All of the recent rhetoric, and actions, on mass deportation of migrants in the United States has made me think about what I believe is right, or wrong, or complicated, around the issue of immigration. There are people who believe that there should be no borders at all, and that all deportations are wrong, and there are others who think that anyone who speaks Spanish instead of English while in the United States should be on the ICE deportation list, no matter what their citizenship status may be. I know I don’t agree with either of those extreme points of view, but I’m not sure what I do believe.
We have a tendency to simplify and generalize in our public discourse, relying on pithy sayings that can fit in a hashtag or on a protest sign, instead of having in-depth discussions about what we believe is right. And especially now, when we are being told that the only solution to illegal immigration is to hunt down anyone with questionable status, guns blazing, in hospitals and schools and houses of worship, it is even more important to take a breath and take responsibility for figuring out who we are and who we want to be, and why.
I teach the Book of Leviticus in synagogue school, so I spend an unreasonable amount of time marinating in the Hebrew Bible and what it has to say about who our ancestors were, and where they went wrong, and which lessons they did and didn’t learn from those mistakes. So, when I am confused about a moral issue, the Hebrew Bible is one of the first places I look for edification (other than Hallmark movies, of course). And we are reminded over and over again in the Hebrew Bible that we were strangers in Egypt, and therefore we should be compassionate to others in the same position. It is said so many times that we almost don’t hear it anymore, like we miss the birds chirping outside our windows, or the nagging inner voice telling us to exercise, because it is just so ubiquitous. And, to be honest, I’m not sure I ever spent much time thinking about what it means to be kind to the stranger, or even who qualifies as a stranger in our modern, globally connected world.
But in a recent bible study session, my rabbi told us that even though the word Ger in the Hebrew Bible is often translated into English as “stranger,” it actually meant something more like “sojourner” in biblical times, and referred to someone who was a migrant from somewhere else, without land of his own in ancient Israel.
We are told, in Leviticus 19:34-35: “When strangers reside with you in your land, you shall not wrong them. The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
So, first of all, don’t wrong the stranger. Don’t do anything to the stranger/sojourner that would be abhorrent to you, like making them into your slave, or stealing from them, or hurting or killing them. Basically, recognize that the laws of good behavior are not nullified in your interactions with the stranger as if they are less than human. But why tell us to treat the stranger as if he is a citizen? If there’s not supposed to be a difference between how we treat a citizen and a non-citizen, then why not just say, treat everyone the same?
In fact, the Hebrew Bible has a separate law for how we should treat someone who isn’t a stranger. In Leviticus 19:18, it says: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or in another translation, “Love your fellow human being as you love yourself.” If there’s no difference between a stranger and a neighbor, why are the two laws stated separately?
If we assume that every word in the Hebrew Bible is there for a reason, which not everyone assumes, but hear me out, then just like “stranger” really refers to a sojourner or non-citizen, maybe the “neighbor” or “fellow human being” here refers to the opposite of the stranger/sojourner, AKA a citizen. So, we are being given guidance on how to treat a fellow citizen and on how to treat a non-citizen.
Before settling in the land of Israel, the ancient Israelites were wanderers, and slaves, so they knew about being sojourners in other lands more than they knew about being landowners. And once they owned land, they needed to learn how to treat each other all over again, and how to treat outsiders, given these new blessings and responsibilities. But as their past experiences started to fade from their everyday thoughts, they had to actively remind themselves that they didn’t want to be the kind of landowners they’d known in the past. They wanted to retain their empathy for the outsider, without losing the rights and freedoms they had so recently won for themselves.
One of the important things to remember about the sojourners in ancient Israel, is that they were not bound by all of the same laws as the Israelites (like keeping kosher, or celebrating the Sabbath, or giving of the produce of their land to the Levites, or to the widow or orphan), though they were bound by certain laws that applied to everyone equally (Don’t kill, steal, etc.).
But if the sojourner is so different from the neighbor, why do the laws about how to treat them sound so similar? Or do they? Further along in the Hebrew Bible we get a little more detail on how we are supposed to treat the stranger/sojourner. In Deuteronomy 10:18-19, it says: “[God] upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Here we are being told to befriend the stranger (which is pretty vague), and to supply food and clothing to the stranger, the way one would for anyone else in the community who is in need. This suggests that we’re not being told to treat the stranger the same way we would treat a fellow citizen, but rather to be generous to the stranger in the same way we would be generous to anyone in our own community who is in need, specifically, someone who lacks food or clothing. It’s interesting, and maybe significant, that the law doesn’t mention offering shelter to the stranger, which I would have thought of as a primary need, especially for someone without land of their own.
In ancient Israel, those who owned land were members of the twelve tribes of Israel. Period. These are people who, maybe like us, were worried about losing the property and the rights and the freedoms they had so recently won. And they were struggling with their competing desires to keep what was newly theirs and to be generous to those who were not as lucky.
