Shanah Tovah.

I want to begin tonight with a story from almost 20 years ago during my rabbinical school days, one I don’t often tell, but one that shaped me in ways I still carry. It is a story about dehumanization and being made invisible.

When I was living in Jerusalem, I was given a High Holy Day pulpit assignment through the World Union for Progressive Judaism to serve a congregation in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a community much like Rodeph Shalom – urban, proud of its tradition, and deeply committed, though unable at that time to afford a full-time rabbi. They brought in students to lead, and I was honored to go.

I landed in Johannesburg, tired but excited. I had been thinking ahead to the High Holiday services I would lead, the community I would get to know. I handed my passport to the immigration officer, expecting the familiar stamp and a welcome.

Instead, the officer looked up and said, “You cannot enter the country.”

I was stunned. I had a valid American passport. No one had told me I needed a visa. Then I was told: South Africa requires you to have a completely blank page in your passport – one that has never been stamped. My passport had plenty of room, but every page had some kind of stamp from my travels. No page was pristine. And because of that, I was suddenly not a traveler, not a rabbinical student, not a guest of a synagogue. I was an “illegal entrant.”

Very quickly, I was escorted away, my passport confiscated. I was put into a detention cell. I recall the fear coursing through my body, the shock of how quickly everything changed. One minute I was arriving to serve a synagogue. The next, I was a detainee.

In that cell, I met others: a Chinese family, and a young man from Europe who had come to play soccer. We were caught in the net of technicalities, powerless. An officer came in with paperwork and said: Sign this statement admitting that you tried to enter the country illegally. If you sign, you’ll be deported immediately and never allowed to return. If you refuse, you’ll rot here. No lawyer, no phone, no embassy. Just invisibility.

At one point, a guard began shouting at the Chinese family, and in my attempt to help, I was pulled out of the group and put in a cell alone.

The loneliness was crushing. Hours stretched with no contact, no idea if the congregation waiting at the airport even knew what had happened to me. I wondered if Laurel knew, if my parents knew, if anyone could see me. And that, more than the fear of what might happen, was the ache of being unseen. This is what dehumanization looks and feels like.

Eventually, I signed. Not because I had done anything wrong, but because I was desperate to escape that erasure.

I finally got a chance to call Laurel, my parents, and the synagogue. That moment of being able to speak, to be heard, to be known again – it restored my humanity.

I remember Laurel’s voice on the line. She listened, and then, trying to lighten the weight of it all, she said: “Well, at least you didn’t get eaten by a lion.”

Then, with the help of some bribes and some connections, I was ultimately able to secure my release and stay in South Africa, serving the congregation. But what stays with me isn’t the safari or the services. What stays with me is the memory of those hours in detention, when I was erased. When I was invisible.

And into that invisibility, the words of our tradition cry out. The words of Psalm 27, which we traditionally recite every day of this past Hebrew month Elul in preparation for the New Year, Al-tastir panecha mimeni – Do not hide Your face from me. That was my prayer in that cell. It is the prayer of every immigrant locked away in a detention center. It is the prayer of every undocumented child living in the shadows who wonders if speaking too loudly might put their family in danger.

But Psalm 27 does not end in despair. It proclaims: God is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? God is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? And again: Wait for God, be strong, and let your heart take courage. Psalm 27 is not just about lament – it is about courage and restoration. It is about refusing to accept invisibility as the last word.

Tonight, our tradition says, we open the gates. The Gates of Heaven, that God might see us. We open the Gates of our very souls, cracking open our vulnerabilities. And we open the Gates of Justice, that we might partner with God in bringing redemption to this world. 

The story of immigration and dehumanization is not new to our people. This summer, my daughter, Josephine, read Ruth Behar’s Across So Many Seas, a novel that tells the story of four generations of Jewish women, beginning with the expulsion from Spain, moving to Turkey, then to Cuba, and finally to Miami. Each generation struggles with exile, displacement, and invisibility. What Behar shows us is that invisibility is not just about legal status – it is about our collective memory as a people, about whose stories are carried forward and whose are erased.

Behar describes herself as a “vulnerable observer.” She refuses to remain detached. She insists on bearing witness, on making visible what could otherwise be hidden. Her work – and Josephine’s encounter with it – remind us that the invisibility of dehumanization has haunted our people for centuries. But also that our calling, generation after generation, is to insist on being seen, and to insist on seeing others.

