Tradition Today: The true lesson of the Exodus

The Passover holiday, which begins tonight, is one of the most ritually demanding of all the holy days of the Jewish year. We are required to rid our homes of hametz, and during the week we must refrain from eating leavened bread or any hametz. This requires a great deal of care for an extended period of time. No wonder the traditional greeting for this holiday is “Have a kosher and happy Passover,” with kosher coming first. But my teacher, Prof. Abraham Joshua Heschel, always emphasized the teaching of the prophets that ritual observance is secondary to morality and ethical behavior. The prophets even went so far as to state that observing rituals when acting immorally is an offense to God. Heschel often said that it is more important to have a mashgiah for lashon hara – malicious talk – than for kashrut. For that reason I think it is important for us to remember that in addition to the Passover rituals, the Torah also commands a very specific ethical norm regarding the Exodus from Egypt. And that norm has to do with the treatment of “strangers” – the ger – in our land. The most important influence of the Exodus on Jewish law is in regard to the treatment and rights of the ger, which in the Torah refers not to a convert but to a non-Israelite who dwells permanently in the Land of Israel. The biblical ger does have certain rights and obligations, but he is not considered an Israelite. Gerim were easy victims of economic exploitation, deprivation of property, or denial of legal rights. Therefore the Torah provides for their protection. The connection between Israel's experience as strangers in Egypt and our treatment of the strangers in our own midst is cited time and time again in the Torah. The number of times that the Torah commands us to care for the stranger is truly astounding. It appears in each of the three sets of laws found in the Torah, as if the subject is so important that it requires constant reiteration. What we are to learn from the Egyptian experience has nothing to do with what happens to us but with how we treat others. “You shall not wrong a stranger [ger] or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20). The Exodus is cited specifically in the Book of Exodus as the reason that Israelites should treat the stranger – ger – well. THE “HOLINESS code” in Leviticus, like the code in Exodus, also clearly connects the treatment of the ger to the experience of Egyptian suffering but goes beyond it in calling not only for good treatment of the stranger but for love of the ger as well. Leviticus, which commands us to love our fellow, makes a special provision for the stranger – who is really not our fellow. He is “the other.” Thus: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God” (Lev. 19:33-34). The fact that the Israelites were once strangers themselves is given as the reason that they should love the stranger and not wrong the stranger. Having experienced this status and having suffered because of it, they should have learned that lesson and should respond differently when they are in the position of being the host rather than the stranger. This theme is taken up once again in the third code of law, which is found in Deuteronomy and classifies the ger together with other defenseless members of society, the fatherless and the widow. They receive the tithe of the third and sixth year of each cycle (Deuteronomy 14:29). Deuteronomy further requires the judicial system to protect the rights of the stranger: “…decide justly between any man and a fellow Israelite or a stranger” (ibid. 1:16). “For the Lord your God… upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You, too, must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (ibid. 10:17-19). God Himself comes to the protection of strangers because they are otherwise defenseless, and here, too, the stranger is singled out from the group and mention is made of the special reason for treating him well – our experience as strangers in Egypt. TODAY, AS Jews who have suffered from discrimination and, in recent times, from persecution and annihilation because we were considered “the other,” now that we are in our own land, we must be especially careful not to treat others as we were treated. In view of that, it was all the more offensive that precisely in the weeks leading up to Passover, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef took the opportunity to express his opinion in public that non- Jews – strangers! – do not have the right to live in the Land of Israel. He added that if he had his way, he would ship them all to Turkey. His hurried explanation a day or so later was totally unconvincing. He completely ignored the fact that he was basing himself on a theoretical law that had to do with pagans, whose presence in the land would entice Jews to idolatry, a law that never was enforced in any way. He totally forgot that great rabbinic authorities long ago proclaimed that both Islam and Christianity are not to be considered pagan idolatry, to say nothing of forgetting the Torah's admonitions concerning the stranger. How far we have traveled from the times when chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook followed the rulings of the medieval authority the Meiri, declaring that Muslims and Christians cannot be considered pagans, and ruled that they were to be granted full civil rights in a Jewish state. Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevy Herzog reiterated this, as did Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman, the third chief rabbi. As we celebrate our Seder and eat our matza this Passover, let us remember that the main lesson the Torah teaches concerning the Exodus is not what we eat or do not eat, but how we treat strangers in our midst. “For the Lord your God… upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You, too, must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19). The writer, a former president of the International Rabbinical Assembly and the founding director of the Schechter Institute, is a member of the Committee on Jewish Law of the Rabbinical Assembly. A prolific author, two of his books have received the National Jewish Book Council Award as the best work of scholarship of the year. His most recent book is Akiva: Life, Legend, Legacy (JPS).

Tradition Today: The true lesson of the Exodus

As we celebrate our Seder and eat our matza this Passover, let us remember that the main lesson the Torah teaches concerning the Exodus is how we treat strangers in our midst.

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Tradition Today: The true lesson of the Exodus

As we celebrate our Seder and eat our matza this Passover, let us remember that the main lesson the Torah teaches concerning the Exodus is how we treat strangers in our midst.

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