As I often remind my synagogue school students, we don’t have laws in the Hebrew Bible for things we would already do without being told. And I think the two laws, for how to treat the sojourner and how to treat the neighbor, are a way to remind us that both our relationships with our fellow citizens and our relationships with non-citizens will be complicated, and that we will make mistakes, and we will struggle to know what is right or fair, and we will struggle with our own greed and generosity. We need these laws to remind ourselves that we should still strive to treat everyone with respect, especially if they are different from us, or have different status from us. And, maybe more importantly, we need to be reminded that being a stranger is not a character flaw, or a status below that of other human beings. The reality of needing to leave home in order to survive is a vulnerable state to be in, and usually reached through no fault of one’s own, like the Israelites having to leave the land of Isreal during a famine and travel to Egypt. We may not be obligated to the migrant to the same degree as we are obligated to our fellow citizens, but we are still required to see them as people who need and deserve our respect and generosity.
We are struggling with all of this in the United States right now. We are struggling both with how to treat our fellow citizens, when they are different from us, in gender, sexuality, religion, race, culture, belief systems, etc., and how to treat sojourners in our land, those who are here legally or otherwise. We are not sure we can afford to be generous, financially or emotionally, even with our own communities, let alone with outsiders.
And the fact that there are separate laws for the neighbor and the stranger in the Hebrew Bible tells me that my ancestors understood that struggle. They knew that everyone wouldn’t be treated the same, and that maybe they couldn’t, or even shouldn’t, always be treated the same. We are human beings, after all, and we will never be perfect, whatever that is. But there’s also a clear sentiment among the ancient Israelites, at least in their published works, that no matter how flawed and imperfect we may be, we should always be striving to do better, rather than worse.
Right now, it feels like we, as a collective, are doubling down on our deepest fears about the other. And it’s important to recognize that these fears are deep and pervasive and sometimes even accurate. The impulse to protect ourselves, even at the expense of someone else, will always be there within us, and is not, in itself, wrong or evil. It just is. The question is, can we survive and thrive if we feed only the most frightened parts of ourselves? Can we, maybe, also feed the more generous, compassionate, curious, and empathetic parts of ourselves as well, and let them help us make our decisions about who we want to be and what we want to do? Our ancestors believed that if we made an effort, we could do both: take care of ourselves and take care of others. And I’d like to believe that they were on to something.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
rachelmankowitz 
That dog is really cute, it looks adorable with the soft toy here
Thank you!
I agree Rachel, immigration policy is not black and white, there are many factors that every nation must consider. The factors will change depending on circumstances. I hope we can focus on loving God, loving our neighbours, and loving our enemies.
It’s hard work, but necessary.
I read this post and the next thing I needed to do after reading it was…get your book ! Looking forward to it!
Thank you so much!
And a good book.it is 😁
Thank you so much!
Anytime, I enjoyed reading it and dramatizing it when I had my podcast.
i have a hard time, knowing there are proper channels to follow when emigrating to America, and other countries. To fling wide the gates, with no cultural process, those with extreme laws such as marrying children or imposing religious structures intending to subsume existing ones, or disrupting norms such as traffic laws is not integrating, and chaotic for everyone. I wish there were a simple answer, but all countries have laws for good reason.
Unfortunately, our government has failed to update our immigration laws to fit current circumstances, which has left a lot of people without a legal process to follow. But I agree, we need clear laws that can be followed, and changed when necessary.
I love the idea of sojourner vs. stranger! What’s that saying, A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. I think we need to remember that in our daily lives, and show some kindness to people who are genuinely scared now.
I remember the “stranger danger” campaign, which was meant to protect children from being abducted. But the reality is that most children will be abused by someone they know, not by a stranger. We tend to load all of our fears onto the stranger, because they are a blank slate.
Indeed!
During the Bronze Age in Scandinavia and most of Europe, wandering individuals and small groups were common. They were treated with pragmatic hospitality in villages and small towns. I suppose such strangers and travellers would have been similar to sojourers in some sense. Of course, those times were dangerous for people travelling alone or in small groups because of roaming bandits, and murderers. As long as the wanderers and travellers presented no danger to villagers and small town residents, they were treated pretty much like extended family.
There seemed to be an unwritten, informal law regarding this behavior. People of those times understood that they might have to travel or wander, too. Of course there were no such things as nations then as we know them now. Yet, I believe that being charitable towards strangers and wanderers is a very good thing. It is a manifestation of compassion. I believe in the concept of treating others in the same manner I hope to be treated by others. In other words, reciprical altruism. The world would be a much better place if this was widely practiced.
The same was true in the near east, where welcoming strangers was part of the ethos. That’s a big part of what went wrong in the Sodom and Gemorrah story, that the townspeople attacked the strangers in their midst, instead of welcoming them.
