Roots

Who is the Aramean?

What does it mean to be Jewish? For as many readers as there are for this Substack, we’d have that many answers. Some of us might think of ritual observance. Others may vouch for textual literacy. There also might be a vote for bettering the world as the number one spot. For every Jew, there are ever shifting answers depending on the moment.

Of course, it’s unfair to force a person to answer one thing. They all matter to some degree in every moment. But there are others, a select few, that feel like a sort of lodestar for Judaism. One of those is caring for the experience of the migrant. The Torah’s repetition of remembering Egypt and caring for the stranger is not a coincidence. We know what it was like, so we should be on guard to help others in their own experience, which brings me to the current rhetoric.

If you haven’t been following the latest, there is an dangerous trend, especially coming from folks in powerful positions, of trafficking in misinformation about immigrant communities across the country. You can read more about the dangers of it in Springfield, Ohio here and how it’s affecting Aurora, Colorado here. To be clear, there are real challenges with our country’s immigration system. It is complex and requires multiple government organizations to work in tandem, which in our current political climate is a tall task, but I want to focus on the language.

We as a people know the problems that begin when groups of people are dehumanized. More often that not, the way people are spoken about is the first step to real physical harm being brought upon them. This is why I think we have a particular obligation to speak out when we hear such demonizing words.

A lens through which we can see that obligation comes this week in parshat Ki Tavo. In directing the ritual that will accompany the people when they eventually enter the land of Israel, the first fruits ceremony is explained. After a person brings their offering, they declaring in Deuteronomy 26:5

וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָמַרְתָּ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י ׀ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י וַיֵּ֣רֶד מִצְרַ֔יְמָה וַיָּ֥גׇר שָׁ֖ם בִּמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֑ט וַֽיְהִי־שָׁ֕ם לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב׃

You shall then recite as follows before your God: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation.

This is a phrase that many of us will be familiar with as it also occupies a central place during the Passover seder. What you might not know is that the bolded part is up for debate among the interpreters. Some of them are of the opinion of the definition above, that father being Abraham. He was from Aram, he wandered, he is a patriarch, and he is the original recipient of the blessing that a great nation will be born from him.

The other opinion changes the form of that clause. Instead of “my father” being a wandering Aramean, the phrase could be translated as “An Aramean sought to destroy my father,” which then renders this sentence as being about the story of Jacob and Lavan, his father in law. This is the way the Haggadah tells the story, so it is the normative way many folks interpret it.

I will leave that decision up to you. What I want to share is an opinion that attempts to offer a different route. It comes from Moses Mendelssohn, a great enlightenment era philosopher and theologian from 18th century Germany. He writes:

it seems that the verse refers to both of them - Abraham and Jacob together - and not just to one or the other. And do not be troubled by the wording of “my father,” for all the Patriarchs, together, can be called “father,” for they are the foundation stone of Israel, the root of the family and the nation.

Synthesizing the two schools of thought, Mendelssohn argues that one need not have to decide between them. Both are true. And, I would add, it’s not just that Abraham and Jacob reflect a certain lived experience of coming from one land into another but so too do Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. All our ancestors understood what it meant to be and feel like a stranger.

We have been both. For the longest part of our history, we were on the receiving end of vitriol and hatred because we came from “there” and weren’t wanted here. In recent times, and this is really truly in the scope of world history, we have been embraced in ways that our ancestors wouldn’t believe. Those two poles serve as a deeply important reminder about what it means to be Jewish in the world today.

We certainly have obligations to tend to our community’s needs. And the alarm bells are going off because we know what happens when powerful people start othering people. How people speak about the other often reveals something about them. As Brandon Grafius¹ writes in a piece on how “monster” language is used to describe enemies in the Tanakh:

The monster serves as a way for a social group to construct identity, by constructing a picture that is the opposite of how they see themselves. However, because our self-image is always distorted, this monstrous other will often reveal uncomfortable truths about ourselves.

When monstrous people lash out like this, bad things tend to happen. Already this week in Springfield, events have been cancelled, bomb threats called in, and homes vandalized. Where it leads is unknown. As Jews, there are fires we’re putting out in our own backyards, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other fires we can help with as well.

We have to speak out, demand accountability, and use our shared heritage as a bulwark against such hatred. Doing acts of service with other communities, showing up for them is how bridges get built. Whether your parent was a wandering Aramean or was getting chased by an Aramean, we are all in this work together. The roots of our families sustain and activate us to make sure others’ roots can grow just as strong.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend

1. Brandon R. Grafius, “Text and Terror: Monster Theory and the Hebrew Bible,” Currents in Biblical Research 16:1 (2017)