This week’s Torah portion is about Joseph the dreamer and sibling rivalry. I always here this week’s portion in the midrash of Andrew Lloyd Webber. (Sing)

But I’m not going to talk about that…not exactly. But we will get to today’s parsha. I promise. Today is also Human Rights Shabbat. 100 congregations worldwide are pausing to remember this topic this week. A couple of summers ago my daughter and I were driving back and forth between New York and Boston. It seemed I was spending half my life on that road in Connecticut and I knew every place to stop for a coffee, a coke or a corned beef sandwich. We saw a billboard, dare I say it here, for McDonald’s: “Chocolate Drizzle is a Right not a Topping.” Now many of you know that I love my peppermint mocha coffee with a drizzle of chocolate syrup on top. But a right? Not so fast. This led to an interesting discussion through most of Connecticut—and beyond. Guess it was an effective billboard, but not in the ways McDonald’s intended, as we didn’t stop for that coffee after all.

So what is a right? (Discuss—one person said that it is something we are entitled to within reason. It became our working definition.)

We know as US citizens the Declaration of Independence: I didn’t even have to look it up—it’s memorized. Say it with me. We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men (or people) are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among those rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A favorite place Up in North Michigan in the heart of cherry country, Cherry Republic has on its t-shirts Life, Liberty, Beaches and Pie. The co-founder says about that slogan, “And since I was a teenager, my own personal mission is to inspire and uplift others, so it had to do that as well. So, I took America’s motto of Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and added more definition to the term happiness. Happiness to people from our region, certainly, it’s about eating pie. And I don’t know many summer visitors at the beach that aren’t happy. “

Then there is the Bill of Rights—Can we name all ten. Freedom of religion, the press, assembly, the right to bear arms, the right that a soldier not be quartered in peace time in a private home without permission of the owner, freedom from unreasonable seizures and searches, trial by jury, swift trial, all guaranteed by the US Constitution.

There is yet another declaration of human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Last week we spoke about the UN. It has been a mixed bag through the years. However, in 1948, in the wake of the Shoah . the UN drafted this Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was unanimously approved by the general assembly with eight countries abstaining but no country dissenting. It was signed on December 10, 1948 and the this anniversary is the reason today is Human Rights Shabbat. It remains the basis of international law.

These human rights are ones that all humans are entitled to. Not just chocolate drizzle—and they are based remarkably on Jewish values and based on the idea that “there are a few common standards of decency that can and should be accepted by people of all nations and cultures.” In fact, one of the key drafters was René Cassin, a French Jew and noted jurist, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968 for his efforts in developing the Declaration. Some year we may look at this more closely but for now, I want to focus on just one topic.

By now you are wondering, but how does this tie into our parsha, Joseph our dreamer or our bratty, holier than thou, favorite son, annoyed his brothers so much they threw him into a pit. They debated whether to kill him or to sell him into slavery. They opted to selling him into slavery and then in a cruel twist tell their father Jacob that Joseph had been killed. When he was first in Egypt he was sold to Potiphar. Eventually he was thrown in jail. Sing “Close every door to me.”

We were slaves in the land of Egypt. And with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, G-d led us out of Egypt. 36 times in Torah we are told to treat others kindly—especially the widow, the orphan and the stranger precisely because we were strangers in the land of Egypt and we knew the real pain of being slaves. More than any other commandment.

You think this isn’t a problem today? Unfortunately I need to tell you to think again.

Article 4 of the UDHR reads: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”

That seems pretty simple, right? After all, slavery has been illegal here in the United States for nearly 150 years, thanks to our beloved president from Illinois.

But it is not so simple. Rabbi Rachel Kahn Troster from Rabbis for Human Rights, North America, an organization I have supported for over 10 years, points out that “According to experts, more people are enslaved today than at any other point in history. It may be illegal and against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it happens everywhere. The commonly used number is 27 million people currently enslaved; this estimate is assumed to be extremely conservative.”

What exactly is a modern day slave? It unfortunately includes child slaves, child soldiers, forced sex workers and those in debt bondage. The largest group of modern slaves are labor slaves. Slave labor and child labor are found in the supply chain of many industries, including carpets from India, chocolate from the Ivory Coast, iron from Brazil, and cotton from Uzebekstan. Many of us are probably wearing clothes that violate this universal declaration of human rights.

