י ב א ד ב א י מ ר
א My Father Was a Wandering Aramean
Torah and the Stranger
Rabbi David Cavill
Introduction: When I was ordained as a rabbi in 2017, refugees and immigration issues were at the forefront of the news. America, the great“ melting pot” described by playwright Israel Zangwill, didn’ t seem to be melting. It was becoming increasingly difficult for those seeking safety to find refuge in this country. Deportations, which had peaked at 409,859 in 2012 and then declined, were rising again starting in 2016.
Public discourse does not always address issues like this with nuance or a recognition of our shared humanity. I wanted my first public words as a rabbi to speak to this reality, and these issues, through Torah. Over and over again, the Torah commands us to be kind to the stranger- no less than thirty-six times, according to one tradition. 34 The Torah’ s repetition is prescient. Immigration remains at the center of our national attention. In 2025, there were over 600,00 deportations with more than 1.6 million others losing legal status. I am grateful to share the speech I gave at the AJR ordination ceremony in 2017:
The first of my ancestors to arrive in this country came in the last decade of the nineteenth century, fifty years
34
Bava Metzia 59b
77