It's Time — Heather Miller
I wrestle with this week’s parasha as a person who has the history of chattel slavery running through my veins. The NJPS translation of Exodus 21:16 reads as follows, “He who kidnaps a man-- whether he has sold him or is still holding him-- shall be put to death,” and yet, we know that Southern Jews in this country participated in slavery. In the Haftorah we read that the Israelites were commanded to release their slaves and couldn’t keep their vow. Even at the threat of violent death, they were resistant to let their people go. This parasha was among those used by people to justify their participation in slavery as both owners and supporters of the institution. I have a difficult time reconciling with the fact that the same people who are called upon, daily, to remember the time when they were slaves in Egypt, were also proud slave owners and that they have been throughout history.
On January 4, 1861, Rabbi Morris Jacob Raphall gave a speech in defense of slavery at (what is now) the B’nai Jeshrun Synagogue in Manhattan, NY. He used the Torah to justify his position that slavery should be upheld as an institution and that it was morally right to own slaves. When I think about how many people attended his sermon on that day, my stomach turns. So many more people wanted to hear it that he delivered it again to a packed house of ticket holders a week later. His speech, Bible View of Slavery, was published on the front pages of the New York Herald and New York Evening Press. It was printed and sold in pamphlets and reported on in the New York Times and was undoubtedly spun into countless divrei Torah (“words of Torah,” i.e. sermons) across the country with this position upheld. Only two rabbis, Rabbi David Einhorn and Rabbi Michael Heilprin, published rebuttals to Rabbi Raphall’s words. They believed strongly that Rabbi Raphall’s view should not be seen as the American Jewish position on slavery. They pleaded with Jews that this was a time to take a stand. 100 years later, 19 rabbis marched alongside Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Dr. Martin Luther King and I’m certain that there weren’t just 20 rabbis in the United States at that time. Just 19 took this public position to take a stand.
All of this makes me wonder where folks get the idea that standing up for racial justice is part of our Jewish tradition. It certainly doesn’t emanate from the Torah since not even Moshe is spared from hatred towards both his Kushite and Midianite wives. Rabbi Raphall and others used this week’s parasha and many other verses in the Torah to justify the treatment of Black people so it certainly didn’t emanate from the post Civil War era. It wasn’t during the Civil Rights era either when there was immense push back from the Jewish community for why the fight for racial equity wasn’t a Jewish problem. As communities across the country are waking up to what has always been a living truth for the rest of us, I wonder if now will be the time when our fellow Jews finally take a stand.
Last week, we read about how the multitudes stood at Sinai and received the Ten Commandments and a week later we’re about to read about the Israelites being commanded to release these newly fellow Jews from bondage. The juxtaposition of those two scenes scream that inequity and viewing different ethnicities as others, even when they are fellow Jews, is the part of our tradition that needs to be reckoned with. Earlier this week, my day school attending eldest child asked me why his school does nothing for Black History Month and was embarrassed about how little he has learned in school about his history. Many think of Mishpatim simply as where we get our system of justice. Even with that narrow lens, I ask where is the eye for our eye and the tooth for our tooth? Will our brothers and sisters stand up and stop allowing the narrative of American Judaism to be that we are strangers in our own communities? Will it be more than 2 and 19 this time?
Exodus 22:5 reads, “...he who started the fire must make restitution.” I think it’s time.
Shabbat Shalom.
Heather Miller is a JOC Member at Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy.
