Toward Shabbat

This past week, I noticed how my Facebook newsfeed flooded with pictures and testimonies of parents sending their children off to camp. You know how I feel about camp, I loved these posts, and it made me so excited for the time that I’ll spend in July visiting the 15 Memphis campers at Ramah Darom. Parents put their children onto busses, mostly excited, some a little bit teary, but off to an incredible experience, one that I hope will impact them and their Jewish journeys.

But this week my Facebook feed held a jolting juxtaposition, because amidst these pictures of parents sending their kids to camp were articles and calls to action about thousands of young children ruthlessly and tragically pulled away from their parents at our country’s borders. These were such different images of parents parting with children, and I’ve been heartbroken thinking and reading about poor immigrant children stripped away from their families without any guarantee of when their reunification will be or what their future will hold.

This juxtaposition left me startled. How do we live in a world with such different understandings of how we treat children? How do we contend with a practice, in our name as Americans, that forcibly removes young children, coming to our country for shelter, peace, and protection, from their parents.  When our tradition mandates that we take care of the orphan over and over again, how can we possibly condone a practice that essentially creates new orphans? And finally, what does it mean to create religious and spiritual protest of this type of behavior?

Parshat Korach which we read today is the parsha of religious rebellion. We usually focus on the rebellion of Korach himself. He approaches Moshe, upset that not everyone is treated the same way that Moshe is, that not everyone can be leaders with the same status. God is quite upset with Korach and has the earth swallow him up in one fell swoop. Korach and his rebellion often get the majority of the attention when we talk about the parsha, but I’m fascinated in what happens after that, more. Because what we witness is another type of rebellion, a type of protest towards God, towards power.

When Korach approaches Moshe and Aharon with his protest, they tell him to bring his fire-pan the next day and God will decide who is right. So the next day, they all come together at the entrance to the Ohel Moed, the tent of meeting, for the show down. In a shocking move, God decides to annihilate the people. All the people. Moshe and Aharon are understanding of God wanted to punish Korach, but others? Why?

Moshe and Aharon respond to God’s claim with protest. They fall on their faces and cry out, “God, source of breath of ALL flesh. When one person sins, will You be wrathful with the whole community?” Moshe and Aharon cannot imagine God carrying out this plan.

Nevertheless, the plan of annihilation kicks into gear and a plague is brought upon the people. Both Moses and Aaron jump into action. Moshe tells Aharon to take the fire pan, and to put fire on it from the altar. He should add incense to it in order to make expiation for the people. Aharon follows these instructions, as the plague had already begun, and the Torah tells us that moved towards the people and stood between the dead and the living until the plague was stopped. It is only because of Moshe and Aharon’s intervention that the people were spared. It was because they stood up to God and declared how wrong it was for all the people to be killed on Korach’s behalf. In making expiation for the people Aharon was willing to align himself with them.

I’m most struck by the language of Aharon standing between the living and the dead. Clearly, the deaths were already happening, but Aharon stepped in, as if he drew a line in the sand, saying, “it must stop here.” But more significantly, Aharon wasn’t willing to turn away. He stood right in the middle of where the injustice was happening, not turning away.

Rashi is also struck and comments on this intriguing language, the image of Aharon standing between the dead the living. He writes that in this moment, Aharon grabs ahold of the angel of death and held him against his will. The angel said to him, “allow me to accomplish  my mission.” and Aharon responds, “Moshe commanded me to stop you.” He said to him, “I am the messenger of God, and you are just the messenger of Moses.” Aaron said to him, “But Moses does not say anything on his own volition, but only at the bidding of the God. If you do not believe me, the Holy Blessed One and Moses are at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting; come with me and ask.” And Aharon was right, and the plague stopped.

Rashi describes Aharon’s protest with the firepans and the incense as grabbing ahold of the angel of death, unwilling to put up with his antics. Unwilling to let innocent people suffer. I wonder what it would take for us to grab the Angel of Death by his collar and pin him up against the wall. Aharon and Moshe were not at risk and they weren’t worried about their lives. But they saw the lives of others about to be destroyed and rebelled against the injustice.

What can our rebellion look like in the face of thousands of children being separated from their parents? What can our rebellion look like when our lives are not threatened but the lives of innocent children are ruined? These parents are often coming here to seek a better life for their families, a life that doesn’t involve boys forced into gang violence and girls forced into sex work. We’ve begun criminalizing families trying to create a better life, a better future, for their families. And in return, we psychologically traumatize their children, turning them into orphans, making success even further from their grasp.

Regardless of what we believe about immigration we cannot let these beliefs get in the way of our humanity. We must not let our sensitivities to trauma become numb by our political sensibilities. This is a call to action, and yet, it can feel daunting. How did Moshe know that his protest with the fire pans would be successful? How did Aharon know that standing between the living and the dead with his fire and his incense would be the key to halting the plague? What strength this must have taken, to stand up to power, in this case God, and say they wouldn’t stand for it. The truth is, they didn’t know if it would work! They’d never been in this situation before and they were desperate, taking action in any way that they could think of. Aharon lit a fire and moved. Took steps forward. And he had faith in his mission.

We must ask where is our fire and where is our action? Where are our steps forward? What are we willing to do for the sake of innocent children whose lives are being ruined as they sit in old warehouse centers turned into ‘shelters’ without any course of action? What are we willing to do to insist that this isn’t what it means to be American?

Aharon is the hero of the story, but it doesn’t have to only be Aharon. We can try to be a hero in this story as well.

Because our tradition teaches us that Aharon is a model for each of us. Aharon is described as one is,

Ohev shalom v’rodef shalom, ohev et habriot umkarvan laTorah.

A lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, loving all people and bringing them closer to Torah. Our tradition implores us to see ourselves as disciples of Aharon, to learn from his examples. These children stripped from their families need us to be lovers of peace, pursuers of peace. We must learn how to protest, how to stand up, like Aharon. We must be lovers of all creatures, and we must bring them, and the world, closer to the ideals of the Torah. May it be God’s will that this be our legacy, that this be our rebellion. Ken Yehi Ratzon.