A Message about Who Belongs – Haftarah Emor

Ezekiel 44:15-31

Speaking of the priests, Ezekiel prophesies in verse 23:
They shall declare to My people what is sacred and what is profane, and inform them what is clean and what is unclean.

What does it mean to separate and make classifications?
Should we continue to make separation and classification?
What is clean and what is unclean?
What is good and what is bad?
Who is in and who is out?
Who belongs and who does not?
Who gets to decide?

We live in a time where ritual purity and impurity are no longer concerns. Though we may continue to use the mikvah, we find ourselves emerging spiritually purified, not ritually so. We can never really achieve a state of ritual purity these days anyway, since the Temple is not around, for anyone really concerned about it.

Yet we come to these words about who is pure and who is impure. Who belongs and can stay and who does not and cannot. The priests in their time had a series of inquiries to make in order to determine purity and impurity and would check back at regular intervals to determine who was pure and who was not. Who had blemish and who did not. It was up to them to decide, in a mandate from God and Moses, who belonged in the community and who did not. Today, in this country, there is a discussion of who belongs and who does not. More importantly, however, is the discussion of how we determine who belongs and who does not.

I am an immigrant. Though you might not know it to look at me, I was not born in this country, and I went through the process of naturalization – an angering and frustrating process – to gain my right to vote. As a non-citizen, permanent resident (greencard holder) the only thing I could not do was vote in an election. I went to public school, paid taxes and lived an American life, all the while being from another country. My story is not unique; nor is it unique or rare that America is still considered and seen by many as the place to go to find work and a better life. The American dream lasts and has endured even the current onset of economic crisis and the lessening of American influence around the world.

The passage this past week of SB 1070 in Arizona angers me, as it does many people, immigrant or not. Though there cannot be open borders to allow everyone to come in as they wish, America does allow people to come and make their way legally toward the American life they desire. People like America because of the freedoms that it gives. America was the first nation with a real constitution that guaranteed rights to its citizens. It is not a perfect nation, and often the government needs some time to work out the kinks, but ultimately freedom and liberty are at the heart of what this nation stands for.

This law allows the police and law enforcement to determine who is clean and who is unclean, who belongs and who does not based on appearance. The issue is not with the notion that illegal immigrants are here illegally. The issue is with the reasonable suspicion clause in this law, which broadly defined, gives police and law enforcement the authority to question and detain whoever they deem suspicious. I watch enough Law and Order to know that reasonable suspicion and probable cause are often tenuous and then challenged in the second act, often resulting in evidence being thrown out and the ADA mad at the detectives.

Though the proponents of SB1070 say that there are safeguards in the language that prevents that, it is not a stretch to imagine that anyone who looks Hispanic in Arizona will be at least questioned and at most detained until their status is determined if they are not carrying documents. As a former greencard holder, I know how hard that thing is to replace. Carrying it with you increases the chance that it become lost, stolen or damaged. I never carried mine, nor did any of my family. But this also assumes that every Hispanic person is an immigrant. We know this not to be the case, yet as a group, all Hispanics are now seen as suspect. They are judged prior to trial, evidence, or witnesses all because of appearance.

As a Jew, this troubles me because of the memories it conjures of needing to look a certain way to belong to society. I don’t think it is as drastic as requiring people to wear a badge to inform police who they are, but, I can see it as the first domino. As an American, this troubles me because it seems to be only a small step removed from the dangerous rhetoric of “real America” and “real American values” that is code for a specific brand of white Christianity.

As a nation, we did not allow for profiling in airports for terrorist searches after 9/11, though many demanded it. As a nation, are we now going to allow for this? As a nation of immigrants (a reality many seem to forget conveniently), perhaps we should get serious about immigration reform.

Hopefully this bill will lead to some real changes in how we think about and treat the immigrants that come to this country.