America's Mezuzah

Rosh HaShanah 5778 

The mezuzah is affixed to our doorposts, at the threshold of our house, so that we might see it and be reminded of our ongoing responsibility to care for the stranger and the oppressed. To care for all those who might pass through that very threshold. It’s there to remind us to be active agents of freedom and redemption.

And it strikes me that America also has a doorpost. We also have a symbol that sits at the threshold of our nation. A sign we often think delivers a message to the outside world, but, maybe, it is more important as a sign lachem, to you, to us. Of our heritage, of who we claim to be, and of who we might yet become.

I believe that the Statue of Liberty is America’s mezuzah.

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I know we’re still in September…but walk into Jewel or Walgreens it’s already October 31. As a kid, Rosh Hashanah was when I first started planning out my Halloween costume (usually during the rabbi’s sermon). In my hometown of Rochester, NY, it starts snowing in October and we’re lucky if it stops by April. In fact, as a kid, you had to be very strategic about how you planned your Halloween. We always marked off houses where we could take a break from trick or treating to warm up with some hot cocoa. And, we had the tricky task of finding a costume that could fit over a snow suit. Needless to say, Rochester’s Halloween had a lot of puffy power rangers, pirates, and goblins.

And my favorite part of this whole rigmarole was that along our route, I would spot the houses with a mezuzah. I always felt this special pride and connection when I saw a mezuzah before ringing the doorbell to demand free candy. It was like I had a secret kinship with the home owner.

I had the same experience apartment and house hunting in DC, New York, and on the Northshore. Walk into an empty apartment, and see the boxy silhouette on the doorframe where a mezuzah once lived.

But! I rarely, if ever noticed my own mezuzah. I could barely describe to you the one on my childhood home where my parents have lived for over 30 years. Sure, it’s there. But I never thought about it as something for me. Its function was for the passing trick or treater who may get that same feeling of kinship upon ringing our doorbell. My mezuzah was a sign to someone outside the house saying: here lives a Jewish family!

And the more I think about it, the less satisfied I feel with that as the only reason for putting a box and scroll on my doorframe. My mezuzah shouldn’t just speak to people outside the house; what claim does it have on me? Our job as modern Jews, and all the more so as Reform Jews, is to approach our rituals and symbols with intention. We turn to our texts to find values and meaning. So, what does our text have to say about the mezuzah?

The first time the word “mezuzah” appears in the Torah is during the Exodus narrative. God commands the Israelites to take the blood from the paschal sacrifice and put it on the “mezuzot” and on the lintel.

God isn’t describing the ritual object. The Hebrew word mezuzah, when translated literally, simply means doorpost. I usually think of the blood on the doorposts as a sign to the Angel of death during the 10th plague to pass over the houses of the Israelites. But when I came to the line specifically explaining the blood, I had to read it a few times for the words to actually sink in:

וְהָיָה הַדָּם לָכֶם לְאֹת
The blood shall be a sign לכם…to YOU. 

Neither the Angel of Death nor God need a sign. God knows where the Hebrews live. Rather, the blood is a sign “LACHEM” – to YOU, to the children of Israel, to us. Rashi, one of the great commentators of the Middle Ages, even goes so far as to say that because the blood is a sign לכם, to you, that it was painted on the inside of the house to be seen by and to affect the hearts of the Israelites.

And while the first nine plagues required no action, now, at the dawn of freedom, God tells Moses to instruct the people to put the blood on their mezuzot, their doorposts. The Israelites will not be saved simply because they are Israelites; they have to do something. They have to be active participants in the process of freedom in order to be worthy of being redeemed.

The blood then isn’t just there to mark the Israelites’ houses; it is an “ot lachem” a sign to the Israelites inextricably tied to the active role they must play in being freed from Egypt. And once actually freed, 36 times the Torah demands that we remember being strangers in the Land of Egypt and, because of that experience, we receive the ethical command not to wrong or oppress the stranger.

The mezuzah is affixed to our doorposts, at the threshold of our house, so that we might see it and be reminded of our ongoing responsibility to care for the stranger and the oppressed. To care for all those who might pass through that very threshold. It’s there to remind us to be active agents of freedom and redemption.

And it strikes me that America also has a doorpost. We also have a symbol that sits at the threshold of our nation. A sign we often think delivers a message to the outside world, but, maybe, it is more important as a sign lachem, to you, to us. Of our heritage, of who we claim to be, and of who we might yet become.

I believe that the Statue of Liberty is America’s mezuzah.

It is iconic. It is easily identifiable. And it is core to the narrative of our people.

First, a brief history lesson: As you may recall from 5th grade social studies class, the statue was a gift to the American people from the French. The idea was originally proposed in 1865 to commemorate French support during the Revolutionary War, to celebrate the late Abraham Lincoln, and to try and reinvigorate the cause of liberty and democracy in France. The renowned French sculptor August Bartholdi was selected to create the monument. He titled the statue: Liberty Enlightening the World. The vision was of a universal message. One that would transcend particular ideologies, would stand above liberalism and conservatism, and would soar beyond burgeoning revolution and turmoil.

However, the statue was not completed until 1886, more than twenty years after the inception of the idea. In addition to wars in Europe and political tensions in the United States and abroad, fundraising was the sticking point, as it often is. France would provide the statue, the United States would provide the pedestal upon which Liberty would stand.

