Sermons

A few months ago, a congregant approached me to ask if TBJ would host a photographic exhibit created by the local photographer, Becky Field. For years, Becky photographed immigrants and refugees to the U.S. who settled in Concord. “Photographed,” however, is an understatement. Becky befriended, supported, shared stories, and advocated on behalf of the New Americans she encountered. Her published compilation of photos, entitled Different Roots, Common Dreams: New Hampshire’s Cultural Diversity, came out in 2015.  But her photography project of capturing the breadth and depth of our state’s diversity didn’t stop until 2022, ten years after she began.

For the past few years, Becky has been working on a new project: Crying in the Wilderness: An Immigrant’s Journey in Detention. This powerful exhibit of photographs, artwork, and poetry illustrates the physical, social, and emotional impacts of detaining and tracking an asylum seeker who escaped his war-torn African home due to death threats. A poet and artist, “Antony” expressed his anguish in writings and artwork. Becky documented his life over a year and a half while he was shackled and detained under house arrest. Her exhibit has been shown around the state. Fees she collects go directly to “Antony.” It was this project that our congregant wanted TBJ to host.

The Board discussion wasn’t very long. The Board enthusiastically agreed to support the project, but had concerns about our space. How would we fit it into our sanctuary with the High Holy Days approaching? If we scheduled it for later, we’d still have to compete for space with Kadimah, our religious school. We’d have the same problem if we put it downstairs, coupled with the fact that that space isn’t (yet) accessible. The solution was to support the project, but to hold the exhibit elsewhere. Our good friends at South Congregational Church will host the showing November 7th-29th, with the opening reception on Saturday night the 8th to accommodate TBJ’s Shabbat observance schedule. 

I was not surprised by the Board’s response. Some members of the Board know Becky or are familiar with her work. But it was more than that. Progressive Jews are often first in line when it comes to welcoming, supporting, reaching out to, and bringing in, the stranger. The most repeated mitzvah in the entire Torah commands: Do not wrong or oppress the stranger. We read it thirty-six times.
That the Torah contains more laws dealing with the protection of the stranger than with any other subject, including honoring God or observing Shabbat, is of tremendous significance. Obviously, for the biblical legislator, concern for the stranger was considered a religious value of supreme importance. 
The basic statement in the Torah reads, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  Sometimes, we find the additional words, “for you know the feelings of a stranger.”  

When I was about twelve years old, an African American family moved onto our street. This was highly unusual for Oakland, NJ in the early 1970s, as my town was lacking in any real diversity. My high school graduating class of 400 included three Asians, two Latinos, two African Americans, and about a dozen Jews. 
After the family moved in, my father took me by the hand and walked me across the street to welcome them. “We always make sure someone who might feel different is warmly welcome,” he told me. “The Jew knows what it’s like to be excluded. We can never let that happen to anyone else.”
We are proud of our Jewish institutions’ insistence on protecting the stranger. HIAS, once known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, shifted its focus from settling oppressed Jews coming to the U.S. to settling refugees and immigrants of all religions and ethnicities fleeing persecution, when Jews fleeing hardship no longer needed to be its priority. HIAS, which no longer refers to itself by the words that make up its acronym, works across the country. Many local Jewish Federations and other organizations do similar work.

Why does the Torah go to such great extremes in commanding that we not oppress the stranger? Because Torah recognizes the unique hardships faced by people perceived to be different. They are often subject to ridicule, to racism, to xenophobia, and to unequal treatment under the law. Our Torah experience as oppressed strangers in Egypt and our more recent experiences of pogroms and genocide compel us to be vigilant in making sure contemporary strangers do not become victims of the same maltreatment.

Sometimes, it is easier to be compassionate toward the foreign “stranger” – the person escaping social, economic or political hardship in a distant place – than it is toward the local “stranger” – members of our own families or our neighbors down the street. 

Just look at our patriarch Abraham, who argued with God to try and save the righteous people of Sodom and Gomorrah, strangers whom he did not know, and yet expelled his son Ishmael and Ishmael’s mother Hagar from his own home, and seemed ready to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham was so different from the local strangers, his very own flesh and blood.

I want to talk about these local strangers for a few minutes. 

I don’t think that in all of my 65 years on this planet we have ever been so divided as a country. There are people right of center who cannot talk to people left of center. There are people left of center who won’t talk to people right of center. Opinions about our federal government officials and the federal employees who carry out the desires of those government officials fall to the extremes – you either love what the government is doing or you loath it, with virtually no place in the middle. 

And within the Jewish community there is the added layer of Israel, the war with Hamas, the conditions in Gaza, the settlers in the West Bank’s treatment of the Palestinians, the remaining hostages, Bibi Netanyahu, and on and on. I know an Israel supporter on the right who nearly walked out of a Federation meeting, and I know Israel supporters on the left who contemplated the same at a different meeting.

