Two Vigils, One Question

This week I spoke at two vigils.

The first was outside the North Carolina Legislative Building. Faith leaders and advocates gathered to speak out against the proposed reopening of the Rivers ICE Detention Facility. We spoke about immigrants, detention, families, and the moral cost of building more places to detain and imprison human beings. Together, we honored the memory of 60 people who died in ICE detention or during ICE operations.

The second vigil honored farmworkers who died from heat stress while harvesting the food we eat every day.

On the surface, these events seemed very different.

One was about immigrants. The other was about people who died while working in unbearable conditions.

But both reveal systems that harm some of the most vulnerable people in our society. And both depend, at least in part, on us not seeing.

As I prepared for both events, I found myself returning to this week’s Torah portion, the words of the prophets, and the rhythm of the Jewish calendar.

In Deuteronomy, Moses spends his final days urging the Israelites to remember what it was like to be oppressed, to be strangers, to know what it feels like to be powerless. That memory is supposed to shape the kind of people we become.

This week also brings Shabbat Nachamu—the Shabbat of Comfort. Isaiah begins with the words, “Comfort, comfort My people.”

When I hear the word comfort, I think about sitting with someone after they’ve received devastating news. I think about bringing food. I think about giving someone a hug.

But Isaiah doesn’t stop there.

He goes on to say, “Prepare the way.”

To me, that sounds like a call to remove the obstacles that keep people from living with dignity. Comfort isn’t only about lightening someone’s burden. It’s about changing the conditions that created the burden in the first place.

At the first vigil, I found myself saying that behind every detention bed is a person. Behind every deportation order is a family. Every policy reflects a choice about who we are becoming.

At the farmworker vigil, I ended up saying something I hadn’t planned to say quite so strongly: “The dead do not need our comfort. They need our truth.”

Those weren’t really two different messages.

Both vigils were asking the same question:

What happens when we stop recognizing the humanity of other people?

At the farmworker vigil, I listened as one family shared their story.

A man spent one day working in extreme heat. The next morning, he returned to the fields. He collapsed and was taken to the hospital, where he fell into a coma. When he finally woke up, he had suffered severe brain damage.

Instead of receiving the care and support he needed, he was fired. So were his father and brother. The family was then deported to Mexico because his work visa no longer allowed them to remain in the United States. Rather than receiving the medical care he still needed, he was sent away.

Stories like that remind me that every policy, every workplace decision, and every act of neglect lands in the life of an actual person.

Whether we are talking about people harmed by our immigration detention and deportation system or workers reduced to labor units instead of human beings, Judaism pushes me in the opposite direction.

It asks me to see the person first.

The opening chapter of Genesis teaches that every human being is created in the image of God.

That’s easy to say.

It’s harder when the conversation turns to immigration policy, labor practices, budgets, or politics.

Maybe that’s exactly why the Torah keeps reminding us.

Some people wonder why a rabbi shows up at vigils like these. They assume these issues have little to do with Judaism.

I show up because Torah belongs wherever grief is present.

I show up because I believe these ancient words still have something to say about the world we’re living in today.

And I show up because my faith has been shaped as much by what I refuse to ignore as by what I believe.

These two vigils won’t, by themselves, change public policy.

But I know silence changes us.

I don’t want to become the kind of person who accepts human suffering as normal.

I believe people of faith are called to remember, to bear witness, and to tell the truth.

Perhaps that’s where comfort begins.

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Vigil Opposing the Reopening of the Rivers ICE Detention Facility

The Vigil to stop the reopening for the ICE Detention facility was featured on ABC 11 with a short clip from my speech.

Vigil Honoring Farmworkers Lost to Heat Stress

My words from the Farm Workers Vigil and some photos