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| LETTER FROM |
| THE RABBI |
“I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door:”
Empathy, A Command from God
ְוֵ֖גר ֣לֹא תְלָ֑חץ וַאֶּת֗ם יַדְעֶּתם את־ֶנֶ֣פׁש הֵּ֔גר כי־ֵגִר֥ים הִייֶ֖תם בֶ֥אֶרץ מְצָרִֽים׃
“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger,
having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9)
THE SOUL OF A STRANGER — how [FOR YOU KNOW] הגר נפש את :Rashi on Exodus 23:9 hard it is for him when people oppress him
Thirty-six times, twice on February 22nd in synagogues worldwide on Shabbat Mishpatim, the Torah makes it clear that not only should we love “strangers,” i.e. sojourners in our lands who, like us in Egypt, were born elsewhere and are subject to hostility; we are to not op p ress them. Many are aware of the Mitzvah of “ahavat ger,” i.e. loving the immigrant, but just as the Jewish version of the Golden Rule—stated by Hillel the Elder as “What is hateful to you, do not do unto others”—goes beyond the positive affirmation of being kind to others, so, too, the Torah goes beyond the less precise requirement to love the resident alien and demands that we not op p ress him, Rashi adding “for we know how hard it is for him when people oppress him.”
Judaism champions empathy as a core tenet. Empathy, as defined by the Oxford Languages Dictionary, is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Over and over again we are taught to resonate with the plight of “strangers,” i.e. immigrants, as an extension of our own suffering brought about by centuries of enslavement under Pharaoh. Several of this month’s Torah portions focus on our people’s liberation and emergence as a nation. In this context, I pray that every one of us remembers this core conviction and Mitzvah, among the 613 Mitzvot (commandments): We are to love immigrants and prevent their suffering. The Torah does NOT separation immigrants between those who came in an authorized fashion versus those who break immigration laws to join us, it simply says “love them.” We might turn with pride to the great American Jewish poet Emma Lazarus, whose sonnet “The New Colossus” penned in 1883 is etched upon that great symbol of the American Melting Pot (a term coined by Jewish author Israel Zangwill whose play with the same title was praised by President Theodore Roosevelt), the Statue of Liberty—referred to her as “Mother of Exiles”—facing outward to the lands of the strangers, and hearkening for all to join us:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore;
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
As this nation engages in conversations regarding who we are, what we stand for, and where we should go, our heritage teaches us a thing or two about this issue. Perhaps Ruth Brin, whose poetry can be found throughout our Reform prayerbooks, summarizes this Jewish call for radical empathy for immigrants best:
Strangers
Exodus 22:20
You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him,
for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
We were strangers in Egypt and Kiev,
we were foreigners in Babylon and Berlin,
We were outsiders and wanderers
in Spain and Poland and France.
We looked at the citizens of those lands
with the dark pleading eyes of the alien.
Our hearts beat the hesitant beat
of those without rights, fearful and uncertain.
We pray You help us to remember
the heart of the stranger
when we walk in freedom,
Help us to be fair and upright
in all our dealings with other people.
Oh, burn and brand the lesson
of all the years and all the lands
on our hearts.
Lord, make us forever strangers
to discrimination and injustice.
–Ruth F. Brin, Harvest: Collected Poems and Prayers, p. 49
Blessings,
Rabbi Jonathan Klein
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