Since it was raided by immigration agents last May, the kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa has been an endless source of national fascination and headlines. Just last week the Orthodox man who ran the Agriprocessors plant was released from jail on bail after a contentious hearing — this after being hit by child-labor and bank-fraud charges.
The raid and its aftermath were not a surprise to me. I’d visited the plant in 2006 and written an article about the immigrant workers who had been shorted pay and lost limbs in the plant. But the attention to the plant’s woes — particularly in the Jewish community — astonished even me. The Agriprocessors raid, as it became known, inspired fund-raising campaigns, sermons, front-page headlines and lots of biting debate.
What was it that so riveted our attention? It was never articulated and it took me a while to see it, but this one story had managed to distill some of the most essential questions and issues that are dividing and defining the Jewish community, and indeed religious communities of all stripes today.
This has been an ongoing editorial/news item in the Omaha paper for a while, as there are quite a few kosher meat plants in the Midwest. In fact, there was a very interesting editorial in the Omaha World Herald, probably back in December, where he was arguing that if undocumented immigrant labor is being used, even if kosher laws are being observed, is it still kosher if they people involved are being mistreated? It was very thought provoking.
Although we are getting this debate through the lens of a news article, the question about whether or not treatment of the workers is merely a social attitude and not something important like kosher regulations that were commands given by God, actually seems to be a non-issue. Moses got two pretty direct commands about how to treat foreigners. The idea of how to treat foreigners was not hatched out of the minds of the “clean-shaven” (non-Orthodox) rabbis in this news account. It is God’s idea, as commanded in the Torah:
Lev 19:1, 33-34 ESV
(1) And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
….
(33) “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.
(34) You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Supplement to Bill Cool’s comment (#2.)”
An online dictionary defines a “sojourn” as:
“A temporary stay; a brief period of residence.”
This is not the same thing as an “illegal alien” attempting to establish a permanent residence. Or even more dramatically, move into the country of other people and establish a ‘colony’ reflecting the language, customs and ethos of the country from which the illegal alien came.
3. AnglicanFirst – Of course, you are correct. I am certain from this command (Lev 19:34) that the Lord specified only holders of valid passports, temporary work visas or green cards.
Actually, a review of the verse implies a fairly broad meaning, since the Lord equates the strangers among the Israelites with the status of the Israelites among the Egyptians – a sojourn that lasted hundreds of years – part of which time they were welcome and part of which they were mistreated as overworked slaves.
Of course, in our time, and not just in the US, orderly immigration is an issue, and it certainly is an issue where I live. However, the Lord’s command in Lev 19:34 about the stranger in our midst does seem to address the constant theme in both the OT, NT and even in early church writings, that God intends mercy be shown to those who are powerless – widows, orphans, sick, strangers, etc. We see this theme carried throughout the OT and NT, but since the Orthodox Jew may consider only the Torah as authoritative, the Lev 19:34 command should have been operative in the work place. The immigration status of the workers is a matter of secular law, but the command for fair treatment of the stranger could presumably be obeyed as a separate issue.
[i] Consider what God declared through Isaiah about ritual duty: [/i]
Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and [b]oppress all your workers[/b].
—Isaiah 58:3
[i] From the daily office lectionary for Feb. 8, BCP p. 946 [/i]