We should not be able to eat or sleep! As we see the images of children being detained in cages knowing that their mother or father is nowhere close by to comfort, protect, and care for them – we should not be able to go through any sense of the normal workings of our days.

The separation of families, the taking of children away from their mothers and fathers with no plan as to how to reunite them is simply unconscionable and evil. We may think “How can this be in America? but it is America and it is happening. Outside of the internment camps of Dachau, Germany is a sculpture reading “Never Again” and we pray that there is never the atrocities of that period but when Jewish captives arrived in camp, the first thing that happened was the separating of children from parents, husbands from wives, sisters from brothers etc.

Separating a young child from their parent and primary caretaker does tragic harm to one’s psyche for a lifetime. It is a permanent scarring that cannot be erased. We must stand up for justice and care for these our most vulnerable people.

A Jewish Rabbi reminds us that only once did the Lord command us to love our neighbor but over 36 times we are commanded to love strangers precisely because the stranger is not like us. We must reach out to all people of the earth and love them as we have been loved and cared for by the Lord.