In Parshat Ekev, we are confronted with one of the most compelling – and counter-intuitive – obligations in all Torah. “You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). This mitzvah actually appears thirty-six times, double chai, in the Torah. We have heard it so often and referred to it so regularly that we often lose sight of its power and unsettling demand. We do so at our peril and diminishment.
Too often we have “tamed” this mitzvah to fit our needs rather than confront the profound – and gracious – imposition it places upon us. But listen to this command with fresh ears, with the ears of our ancestors, with the ears of a people and a world for whom communal identity was fundamental to self and existence. This command tells us to go against everything our instincts teach us. It tells us to look beyond the familiar and the safe and to see in the one who is different and alien the same fundamental goodness and holiness that God bestows upon all His creatures.
Why should we look beyond our safe and familiar boundaries and welcome this alien into our embrace? Because his experience and his status are understandable to us. After all, we were gerim in the land of Egypt. We too know what it means to be the alien, the “other.” That experience should inform our understanding of the plight of others.
Too often, it does not – even knowing, as Ramban teaches, that we are commanded to love the ger because Hashem loves him. We know this because Hashem certainly loves us and we were strangers too. Our experience, of pain, our sense of disassociation teaches us that God loves the stranger. And, if God loves the stranger, so should we.
Sefer HaChinuch tells us that when someone leaves his family and his country of origin to become a “stranger” in a new environment, it is a very difficult adjustment. To survive and to thrive, the stranger needs help and support. We are obligated to provide it.
Our understanding of the ger and this mitzvah must be rooted in our Mitzrayim experience. For we all must experience the pain and angst of the galut, of the wilderness of our souls; none of us can be born redeemed. It is only in our wandering and our wrestling with our lives and our experience that we appreciate redemption and the grace God affords us. Without galut there is no grace and redemption. Without the ger there is no citizen.
Our destiny is bound in the success of the ger. Just as our own experience as strangers brought us to the foot of Sinai, we must recognize that in every ger is the potential for a Sinai experience. It is our obligation to help, not hinder; to open our hearts, not harden them.
This mitzvah asks us, demands of us, to challenge the very heart of who we are, to be willing – no, to be more than willing – to embrace the ger, to care for the ger.
For we were gerim…
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Such a powerful command. Is it any wonder that so many seek to shirk it?
This mitzvah challenges each and every Jew to go beyond, to reach out, to extend a hand, to develop relationships beyond one’s familiar “turf.” Yet many observant Jews are inclined to look at gerim with crossed eyes. What? Me?
Many observant Jews avoid any possibility of crossing paths with the ger. Most turn a blind eye, telling themselves, “I have enough with our own.” And they view the ba’al teshuvah with even greater scorn than they do the ger. Who would want to marry into a ba’al teshuvah family? Who needs the hassle? After all, “if you aren’t born with it, you can never catch up…”
This perspective dims our consideration to other gerim. The divorced. The older, single person. The widow.
There is always a “reasonable” excuse. “I can’t handle that.” “That’s not for me.” “I can’t handle those tears at my Shabbos table.” “What am I, a social worker? I’m just a simple Jew.”
What about that OTD (Off the Derech) person? “God spare me from him. Keep him away from my chevra. Keep him away from my community, my shul. After all, I can’t be responsible for every failure out there.”
Really? Here’s what the Torah tells us: “You shall not wrong a stranger, nor oppress him; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20).
In Ekev, God tells us that we are responsible for the ger.
But who is the ger?
I posed this question to my son Nathan. He responded with a thoughtful answer that demands our attention. “People think the admonition not to mistreat gerim is a directive at a specific group of people who have unique circumstances that qualify them as ‘gerim.’ I think the directive is different. I think anyone in any social situation can feel like a ger. The new kid in class. The new guy at the office. In fact, in any social situation there is likely to be someone that feels like a ger. It doesn’t have to be a new situation, it’s just the inevitability of social dynamics.”
With this thoughtful reply he enlarges the understanding of what it means to be a ger to those whose place in life makes them feel like a ger. Even the one who is part of the community can sometimes feel like a stranger.
Haven’t we all experienced that feeling?
This understanding of the mitzvah encourages us to look for gerim in every situation and respond supportively and caringly to them. It encourages us to see in the eyes of the estranged divorced men and women who have lost their home, Shabbos table, dignity, and confidence, the stranger who we once were in the land of Egypt.
Teens who have become estranged from their homes, yeshivas, shuls, and communities? These OTD? Gerim. To be treated not with scorn but loving kindness.
Why? Because we were gerim in the land of Egypt. Now they are gerim in their own mitzrayim (narrow, tight place). They are boxed in. Lost. And God commands that we treat them with respect, love, decency – in a way that makes clear that redemption is just ahead.
We invest so much of our lives to belonging, to being part of our community. Our sense of self, of decency, of dignity come from how we see ourselves reflected in the eyes of those closest to us, the eyes of those who we number among the “we” of our lives.
We are taught from a young age to fear the stranger. The “other” is a threat to everything we hold dear; to everything we invest our time and efforts to preserve.
We are seeing the rawness of these emotions played out in the current political atmosphere, in which immigrants and people of color are feared as “the other.” They diminish us. They rob our jobs, our resources, our land.
Strangers.
According to some, they are criminals, rapists, gang members. They are, in short, anything but human, anything but God’s creatures currently in the galut but in search of their coming redemption.
God does not accept our fear, our incendiary words, our hateful speech and behavior. When we stood at the foot of Sinai, perhaps we had already forgotten the fear and shame of being gerim. God demands that we remember, not for ourselves but for others who still feel those demeaning emotions even as we bask in the light of grace.
Who is the ger?
We all are.
Who is in galut?
We all are.
Who stands at the foot of Sinai?
We all do.
Together.