Fearful for their lives, They stood outside detention centers, Fearful for their lives, They“ went out to their brethren” 31 Fearful for their lives, They“ turned here and there”, menschen in a place of diminished humanity
We bring our first fruits 32, A harvest of vigilance, Empathy, Origin stories, And stranger-love. All in one basket 33, Will you reach out your hand to take it?
Rabbi-Cantor Michael McCloskey, AJR’ 23, of Temple Emeth, Chestnut Hill. MA, is proud to teach at the Academy for Jewish Religion. Current secretary of the Cantors Assembly, he is published poet, blogger, and essayist.
31
Exodus 2:11
32
See Deuteronomy 26:2. The offering of the first fruits is accompanied by a recounting of oral history about the trials of being an immigrant and is the beginning of the Maggid / Story section of the Haggadah of Passover.
33
A reference both to the basket in which one would place one’ s first fruits and also to the redemptive basket or ark in which Pharaoh’ s daughter found Moses and chose to have compassion upon him, rescue him, and ultimately, adopt him.
61