“Many of those who seek entrance into this country have little concept of our form of government. Many of them come from lands where [a dangerous ideology] had its first growth and dominates the political thought and philosophy of the people.”
That quote was said by a member of the United States Senate, Chapman Revercomb, of West Virginia, who was chair of the Senate’s immigration subcommittee. And this quote was said in regard to Jewish refugees. Even after the Second World War, American immigration laws made it easier for Germans to immigrate than Jewish refugees from Central Europe and Eastern Europe. President Truman was able to push through a change of those immigration rules, but he had to overcome the objections of people like Senator Revercomb, who was concerned that Jewish refugees would bring Communism with them to the United States.
Senator Revercomb was not the first person to worry about Jewish refugees bringing foreign values with them. This type of suspicion goes back much much farther into Jewish history.
If Avraham was the first Jewish immigrant, Yaakov was the first Jewish refugee. He leaves behind his parents home and returns to Haran, to his mother’s homeland, fleeing for his life. Yaakov does not leave as a prince. He does not travel as the undisputed heir of a wealthy farmer. He does not plan a comfortable itinerary.
וַיֵצֵ֥א יַעֲק֖ב מִבְאֵ֣ר שָ֑בַע וַיֵ֖לְֶ חָרֽנָה׃
וַיִפְגַ֨ע בַמָק֜ום וַיָ֤לֶן שָם֙ כִי־בָ֣א הַשֶ֔מֶש וַיִקַח֙ מֵאַבְנֵ֣י הַמָק֔ום וַיָ֖שֶם מְרֽאֲשֹתָ֑יו וַיִשְכַ֖ב בַמָק֥ום הַהֽוא׃
Rabbi Meir Leibish Malbim, in his 19th century commentary on the Torah writes that Yaakov stopped to sleep for the night, outside, not in any town or settlement, and not an any sort of inn, because the daylight hours had ended and he was scared of traveling at night. He makes his bed with a pillow made of stones because he had nothing else with him to make his bed. He had a staff, a walking stick, and the clothing on his back, and perhaps nothing else.
Yaakov had loving parents who sent him to Haran, ostensibly, to find a wife. But Yaakov was in mortal danger from the jealous anger of his brother Esav and when he started his journey he must have done so in great haste without any time to gather his possessions or even to collect provisions for the journey.
Yaakov is too weary to prepare for a prophetic encounter with God. But he merits a vision that appears to him in a dream. When Yaakov finally collapses in exhaustion he has a dream of a ladder that reaches to the very heavens. The quintessential moment of Yaakov’s relationship with God is as a refugee.
Decades later when Yaakov returns to Eretz Yisrael, he makes reference to this moment.
.כִ֣י בְמַקלִ֗י עָבַ֙רתִי֙ אֶת־הַיַרדֵ֣ן הַזֶ֔ה
It was with my staff alone that I crossed the this Jordan River. Yaakov recognizes that his refugee experience was definitional for him in an important way.
And we can see how Lavan stigmatizes Yaakov and takes advantage of him as a foreigner. Lavan is one of the great scoundrels of the Torah. He is warm and friendly on the surface, but just below the surface is great cunning and great malice. Lavan takes advantage of Yaakov’s naiveté and switches his older daughter Leah in place of Rachel, the beloved younger daughter on whose behalf Yaakov had labored for seven years.
This is the sort of scam that one only tries on tourists…or refugees. When Yaakov confronts his father-in-law, Lavan replies:
וַיֹ֣אמֶר לָבָ֔ן לא־יֵעָשֶ֥ה כֵ֖ן בִמְקומֵ֑נו לָתֵ֥ת הַצְעִיר֖ה לִפְנֵ֥י הַבְכִירֽה׃
We don’t do things that way here. Around here, the older sister gets married first. We don’t give the younger privileges over the older. Lavan is almost certainly being insincere. He makes this claim in the process of winning another seven years of labor from Yaakov. But he is also speaking the truth. Who is the younger who was privileged over the older sibling? That was Yaakov! Lavan is pointing to a dark episode in Yaakov’s own recent past and is using that as an excuse for his own mistreatment of Yaakov. “Since Yaakov his a foreigner,” Lavan reasons, “he won’t understand the way we do things here.” And since Yaakov came from a home where younger sibling usurp the place of older siblings, its crucial to make sure that doesn’t happen here.
Yaakov is able to transcend all of Lavan’s deceit and he overcomes his refugee status to become quite wealthy and he eventually returns to Eretz Yisrael as a wealthy man. But his time as a refugee is definitional to who Yaakov was. Furthermore, Yaakov’s experience as a refugee becomes definitional to who we are as the Jewish people.
Sefer Devarim records a mitzvah called “The Declaration of Bikurim.” Ever year when a Jewish farmer would present his first fruits in Jerusalem to the kohen, he would make a declaration in which he would summarize all of Jewish history culminating in the present moment when the farmer would offer his first fruits before God.
וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָמַרתָ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י ׀ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלהֶ֗יָ אֲרמִי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י וַיֵ֣רד מִצְר֔יְמָה וַיָ֥גָר שָ֖ם בִמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֑ט וַֽיְהִי־שָ֕ם לְג֥וי גָד֖ול עָצ֥ום וָרֽב׃
…וְעַתָ֗ה הִנֵ֤ה הֵבֵ֙אתִי֙ אֶת־ראשִית֙ פְר֣י הָאֲדמָ֔ה אֲשֶר־נָתַ֥תָה לִ֖י יְהוָ֑ה וְהִנַחְת֗ו לִפְנֵי֙ ה׳ א-ֱלהֶ֔יָ וְהִֽשְתַחֲוִ֔יתָ לִפְנֵ֖י ה׳ א-ֱלהֶֽיָ׃
וְשָמַחְתָ֣ בְכָל־הַט֗וב אֲשֶ֧ר נָֽתַן־לְָ֛ יְהוָ֥ה אֱלהֶ֖יָ ולְבֵיתֶָ֑ אַתָה֙ וְהַלֵוִ֔י וְהַגֵ֖ר אֲשֶ֥ר בְקרבֶָֽ׃
“My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt to dwell there in small numbers and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous…… And now I have brought my first fruit from the land that the Lord has given to me.”
These verses describe one of the happiest and most moving scenes in the Torah. A farmer presenting his first-fruits in Yerusahalyim expresses thanks to God, by rooting his own connection to the land from within the context of Jewish history that stretches back to Yaakov, the wandering Aramean.
Aram, the land where Lavan lived and where Yaakov lived for more than 20 years is part of Syria. And so, it’s possible to translate Arami Oved Avi as “my father was a Syrian refugee.”
Yaakov fled from Eretz Yisrael escaping the murderous jealousy of his brother and he fled back to Eretz Yisrael escaping the murderous jealousy of Lavan and his sons.
The Torah describes in this morning’s parasha, the final encounter between Lavan and Yaakov. Lavan had pursued and caught up with him as Yaakov was on his way to Eretz Yisrael. There is an angry encounter, a reconciliation of sorts, and then Yaakov and Lavan each take an oath.
Yaakov’s oath is made in the name of “Pahad Yitzhak” – the fear of his father, Yitzchak. On a simple level, Ibn Ezra is surely correct and Pahad Yitzchak means that Yaakov took an oath “in the name of that which his father Yitzchak feared” i.e. he took an oath in the name of God. But other commentators suggest other meanings. Pahad Yitzchak could be a reference to the fear that Yitzchak experienced, “haradah” as described in the Torah, when he discovered that Yaakov had deceived him. Or, Pahad Yitzchak could even be a reference to the fear that Yitzchak experienced, although never made explicit in the Torah, when he was bound on the altar by his father. Yaakov confronts Lavan by referencing his father’s fears.
With these interpretations, the Torah shares a very important insight. Fear and trauma are not necessarily experiences that scar us or leave us weakened. Fear, and acknowledging fear, and then transcending fear, can be a source of strength. That strength is what Yaakov invoked in his oath and that strength is what we need to draw upon this Shabbat.
On Thursday afternoon I spoke to an NPR reporter who was researching the ways that Americans of various faiths were going to “pray for Paris” in our congregations. I explained to her that last Shabbat created a sort of sanctuary in time for many of us; we only fully realized the scale of the terror and destruction once Shabbat was over and we turned on our phones, radios and computers. I wasn’t sure how much it would be on our minds this Shabbat. Devastating and frightening as the terror attacks in Paris were, they didn’t teach us anything new about the world, neither about the dangers of Jihadi terrorism, nor about the human capacity for evil. Indeed, there have been six terror attacks in 2015 alone with more casualties than Paris.
But I then told the reporter that I was certain that the news of Thursday’s terror attacks in Israel would weigh very heavily on all of our hearts this Shabbat. Each one of us is no more than one or two degrees of separation from the victims. Aharon Yesiav and Reuven Aviram who were murdered while at prayer in Tel Aviv. Shadi Arafa, a Palestinian Arab from Hevron who was shot at Tzomet HaGush – everyone knows that Palestinians and Israelis shop together at the Rami Levi supermarket there. Rabbi Yaakov Don, who was a Benei Akiva shaliach in Toronto for four years. And Ezra Schwartz, from Sharon Massachusetts, a counselor at Camp Yavneh in New Hampshire, and a member of the Maimonides High School class of 2015.
I felt my heart break as I read the news on Thursday, and then I felt it break again and again throughout the day as details were released and made public. And with the sadness there is anger. And with the anger there is fear. I think of those of us with loved ones in Israel who are living with great fear. I think of those of us who have travel plans to Israel and may need to reevaluate those plans in light of their fear. I think of my wife’s twelfth grade students at Ida Crown Academy who are in the middle of applying to midrashot and seminary programs in Israel and now have to confront their parents fears and their own fears as well.
Yaakov taught us that fear does not have to be crippling. Fear does not have to be repressed. Fear can be acknowledged and then can become a source of great strength. Yaakov took an oath in the name of his father’s great fears. And with this strength, the Pahad Yitzchak of our ancestors, we too will prevail.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 