Joseph Pulitzer suggested an auction to raise money to build the pedestal. Emma Lazarus originally declined the offer to participate. Lazarus, a poet, powerful progressive voice, activist, and Jew of Sefardi descent, said she was too busy to craft an original piece. She was spending her time supporting Jewish refugees fleeing anti-Semitic Europe. Eventually, she acceded and wrote a poem that was emblazoned in bronze at the statue’s base.

The poem is titled, “The New Colossus” has become part of the American canon and a critical identifying marker for our nation’s values and identity.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus is a critical figure for us to turn to in this moment as American Jews. She was deeply rooted in her Americanism, and she was committed to her Jewish heritage. If we turn to the opening of her poem I cannot help but notice biblical allusions to Deborah, a champion of the Israelites in the book of Judges. Lazarus writes:

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.

Deborah, the judge and prophetess, is called “eshet Lapidot” literally, wife of Lapidot, but poetically understood to be “the torch-bearing woman.” She opposes tyranny and judges her people in fairness, bringing light to the land. This is the character that Lazarus calls on. The woman who’s flame is imprisoned lightning and whose name is Mother of Exiles. Deeply American and deeply Jewish. Calling on American values of freedom and liberty, and calling on the Jewish story of immigration, oppression, and opportunity.

Yet it is the last few lines that have become iconic in American culture:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

These words are an ot lachem. These words are the inward facing sign. They remind us of what America is when it is at its best: a nation that welcomes in and cares for the downtrodden and dejected. Surely, vulnerable populations ought to know this country could be a safe haven, but I think we need that message more than they do.

How easy it can be for us to turn internally, to ignore those who have come here seeking refuge from persecution and degradation. How much simpler would our lives be if we were to reject America’s legacy of care and support for oppressed peoples. Our American mezuzah is there to remind us of who we are called to be.

What an incredible opportunity for a synthesis of our American and Jewish values. And, by my estimation, no one was more attuned to the need to unify Americanism and Judaism than Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch. Hirsch was a rabbi in Chicago from 1880-1920. For those students of the history of Reform Judaism, he is a, if not the, foundational figure for putting social justice at the core of the Reform rabbinate and the American Jewish experience.

Of his hundreds and hundreds of pages of sermons, there is one that has been sticking with me since I came across it last fall. In 1899, Hirsch delivered a sermon titled “Organization and Division of Labor—How far are we the chosen people?” It is by far my favorite of his sermons. He wanted to understand God’s stirring declaration in the book of Exodus that the Israelites, the Jewish people, are to be a mamlekhet kohanim, a kingdom of priests. “Priests of what?” Hirsch wonders. What is the particular vocation of the Jewish people?

Hirsch believes that all nations have a special job, tied to the greatest heroes of that nation. So, the Greeks are priests of beauty, and the Romans, priests of law. And here’s where it comes back to us. Hirsch says that Americans are called to be priests of democracy. That’s our job, to bring agency, peace, equality, and fairness to the world. That is what the Statue of Liberty, our American mezuzah, is there to remind us of.

And the Jews? How are the Jews to be a mamlekhet kohanim, a kingdom of priests? Hirsch says that Jews, in the mold of Moses and Amos and Isaiah, are to be priests of Justice and Righteousness. I still feel my skin tingle each time I think about that idea. How amazing! Priests of Justice and Righteousness! Our work in the world is to be ever attuned to the needs of the oppressed and to lift up their voices. Our mezuzah symbolizes the story of our redemption, and we, in turn, have the ethical obligation to be agents of redemption throughout the world. This is our heritage! And we have the responsibility to make it our ever-lasting legacy.

Our nation is at a difficult crossroads. Rhetoric about immigration is reaching a fever pitch, with aggressive policies from the White House and inaction in Congress met with widespread protests in the streets. The livelihood and dreams of young and old hang in the balance. The worldwide refugee population is still growing and humanitarian crises across the world abound. So what are American Jews to do? How do we honor both our American and Jewish obligations?

Whether it is working to build a community that accepts newcomers or helping those who sojourn among us to connect to the services and supports they need to succeed, we can fulfill an American promise, and a moral, religious promise to welcome the stranger.

And, in truth, we need a reminder to act. It can be easy to get distracted by the realities of daily living, so we have symbol. Symbols that call our attention back to our core truths. And I wonder, what if the Statue of Liberty was as ubiquitous as the mezuzah? What if we didn’t just leave the Statute of Liberty in New York Harbor, but thoughtfully brought her into our homes, our houses of worship, our places of work, our public spaces? How might we be affected if we saw the symbol and were reminded of Emma Lazarus’s words throughout the day? Maybe then it might better serve as an ot lachem a sign to each and every one of us of the active role we must take to ensure freedom, justice, and righteousness.

A mezuzah does not just adorn a threshold. A mezuzah makes a claim on us. A mezuzah reminds us that once we too were strangers, oppressed in a foreign land, and now, we must act on behalf of the oppressed who sojourn among us.

Mi shebeirach avoteinu v’imoteinu, may the one who blessed our ancestors, bless us too with the ongoing opportunity and obligation to be a kingdom of priests. In this year of 5778, may we fulfil the promise to become Priests of democracy and equality, priests of Justice and Righteousness, priests who carry the torch to light the way forward for all peoples and all nations.