This Is Not Okay: A Rabbi’s Torah Response to the Killings in Minneapolis

Friends, in just a few moments we will rise for Kaddish. Before we do, I need ten minutes of holy honesty.

These past weeks, many of us have watched events unfold in Minneapolis and beyond, and we have felt the ground shift under our feet.

We have said the names Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, and we have struggled with the same question echoing in so many Jewish hearts: How can this be happening here, and what does our Jewish tradition ask of us now?

This is not a partisan question. It is a Torah question.

We are living through a moment when the enforcement of immigration law is too often carried out with fear-based tactics and unnecessary escalation, and in ways that endanger life.

Whatever our politics, whatever our opinions about policy, this is not okay.

When people are grabbed as they are showing up to their immigration hearings, when people with extended DACA status are languishing in lock ups, when children are left alone as their parents are grabbed up, when force escalates and lives are lost, something sacred is being violated.

And the Torah does not let us shrug it off.

No less than thirty-six times (some say forty-six), the Torah commands welcome and care for the stranger, the ger. Torah repeats it again and again, to make sure we don’t miss it. Why so much repetition?

Because our central story as a Jewish people is ger hayiti b’eretz Mitzrayim, we too were strangers in the land of Egypt.

The Torah says it plainly: ואהבתם את־הגר כי־גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים - You shall befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19)

Now, I know this room. I love this community. I love you all when we agree, and I love you still when we don’t agree. We do not all agree about immigration policy.

I am not asking for uniformity. I am asking for covenant.

Because even if we differ on policy, I believe we can find common ground in three things that are not political, they are moral: (1) due process and clear warrants, (2) de-escalation and dignity, instead of fear-based tactics and harsh intimidation, and (3) transparent accountability, especially when lives are taken.

A society can pursue safety and order, and still insist on dignity, due process, and restraint. Law enforcement has a hard job, and standards matter most when the stakes are life and death. Whatever our views, we should be able to say together, “this is how a society honors human dignity.”

This week we are still in the opening arc of Exodus, the story of a people learning what it means to go from narrowness to freedom.

My friend Rabbi Sharon Sobel shared with us a midrash that has been ringing in my ears. She reminds us that the Torah describes in Exodus 1:13 that the Egyptians imposed harsh labor on them, b’farech, meaning “ruthlessly.” The rabbis hear in the word farech a warning. They split the word farech into two words: feh or peh, meaning mouth, and rach, meaning gentle.

Oppression can begin with gentle speech, with soothing language, with slogans that sound reasonable.

Even with slogans like, “Deport the criminals,” “Deport the drug cartel members.” Who would not want that for safety?

But Torah goads us to take note of what happens next. It commands us to notice who gets swept up, who gets treated as disposable, who gets denied dignity, due process, and sometimes life itself. The Torah warns us do not let “smooth speech” become the gateway to cruel outcomes.

That is why Torah insists on something more than good intentions. Torah demands moral clarity.

Torah says every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim – those words appear right here on our ark – that every human is created in the image of God.

Not citizens only. Not only people who look like us, pray like us, speak like us. Every. Human. Being.

And we also need to say out loud, Renee and Alex are not the only names. There are Black and Brown neighbors who died too, whose names rarely reach our lips, people like Victor Manuel Díaz and Geraldo Lunas Campos, and still more whose names we do not know at all. Part of what fear does is erase. Torah, however, refuses that erasure.

And then comes the big image in this week’s Torah portion (from Parashat Beshallach): the sea in front of us, danger behind us, panic in our throats. The Israelites cry out, not because they are faithless, but because they are human. And the midrash teaches that the sea does not split until someone steps forward. Until an Israelite named Nachshon walks into the water. Until courage takes its first breath.

The sea does not split because we feel strongly. The sea splits when we move. So what does it mean for us to move?

It can mean we learn and insist on truth, not rumor. It can mean we expand our sources of information, so we don’t fall prey to the algorithm that tells us what we already believe. It can mean we call for transparent investigation and real accountability when force is used. It can mean we support organizations doing legal aid and humanitarian work. It means to protest safely, responsibly, honoring the dignity of everyone.

And I want to say this carefully, especially before Kaddish. In Judaism, the way we honor the dead is not only by memory, but by responsibility. We do not say names only to feel sorrow, we say names to remind us who we are and to help change us back.

So tonight, as we prepare to rise for Kaddish, I will hold in my heart Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, Victor Manuel Díaz and Geraldo Lunas Campos. I will hold the named and the unnamed together.

And also as we turn toward prayer, we also speak the name of Ran Gvili, the final Israeli hostage whose body is finally home. Ran was so brutally murdered by Hamas on October 7th and then his body was taken hostage to Gaza. His family buried him in a dignified ceremony, a reminder that restoring dignity to a life, is holy work.

So let’s make a promise, not of perfection, but of presence.

That we will not normalize cruelty. We will not be silent. We will not sit back but we will be upstanders. We will step into the sea.

May the Holy One, the Source of Life and Breath, help us find our courage, strengthen our conscience, and guide our community to be a light, not because we are fearless, but because we refuse to give in to fear. Amen.

To be in community is to think. To be in community is sometimes to disagree. To be in community is to talk. So if you agree, let’s talk. If you disagree, let’s talk. So let’s talk. That’s how we save our country. That’s how we save our Jewish people. That’s how we save our souls.

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Note: Sermons like these, which speak to issues that can split our communities, call for a moral response grounded in Torah. Finding the words and the tone that a diverse community can listen to and learn from is one of the great challenges, and sacred privileges, of being a rabbi. This sermon emerged through many conversations with family, colleagues, teachers, and lay leaders. I especially thank my wife, Michelle November, Susie Gruber (President, Congregation Or Ami), Rabbi Elana Rabishaw, and Or Ami’s staff for listening to early drafts and offering incisive feedback that helped soften sharp edges so the message could be heard. Thanks also to members of the CCAR Facebook group who offered wisdom along the way, including Rabbis Tzvia Jasper, Sharon Sobel, Andrea Steinberger, and Fred Greene, to the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, HIAS, and to the Reform, Conservative, and  Reconstructionist Jewish leaders who authored the Jewish Cross-Denominational Statement Against Violent Immigration Enforcement.