“Al-tastir panecha mimeni. Do not hide Your face from me” – Psalm 27 is not just a plea for God’s presence – it is a charge to us, to ensure that those around us are not hidden, that their faces are not erased.

This is why dehumanization is not only a political crisis but a spiritual one. To reduce a person to a number, a case file, an “illegal,” is to deny the image of God within them. But Torah insists: B’tzelem Elohim bara oto – God created humanity in God’s image. Our High Holiday liturgy, Unetaneh Tokef, insists that on this day, God sees us each one by one. None of us is invisible before God. And so, when our systems erase people, when our society hides them away, it is not only cruelty – it is heresy.

We have felt this close to home. Every Wednesday morning, congregants come to volunteer at Breaking Bread on Broad, serving over 180 families, providing fresh food, diapers, menstrual supplies, books for children, and so much more. It has become a lifeline for neighbors, a place of sanctuary, a place where invisibility is turned into community.

But when ICE rescinded the Sensitive Locations memo – a policy that had kept immigration enforcement away from schools, houses of worship, and community centers – the safety of these places suddenly felt fragile. Families grew afraid. What if coming to Rodeph Shalom puts them at risk?

So, to ensure our neighbors feel safe, we trained staff and lead volunteers on how to best protect guests who might be undocumented. We continue to adapt to make it clear: this is a place of protection, not danger. 

And that is why Rodeph Shalom has formally joined the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, an interfaith, immigrant-led coalition rooted in faith, dedicated to dignity and liberation. It brings together congregations, synagogues, churches, mosques, and immigrant leaders themselves to change the reality of dehumanization.

New Sanctuary Movement organizes accompaniment – volunteers physically going to court with immigrants, sitting beside them so they are not alone. It organizes public action – demanding change, demanding justice. It builds leadership – most of its leaders are immigrants themselves, many of them women, who guide its vision. It creates community – so that invisibility is replaced by visibility, erasure replaced by belonging. I invite you to reach out to me or our lay leaders to get involved with New Sanctuary Movement – to attend an accompaniment training or a rally. To advocate for city and state policies that will protect immigrants.

And tonight, we all have the opportunity to participate in a practical action: advocating for the Welcoming Schools policies.

A Welcoming Schools policy ensures that every child in Pennsylvania, regardless of immigration status, has the right to attend school safely and without fear. It affirms that schools may not ask about or share immigration status. It prohibits ICE or DHS agents from entering school grounds without a signed judicial warrant. It often includes staff training, so that teachers and administrators know how to respond if immigration enforcement appears. It ensures that schools are sanctuaries for learning, not places of terror.

Why does this matter? Because when a child is afraid to go to school, they are invisible in the classroom. When parents are afraid to bring their kids, their education, their voice, and their very future is hidden. A Welcoming Schools policy is not a piece of bureaucracy – it is a moral and spiritual statement: children belong, and fear will not erase them.

Tonight, we’re not only talking about it – we’re doing something. At the end of some of the aisles, you will find a manila envelope filled with postcards. During a few moments of quiet reflection after this sermon, you are invited to take one, fill it out, and pass the envelope along.

If you live in Lower Merion, which has yet to institute a Welcoming Schools policy, take a card from the bag labelled Lower Merion. If you live in Philadelphia, use one of the other cards that thank our city for implementing this policy. And if you don’t live in Philly or Lower Merion, we have other postcards for you in the lobby. 

Please write your name and address, and then drop the card in the lobby on your way out. We will gather them, record our numbers so we have data to report on our impact, and deliver them together to the school boards at an upcoming meeting

Each postcard is more than paper. Each one is an answer to the Psalmist’s cry: Al-tastir panecha mimeni – Do not hide Your face from me. Each card is a chance to partner with God in bringing light where there is fear, in making sure no child is invisible. Each postcard is a testimony that says to a student: We see you. You are safe. You belong. Do not hide Your face from us.

May our witnessing say: Do not hide Your face.

May our solidarity say: Do not hide Your face.

And as God opens the gates tonight, may we open them too – for immigrants, for refugees, for children, for every neighbor who feels invisible.

Shanah tovah.

If you weren’t in attendance on Erev Rosh Hashanah, you can still add your name to the message to your school board in support of a Welcoming Schools Policy at rac.org/WSP.