“The Stranger: One Sedra, Two Views The Stranger: One Election, Two Views”

  In Vayera, the Torah portion read this week, the week of the elections, there are two perspectives on the same subject. The subject is “strangers”; one perspective is welcoming the stranger which we learn from Abraham and Sarah, and the other, which we learn from Sodom and Gomorrah, is cruelty to the stranger.

  Sarah is told of her impending pregnancy by three unknown people who are warmly welcomed by the couple. Even though Abraham is healing from the circumcision he mohel-ed by himself, he leaves his tent and offers them food. Sarah is quick to prepare it for them.

  In the Twin Cities the story is different. We are told that among the reasons God chose to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah is the way they “welcome” the stranger. In a midrash we learn that if they are too short for a bed, their legs are stretched; if they are too tall, they’re legs are “shortened.”

  Today let us ask, which candidate is a reflection of Abraham and Sarah’s welcoming of the stranger, and which candidate is a reflection of the inhabitants of S & G? Sure it’s not black-and-white…nothing is. What we know though is that the stranger to these shores has not had her children ripped away in years past; the Emma Lazarus message at the base of the Statue of Liberty has, for the most part, been a true representation of the hope America offers. On the other hand, there seems to be a message on the pointed gates on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue “Only Norwegians are welcome. Those from dirty countries need not apply, let alone enter.”

I find our Torah and other sacred texts to be so relevant to the ethical issues that confront us in our everyday lives…how much the more so at this time!