I had never been inside Perth Amboy’s quaint, two room art gallery on the outskirts of this heavily Hispanic town in Central New Jersey.
What brought me inside at this moment, nearly four years after I moved to Perth Amboy to be the rabbi of Congregation Beth Mordecai, the remaining synagogue in town, was not art, but politics. Mayor Wilda Diaz was announcing the launch of a city-wide ID program, an opportunity for all Perth Amboy residents to obtain a form of identification that they could use to access services and businesses within the municipality.
“We are all Perth Amboy,” she said proudly as the crowd responded enthusiastically. The program, modeled after similar programs in New York City, Newark, and Trenton, is designed so that all residents of Perth Amboy, including those who have difficulty obtaining state or national ID (seniors, students, undocumented workers, etc.), feel like they belong to this city. No one is a stranger, no one is a foreigner when we are all Perth Amboy.
Being a stranger or a foreigner in your own city, state, or country goes deeper than just lacking identification. As a chaplain in Perth Amboy’s Police Chaplain Corps, I’ve gained a little insight into the unique feeling that undocumented workers have of being a foreigner. I’ve heard some of the stories of how not having a bank account (which they could obtain with a city ID) leads people to carry their money in cash and invites them to be targets of robbery. Yet that’s just the beginning. When police officers try to help these individuals, some refuse because they are worried they’ll be deported–even though the officers try to communicate that they will never be deported if they are a victim of a crime. So these individuals leave the scene, remaining foreign to a system of assistance that they are scared to join.
Whether it’s through a City ID program or police assistance, there are many ways in which communities are trying to help foreigners. But can we ever change the feeling of being foreign?
This week’s Torah portion, Shmini, offers some insight on the nature of the feeling of being foreign. Nadav and Avihu, two sons of Aaron, offer a “foreign fire” (eish zarah) to God (Leviticus 10:2). In response, God consumes them in a flame, leaving their father speechless (10:3-4). Assuming there is nothing wrong with offering fire on the altar (since Aaron just did so in the previous chapter), what makes this particular fire “foreign”? As Rabbi Hayyim ben Attar (Morocco, 18th c.) said, “the sin consisted in their doing something on their own initiative which God had not commanded them” (Ohr HaHayyim on Leviticus 10:1). In other words, they offered fire because they wanted to offer it, not because God wanted them to. Thus, what makes something foreign is the missing connection with God’s command or presence. Feeling foreign is the feeling that we are missing God’s presence, and while we may easily find God’s presence inside our own walls, within our own communities, it is often lacking where it is needed most: between the members of our diverse society.
To sharpen this point, think about a beautiful midrash from Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer on the relationship between “man” (ish) and “woman” (ishah). In Hebrew, these terms share the letters alef and shin, which together form the word “eish” meaning “fire.” The difference between these two words is that “man” contains a yod and “woman” contains a hei. Put those two letters together and you form the word “yah” meaning God. As such, Rabbi Eliezer teaches us that God is saying “if you go and observe My commandments, My name will be with you and will save you from trouble; but if My name is not between you, then you will be like fire — and fire eats fire” (Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, “Horev” Chapter 11).
The notion of human beings acting like “fire eating fire” resonates with much happening in our political season, especially around issues of immigration. The anger towards undocumented workers and their families leads to fiery, otherizing statements against them. And the fear that these statements engender creates a hostile atmosphere that makes it supremely difficult for undocumented workers and their families to enter into the legitimate American economy and judicial system. It’s fire eating fire, as if we’re yelling fire in a movie theater and everyone runs away in a discombobulated, dangerous mess.
But when fire and passion are directed in the right way, in a godly way, in a way that recognizes we are all created in the image of God, we can find a path forward. For instance, Perth Amboy’s City ID program counts the testimony of case-workers and service agencies as documentation toward receiving their City ID because they know individuals in need of identification. Or to put it in a religious way, God is found between them as human beings, not in their identity papers. Likewise, we must cultivate similar resources for people to be recognized and counted as human beings with a neshamah, a soul. But this isn’t just incumbent upon those who need ID, like undocumented workers, and those who serve them. It is incumbent upon all of us to step into places we’ve never been before, to encounter members of our extended municipal, state, national, and human community, and to do quality activities together so that God’s name will be between us. It’s not easy. At times we find ourselves on the side of making others feel foreign, and at times we find ourselves being the foreigners. But regardless of what space we’re in, we should remember the holy flame we all share together. Our responsibility is to harness that holy flame and go out of our comfort zones to share it with others so that God will always be between us and so no one will feel like a foreigner. When we do, we’ll realize that we have much more in common than we ever thought, and that at the heart of our holy flame is a desire to be united. Or as Mayor Diaz said in that quaint art gallery in Perth Amboy I entered for the first of hopefully many times, “We are All Perth Amboy.”
Ari Saks is the rabbi of Congregation Beth Mordechai in Perth Amboy, NJ.