This is not a sermon about politics or politicians or Israel. What I want to know is why we can extend every ounce of generosity in our body to the foreign stranger, yet won’t give the time of day to the local one? You might say it’s a matter of persecution vs. politics: I will go all out to support the persecuted foreign stranger, but not so much the – fill in the blank fellow American stranger – the stupid, misguided, narrow-minded, liberal to a fault, and other descriptors that I won’t say in public.

But it’s not so black and white.  Many of the foreign strangers who come to this country have a difficult time embracing – or simply understanding – some aspects of American diversity. Many New Americans come to the U.S. from conservative countries, some of which condemn many of the values most people in this room hold dearly. And yet, we pretend that schism doesn’t exist in order to embrace the Jewish value of welcoming the stranger and extending kindness usually reserved for those people who share our identities and perceived values.

Recently, I was in one of my favorite Concord coffee houses and overheard a conversation that went something like this – with all identifying information omitted: “Have you met, so-and-so, the new hire at our workplace? I really liked her.” “Oh, yes, I’ve met her. But be careful. She’s a Trump supporter.” “Wait,” said the first voice, “Are you being serious? How can she be a Trump supporter? I mean, she’s so nice. I don’t want to not like her.”

You might be chuckling, but I’m guessing it’s a chuckle of recognition. And if your politics lean the other way, then perhaps you have had this thought – or even conversation – about anyone who supported Kamala Harris, Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, or any other less than popular democrat. So, ask yourself: Even if you fundamentally disagree with the politicians someone supports, must that automatically transfer into “that makes the person not nice and therefore someone I want nothing to do with?” Have we lost our basic ability to be kind, caring, and compassionate to someone with whom we disagree? Remember that just because someone voted for a particular candidate, does not mean that person supports all of the actions and policies of that candidate. Do you support all the of actions and policies of every candidate you vote for? Of course not. None of us do. We might vote for a candidate because of one particular issue. Maybe we are not even voting for a candidate but a political party.

Given all of this, why can’t we look for points of commonality and agreement? Torah doesn’t teach to love the stranger, but only if the stranger’s domestic political leanings agree with our own.

A friend once told me about an experience she had at a left leaning political rally in Concord. She and many others joined together in front of the statehouse. She could see closer to Main Street a group of conservative Christian Evangelicals counter-protesting. 
As she left the rally and drew near Main Street, one of the Evangelical counter-protestors sounded a shofar. My friend, Jewish by birth, had not been in a synagogue in over 50 years. The shofar blast brought her back to some of the better days of her childhood. She approached the man with the shofar. He began to explain what a shofar was and she stopped him – I know, she said. I just haven’t heard the sound in so long.

He offered to let her hold it. Then he asked her if she want to try to make a sound with it. When she struggled, he gave her a brief lesson. My friend was overwhelmed by the kindness of the man, and can remember every last detail of the encounter so many years later. It was two people, fundamentally opposed on most, if not all, political issues, who found a point of commonality and let it bring them together. 

We have all been strangers to one extent or another, within our families, within our congregations, and within our communities – because of our race, our age, our disability, our sexuality, our religion, our political outlook, or some other life-affirming aspect of our being. A friend recently sent me a social media post. The background video was of a group of women wearing pink hats marching together. One held a sign reading “I can’t keep quiet,” and in the background, a song with that title could be heard – one woman’s voice singing with others clapping in rhythm. Over the image, the singer wrote the following:

Eight years ago, when my survivor battle cry went viral, a Republican woman messaged me a question that I still think about. She asked if Republican women “are allowed to sing this song.” I was startled at first. I wrote this song for that 14-year-old girl in me who thought what happened to her was her fault. It would be an honor to know other people are healing their own wounds with this song, no matter what the political party they currently identify with. I was reminded that on the surface, some would assume a pink hat wearing Women’s March attendee … wouldn’t want to hear her story. 

I can’t help but wonder – who is benefitting from these divisions, these misunderstandings between us? A 2025 Report by the Network Contagion Research Institute found that tens of thousands of bots linked to Russia and Iran were impersonating MAGA aligned users on platforms like X to amplify conspiracy theories. During May and June alone, over 675,000 posts referenced as “false flag” narratives gained nearly four million interactions. 
So, to that Republican woman, sing the song. May music bring us to a place beyond right and wrong, so we can rise above divisive narratives, together. 

As people of faith, let us commit ourselves to not rejecting or ignoring any stranger, especially the local one who holds so very different political views, for each one of us has known the feelings of rejection, the feelings of falling outside the center, the feelings of being the stranger.

Shanah tovah.