י ב א ד ב א י מ ר
א My Father Was a Wandering Aramean
For You Know the Soul of the Stranger
Rabbi Adrienne Rubin
“ My father was a wandering Aramean …”
With these words, the Haggadah reminds us that even before Egypt, we were strangers. Our ancestors migrated from place to place, looking for food, looking for home. We were immigrants. We grew numerous in Egypt and became feared, enslaved, oppressed.
We are reminded of this again and again in our Torah:“ You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”( Exodus 23:9)
Our Haggadah inserts us into the story. We were wanderers. We were strangers. We were outsiders. We were feared. We were distrusted. We were oppressed.
The words of Emma Lazarus, engraved on a plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, beckon to immigrants arriving in the United States:
" Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
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