See me at 20, charging through my college campus with hand-painted signs, writing letters, following megaphones, clapping, chanting, calling for justice for fill-in-the-blank. I was full of the just fire of youth.
Married with children what-feels-like a lifetime later, I have come to value little more than a peaceful and simple environment in which to raise my children. I want quiet. I want bicycles, tire swings and friendly police officers. I even wrote in these pages just days before the election that we should all calm down — more eloquently, of course.
In recent months, though, my desire for placidity has started to rub up against a basic sense of what is right. Don’t worry — this isn’t about politics. This isn’t even about the death of a woman in Minnesota, whose Good name is now the point of such contention.
This isn’t about politics.
This is about teaching our children to deal loyally and compassionately with one another regardless of origin and not oppress the stranger, even if we’re not quite sure how they came to be here (Zechariah 7:9-10).
This is about instilling in children kindness toward those who seek refuge under God’s wings (Ruth 2:12) — or really that we act with kindness toward everyone.
This is about proving that we do not stand idly by while our neighbor bleeds (Leviticus 19:16) — or has his door broken in, or keeps his children from playing outside, or is pulled over to show his papers.
This is about showing our children that even the governance of the people is subject to the dictates of human compassion; even our laws must be exercised and enforced with a sense of humanity.
Because I have grown to value calm and measured responses to all things, I have bristled at comparisons of our current state to Nazi Germany. I have found them hyperbolic, distasteful and even a bit offensive. But what else does one think of when watching a video of men in uniform — with no warrant, according to the AP — beating down the door of a house with the butt of an assault rifle? When a woman can be heard asking again and again for a warrant, and another telling children to bar themselves in a bedroom? When a man in handcuffs is shoved through the wreckage of the front door and face-first into the snow?
This isn’t about whether or not that family belongs here. As the 18th-century Rabbi Simchah Bunim of Pshimcha says, even the pursuit of justice must employ only just means.
As Jews, we are commanded 36 times in the Torah to welcome the stranger. This isn’t about politics or politicians or immigration policy. This is about the humanity with which we treat each other and the humanity we demand of those who govern us. This is about generational memory, which whispers in the ear of every American who ever sat in a history class and every Jew, whose grandparents came here from virtually anywhere.
I am no longer the crusader with posters and loudspeakers — much power and respect to those who are. But I’m also no longer the parent who seeks only peace for my child. I want my son to see me at 40, taking a stand for the humane treatment of every person. I want him to relay, years from now, how he learned to balance righteous anger with a desire for peace. I want him to know when the most measured and reasonable response is to act for what is right.
Tzedek, tzedek tirdof: justice, justice you shall pursue (Deuteronomy 16:20).