Dear Friends,
Can we be reasonable in how we address the stranger and the other in our community?
Or, are we consigned to being impulsive, emotional and unreasonable?
In the weeks leading to the recent election and thereafter, I fear that reasonableness also lost votes.
Reasonableness… it is not my novel concept. The Torah recounts that when his wife, the matriarch Sarah, died, our patriarch Abraham turned to the non-Jewish people nearby in order to acquire a place for her burial. Abraham stated, “I am a stranger and a resident among you.” (Gen. 23:4) He was the outsider, the migrant, not they. So, he began with his careful approach.
Chayim ben Attar, an 18th century Moroccan, then Italian and finally Jerusalemite commentator wrote regarding Abraham’s words: “We need to appreciate that our holy Torah applies reason, and especially so in our conduct on this earth. Just as we Jews are commanded to deal with resident strangers in a humane manner, so reason dictates that people all over the earth should conduct themselves with one another in a like manner. It is a universal obligation to enable resident strangers to live undisturbed…”
This would not be an interesting or important teaching, except for the context of today’s wider discourse regarding what ben Attar called, “resident strangers.” Today’s rhetoric has added ugly pejoratives to the titles which we give to “others,” and more, has made them into “ugly others.”
We know this all too well. We were “Christ-killers” in the Medieval period. We were “vermin” to the Nazis. We have been “Zionist murderers” for the last 13 months. Who knows what the next canard and label will bring?
However, we may expect it will be without reason or reasonableness. We have been, and remain, the canary in the coal mine, and along with people from Central America, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, we have been feeling xenophobia rising in America and elsewhere.
And, as it rises, reasonableness falls in exact, inverse proportion, like a seesaw.
Torah demonstrated careful, thoughtful reasonable conduct between residents and strangers, a Moroccan who migrated to Italy and then to Palestine 200 years ago, reminds us.
Torah urges that we behave with care and reason when engaging others. Wouldn’t we hope the same for us? Thus, we should do no less. It is a universal obligation…
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Can we be reasonable in how we address the stranger and the other in our community?
Or, are we consigned to being impulsive, emotional and unreasonable?
In the weeks leading to the recent election and thereafter, I fear that reasonableness also lost votes.
Reasonableness… it is not my novel concept. The Torah recounts that when his wife, the matriarch Sarah, died, our patriarch Abraham turned to the non-Jewish people nearby in order to acquire a place for her burial. Abraham stated, “I am a stranger and a resident among you.” (Gen. 23:4) He was the outsider, the migrant, not they. So, he began with his careful approach.
Chayim ben Attar, an 18th century Moroccan, then Italian and finally Jerusalemite commentator wrote regarding Abraham’s words: “We need to appreciate that our holy Torah applies reason, and especially so in our conduct on this earth. Just as we Jews are commanded to deal with resident strangers in a humane manner, so reason dictates that people all over the earth should conduct themselves with one another in a like manner. It is a universal obligation to enable resident strangers to live undisturbed…”
This would not be an interesting or important teaching, except for the context of today’s wider discourse regarding what ben Attar called, “resident strangers.” Today’s rhetoric has added ugly pejoratives to the titles which we give to “others,” and more, has made them into “ugly others.”
We know this all too well. We were “Christ-killers” in the Medieval period. We were “vermin” to the Nazis. We have been “Zionist murderers” for the last 13 months. Who knows what the next canard and label will bring?
However, we may expect it will be without reason or reasonableness. We have been, and remain, the canary in the coal mine, and along with people from Central America, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, we have been feeling xenophobia rising in America and elsewhere.
And, as it rises, reasonableness falls in exact, inverse proportion, like a seesaw.
Torah demonstrated careful, thoughtful reasonable conduct between residents and strangers, a Moroccan who migrated to Italy and then to Palestine 200 years ago, reminds us.
Torah urges that we behave with care and reason when engaging others. Wouldn’t we hope the same for us? Thus, we should do no less. It is a universal obligation…
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