The answers are not so simple either. I remember a year up north when my daughter earned her place at the adult table. She had just learned in her 7th grade public school about how some children in India are chained to their looms to make textiles. My cousins are in the textile manufacturing business and do business in India. Sarah went head to head with Steven, the CEO demanding answers. He patiently explained to her that because he does business with this one group, all those children are not chained to their looms and they get to go school. He personally has inspected the factories. He admits that it is not perfect. But better than it was. And Sarah still asks the hard questions.

Before we think that slavery is a problem that happens somewhere else, slavery has been found in more than 90 cities in the United States, with the number rising. Tens of thousands of foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States and many Americans, including children and teenagers, are also at risk of being trafficked domestically. A good friend of mine, a nun, Sister Pauline Leblanc has worked diligently on this topic in Boston. Slavery has been found in businesses, in agriculture (including slavery in the Florida tomato industry), and among domestic workers. They are frequently invisible, until you know what to look for. Again, I have learned much from Sarah who read a book called Nickeled and Dimed for her Sociology 101 class. It is haunting and I recommend it highly. I cannot walk though WalMart or even my beloved Meijers without thinking about it and wondering about the workers there. Not that they are being chained per se. Read the book.

Rabbi Rachel Kahn Troster explains: “The Jewish value at the heart of human rights is the idea that every human being is created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God, and that a respect for k’vod habriot, human dignity, can take precedence even over parts of Jewish law. Unfortunately, a slave is not treated as though they are created in the divine image, a precious vessel of human life, but as an object, a cheap item easy to throw away. And indeed, today human life is very cheap. Whereas a slave in the United States prior to the Civil War cost thousands of dollars adjusted, today you can buy a person for as little as $50- 100. When people come that cheaply, why worry about feeding them or giving them medical care? It is just easier to buy someone else.”

We saw this pattern in some the mills in Lowell, MA. First they hired farm girls from New England. The mill owners set up respectable housing, medical care, newspapers, schools, church. It was a planned city. But it got to be too expensive. They looked for cheaper labor and brought in the Irish who had to settle in the Acre, just outside the city of Lowell. Then that got too expensive and they brought in the Greeks. Next the French Canadians, then the southeast Asians. Eventually those jobs moved south and then offshore—always in the quest for cheaper labor.

The slaves in our midst are the most vulnerable members of our society. Imagine coming to this country with the promise of it being better. A land where everyone is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Imagine being told that if you pay 5000—all your life savings you will be escorted through the process. Imagine being robbed but you get here anyway. Imagine being kept in a locked apartment with 25 other women forced to work in the sweat shops that still exist. Or worse. Imagine you break free. Imagine now you are a hotel worker—with a child, but being able to afford a home of your own. Imagine parking your car under a street light, leaving your child sleeping and going to clean hotel rooms for people who have not only a home but enough discretionary income to afford a vacation. Imagine trying to get that child into public school without a real address. Imagine not being able to heat up a meal or open a can. Imagine.

You may think this is depressing. It is. You may think we don’t have slaves per se in Elgin. I would urge you to think again. You may be thinking but what can we as individuals do. Nicholas Krisoff the columnist for the New York Times, together with his wife wrote a book about these and other topics, “Women Hold Up Half the Sky.” It is a painful book to read but well worth it. At the very end he list things that we can do.

My own personal list includes:
Support legislation aimed at improving the lives of victims of human trafficking.
Support companies that do not use slave-made goods. Free2Work.org rates companies based on the transparency of their supply chain.
When possible by Fair Trade products. There is even a campaign to buy Fair Trade chocolate gelt this Chanukah. I buy Fair Trade coffee and one of my favorites is one called Delicious Peace from Uganda and a cooperative of Jews, Christians and Muslims working together. I hope we can get some of that coffee here. I know that the Sisterhood gift shop already considers Fair Trade options. The kippah I am wearing I bought during my demo weekend precisely because it is fair trade and made in Guatemala.
Work to make sure that human rights are not violated on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rabbis for Human Rights got their start protesting the destruction of ancient olive tress in the West Bank. This act of destruction is a violation of human rights and a violation of halacha as outlined in Deuteronomy 20 which talks about not cutting down fruit trees when you siege a city. At this season of Chanukah, the symbol of an olive tree, sign of peace and needed for production of olive oil which we need to keep the eternal light burning is especially apt. Supporting Rabbis for Human Rights is a way to look at the miracle of Chanukah and its oil without maybe shattering my diet with all the fried food.

Chocolate drizzle is a privilege, not a right. Joseph was dreamer. Joseph was a slave. Joseph became a great leader and his dreams and his leadership made sure that eventually people would not be sold into slavery. May it be so, speedily and in our day. Amen.