May 15, 2010 | 2 Sivan 5770

I’m guessing that most of you have not read ahead in the Torah to next week’s parasha, Naso.

Am I right?  Well, let’s do so. Please take out your Etz Hayim chumash, and turn to page 791. Look at verse 2 – “Naso et rosh…”  God instructs Moses to take a census of the clans that have responsibility for the Tabernacle.

Now, please turn back to page 770.  Near the beginning of today’s Torah portion, we read, “Se’ooh et rosh…”

Here again, God instructs Moses to take a census of the adult, male Israelite community. You can hear the similarity in both expressions, can’t you?

Today – “Se’ooh et rosh” | Next Shabbat – “Naso et rosh”

Obviously, the expression means “Take a census…” But let’s delve a little deeper, like biblical commentators would do. They might ask, “Why use the expression ‘Se’ooh - or ‘Naso et rosh,’ literally ‘Raise up the head?’” Why not use the word, “ooh’sefartem” – “count”? And then, why would the Torah state not once but twice in regard to a census – “raise up the head…”?

My answer is that the voice of the Torah here recognizes that the act of counting people can become a depersonalizing experience.

As people are counted – 1, 2, 3, all the way to 603,550 according to today’s Torah reading, they can lose their distinctiveness. They can become – what do we say…..”just another number.”

Therefore, the Torah states, “Se’ooh or Naso et rosh” – Raise up the head of each individual as you count him.

Find some way to communicate to that person that he has value…as an individual and as part of a community.

Right now in the United States, we are seeing some disturbing effects of counting people and depersonalizing them…I am speaking of undocumented immigrants. While we cannot support or allow illegal workers to enter our country at will, we also cannot stand for views and actions that depersonalize and demean them.

I’m sure you are familiar with the legislation recently passed by the Arizona state legislature and signed into law by its governor. That law enables Arizona law officials to require individuals to show their immigration papers if there is a “reasonable suspicion of illegality.”

It is not my intention here to discuss the merits of this law. But it doesn’t take much to figure out that such a law is rooted in fear.

Today there are nearly half a million undocumented immigrants in Arizona. Arizona residents describe scenes of houses packed with these people. The images are unsavory. Let’s be clear – when such houses become drug dens, authorities must crack down on this trafficking. But otherwise, people are “counting,” depersonalizing and acting out of fear…

Fear of one who is different from them and who they feel threatens them.

In another place in our country undocumented workers have also been “counted,” depersonalized and demeaned. But this case is very different from the recently-passed Arizona law. Here, fear does not motivate the actions of those who have power. Here, the fear results from the power that those who have it wield over undocumented workers. And here it is a case to which the Jewish community, in particular, ought to pay close attention.

Sholom Rubashkin, a Chassid – an identifiably observant Jew and former owner of Agriprocessors, Inc., a kosher slaughter house in Iowa, was convicted of 86 counts of financial fraud last November.

He is now on trial with other former Agriprocessors’ management. All have been accused of violating the state’s child-labor laws. The list of allegations is horrendous. That the central individual in this trial is an observant Jew is a shonda – it’s a disgrace.

In the next number of days the legal justice system of Iowa will determine if Mr. Rubashkin and others are guilty. But this much is clear – what won’t be adjudicated in that Waterloo, Iowa courthouse is the depersonalization and demeaning of undocumented immigrants.

A court can’t address that situation; only people can address it.

“Se-ooh et rosh,”  “Naso et rosh,” the Torah urges us.

When we look at people; when we count them, the Torah challenges us to “raise up their heads.”

A level of respect, decency and safety should always be the norm…irrespective of who the workers are. That’s a hard thing for us to do. After all, these undocumented workers have entered the U.S. illegally. We should show them no kindness, no compassion!

Friends, it is simplistic and flies in the face of our tradition to dismiss these people as illegals who should be immediately deported.

As the children and grandchildren of immigrants and as rachmanim b’nai rachmanim, merciful people, we must stand for immigration reform that is understanding, compassionate and forgiving.

We cannot throw open the doors to our country. But we must open them in ways that communicate that we seek to “raise up the heads” of these people by showing them respect.

That is the way of Torah.

Thirty-six times the Torah tells us in various ways not to oppress the stranger because we were strangers in Egypt. No other mitzvah appears as frequently in the Torah as that holy obligation.

You know why, don’t you? Because it’s human nature to act out of fear – to count, to depersonalize, to demean, and to oppress.

To the Egyptians, we were just the illegals of the day!

Thank God – God was on our side!

So which side is the Holy One on now – on the side of the powerful who can enact laws or who take advantage of people they can control demean or on the side of the vulnerable?

The answer is that God is with those who act in accordance with the mitzvah mentioned at the beginning of today’s parasha – “Se-ooh et rosh.”

God is on the side of those, who in their interactions with others…especially with the other, raise up the head of the other in respect and communicate that he or she is also a child of God.

We best seek to be on that side.

Shabbat Shalom.