At the first Passover, we marked our doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb to protect us from the Angel of Death (Exodus 12:23). Although that was a one-time ritual, doors continue to be a central symbol of the holiday. It is a symbol that seems more relevant than ever in an age when nativism and xenophobia clash with timeless Jewish values of loving and welcoming the stranger.

 

 

 

 

The Seder recalls our own homelessness as wandering refugees from slavery in Egypt, and even further back, to our ancestor who was called "a wandering Aramean" (Deuteronomy 26:5). Throughout the centuries and especially during the Holocaust era, Jews have particularly known the pain of being unwanted refugees. We have literally been out-of-doors and shut out. This Passover, we can be moved to do better for today's refugees.

 

Today there are 65 million refugees in the world, a number unparalleled since the aftermath of WWII. Both the United States and Israel are nations of immigrants and refugees. But recent trends are troubling. The current U.S. Administration, known for anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions, aims to cap legal refugees admitted to the US at the lowest number in decades. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has caused controversy by moving to expel some 38,000 refugees. Both actions stand in contrast to Passover's message of welcome, compassion, and freedom.

 

My own community in Westchester County, New York, is helping to welcome our second refugee family by supporting a local group: PART One, the Pleasantville-Armonk Refugee Task Force. PART One began when a group of neighbors found themselves in attendance at a local pro-immigration rally. They formed the group and brought in their congregations, Pleasantville Community Synagogue and Congregation B'nai Yisrael of Armonk, to provide volunteers and because they discovered that their activism was significantly driven by their own Jewish identities. In Westchester there are now 10 groups active in resettlement, and most are affiliated with synagogues! HIAS, a Jewish organization that works for immigrants and refugees, has inspired many of us to get involved.

 

The famous poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...I lift my lamp beside the golden door," is by Jewish poet Emma Lazarus. My colleague Rabbi Mona Alfi recently led her congregation, B'nai Israel in Sacramento, in joining the Golden Doors Campaign, painting the doors of their synagogue gold as a symbol of welcome to immigrants and refugees. Where once long ago we painted our doors with lamb's blood to protect us from the dangers outside, we can now (literally or figuratively) paint them gold to welcome others inside. May this Passover be a time when we open our hearts and our doors to those seeking refuge in our world today.

Rabbi Julie's D'var Torah for Pesach above was published the last week of March on the website of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, a multi-denominational network of rabbis and Jewish communities in the U.S. and Canada working to protect human rights in North America and Israel.