Torah Reading: Sh’lach Le’cha, Numbers Chapters 13 through 15.
Haftarah reading: Joshua 2: 1-24
In the Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b, we read:
It has been taught: Rabbi Eliezer the Great said, “Why did the Torah warn us about strangers in 36 places, and some say in 46 places? Because his inclination may be bad [the stranger may hate us in return.]” What is the meaning of the verse [Exodus 22: 2], “And a stranger you shall not wrong, and you shall not oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt?” We have learned: Rabbi Natan said, “Do not point out your own defect in another person.” [Your own ancestors were strangers in the land of Egypt.] And this is a proverb people say: “Do not say to someone who has a relative who was hanged, hang up this fish.”
I won’t attempt to document the 36 or 46 places in the Torah where God or Moses commands us to love the stranger, and not to wrong or oppress him, except that I would assume that one of Rabbi Eliezer’s 36 or 46 places can be found in today’s Torah reading. The Torah in this Shabbat’s reading states that when a stranger (in Hebrew, ger) takes up residence with you or lives among you:
There shall be one law for you and for the resident stranger, it shall be a law for all time throughout the ages. You and the stranger shall be alike before the Lord.
Numbers 15: 15.
The great 13th century Spanish Jewish philosopher Nachmanides, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, the "Ramban", provided this explanation as to why the commandment to love the stranger is so emphasized and so often repeated in the Torah.
In my opinion, [God] is saying, do not oppress a stranger or wrong him [by] thinking that there is no one to save him from your hand, because you know that you were strangers in the Land of Egypt. But I saw the oppression that the Egyptians put to you and I brought vengeance upon them because I see the tears of the oppressed who have no comforter while the hand of the oppressors has power. . . . You know that every stranger is disheartened and sighs and cries out, with eyes directed toward God. And God will have mercy on [the stranger] just as God had mercy on you, as it is written, "The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God" (Exodus 2:23). That is to say, it was not because of their merit [that God helped the Israelites], but only because God had mercy on them from the bondage.
This week’s news has been filled with the revelations of how the Trump regime has been mistreating children whose family members have brought them to the United States, often at great peril, to reside as strangers among us and hopefully, one day, to become U.S. citizens and strangers no longer. And we should not forget that the Trump regime’s violation of 36 or 46 Biblical commandments extends far beyond our southern border — into the heart of our cities.
Applying the Ramban’s words to what is going on today, we have become the new Egypt, and Trump is the new Pharaoh. The children and their parents and their fellow undocumented immigrants groan under their oppression, and no doubt many, as did their Israelite forbearers, cry out to God. I am proud to be an American, and it disturbs me that my brothers and sisters are crying out to God for relief from the oppression my government is inflicting on them. Frankly, my disgust at the self-proclaimed righteous Christians, joined by some ultra-Orthodox Jews, who tolerate or even cheer at this abuse of what some have called — because it is repeated 36 or 46 times — the most important commandment of the Torah, knows no bounds.
Shabbat Shalom.