well, by explaining that if a Torah scholar was exiled there, his teacher relocates so he can continue to learn. The laws mentioned here are intended to ensure the dignity of the prison and the prisoner.
I was reading these words as news was spreading about the imprisonment of wrongly deported man Abrego Garcia and the horrid conditions of the CECOT Prison in which he was originally held. News reports have shown the inhuman conditions of such prisons in El Salvador. Lights are kept on 24 hours a day; prisoners are able to leave their cells for only 30 minutes. The overcrowding is excessive and there is limited access to toilets and other hygiene. 368 deaths have been documented after torture, physical beating, denial of food, water, clothing, and health care. The conditions are incongruent with what our Jewish teachings say about how we are to treat people, even if they are imprisoned. While the men imprisoned there are gang members and perhaps did terrible things, we ask, is it morally just to treat them in inhuman ways? We also wonder what it will take for this wrongly deported man to return to his family.
As we have helped support a new immigrant over the past month, I am growing deeply concerned over the terrible fears facing the immigrant communities. There is increasing fear among the documented as well as the undocumented. Some of us may have family members or friends feeling such fear. While we may feel powerless to change what is happening, if you know someone who is an immigrant, a green card holder, or perhaps someone who is undocumented, perhaps you might want to reach out and tell them you are thinking of them. That personal outreach will go a long way to show concern and support.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rick Kellner