Yes, exactly.
Thank you for this post, Rachel. As you are so good at doing, you always find the humanity in God’s word. Immigration and how we respond to “others” is, of course, a complex topic, with many challenges. But your thoughtful analysis of the scriptures reminds us that it’s critical that we see everyone as the humans they are, and to approach solutions with kindness rather than cruelty.
It’s so much easier to dehumanize the other, especially those who do us harm. But the reality is, humanity encompasses a wide range of behaviors, from extreme kindness to extreme harm.
I wish more of humanity felt as you do.
As always you explain things in a way that makes sense and lays out a beautiful argument. I agree that ruling out the two extremes is a good way to start. I’m able to see the gray areas in this issue which is what I believe is lacking in our country at the moment. It’s sad to hear people argue out of fear – or lack of empathy – and I am trying not to be surprised when people who are immigrants don’t want new immigrants to be allowed in. 🤯 It’s all very foreign to my mind, pun intended.
I think a lot of people who have gone through the difficult process of legal immigration resent the idea that they will be grouped together with people who haven’t had that same long journey, and treated badly by the majority because of it. But we forget how lucky we have been to be citizens of this country, by birth or marriage or a legal process. It’s hard to hold onto the reality that we have been lucky, or that someone good came to us by chance, no matter how hard we worked for it.
Good Puppy 🐶
I think any decision based on fear, hate, or greed is probably the wrong one. After that, I’m lost. What’s your new dog’s name? He’s adorable!
Tzipporah is a Havanese rescue and she is totally adorable, it’s true.
We should get better at being able to care for ourselves as well as others.
Absolutely!
oye! I wrote a comment about how meaningful and insightful your interpretation of the scripture was. And it was accidentally deleted – Grr
so I will quickly thank you for this humane and compassionate piece and quickly click send! Xo
Thank you!
Extremely thoughtful, even profound thoughts. Thank you.
Thank you!
Wonderful lesson today. Rachael. Thank you.
Thank you!
Rachel, you added a beautiful discourse to the discussion and something I personally think we all would be better off by doing…discuss rather than as you said, try to fit our thoughts into a hashtag or onto a sign. For me, I try to simplify things and maybe I get them too simple. Love your neighbor as yourself. And I consider everyone. It me a neighbor. It could be everyone else also follows that path and just don’t love themselves so naturally they wouldn’t love anyone else. It’s the only reason I can think of why someone would be so cruel as we see so many be.
When I do this lesson with my students, we take time to think about what it means to love yourself: how you feel it and show it, and when it is difficult. Because you’re right, we often think others should be able to tolerate the pain we ourselves have tolerated.
That sounds like a great exercise to include for them. To love oneself is a too often undefined concept and how to love oneself too often misunderstood.
I struggle with trust in my fellow citizens in general more so than their Race & Religion but at the same time if I see someone in need with even the simplest thing, like they can’t reach something at the grocery store. I offer my assistance. No one should enter any country illegally, but I don’t consider those people monsterous in any way as the current President would you to believe. He constantly spoke of chaos in the streets and yet never once felt like that anywhere and I live in a city with a highly populated hispanic migration.
It’s so much easier to be kind to people one on one, when faced with a group of people we do not know we often get overwhelmed and lose the capacity to judge fairly.
Well said, Rachel.
Thank you!
Wow. That was insightful, to say the least. Sometimes it’s hard for me living in TN and also working at a Lutheran church where sentiments run so strongly opposite of how I believe the stranger, i.e. immigrant, should be treated. I just don’t understand why people are so afraid of anyone who doesn’t look or speak like them…
I think it’s a generalization problem, the same way someone who had a bad experience with one dog will be afraid of all dogs, no matter the size or temperament. But one good experience with a dog can generalize too. when we meet the other and find out we have things in common, we can start to imagine that the other isn’t so scary.
Again, well put. And I totally agree.
This is a superb explanation (probably also explication, but I’m not equipped to know that!). We need a blend of rationality and compassion, but what we’re seeing is cruelty and “othering.” Immigration has been made needlessly complex by playing to people’s fears, rather than providing the resources to create a sane and fair system.
I know there are people who are doing the work of studying the issues and coming up with workable plans, but somehow that’s not able to make it through to the public, and it’s not being voted on in congress. To our detriment.
I like you
I came to the US on a student visa and then a green card. Then I chose to Naturalize but there was a period of many years when I was not a US citizen. But I’m white and I speak English and if I don’t drop too many, ‘eh’s’ or talk too long about hockey or poutine then you might not know I was born in Canada. And most people don’t care. In fact, they find it kind of cute and quirky that I’m Canadian. Is that because I don’t sound different? Or because my skin is white? Why do some folks and our current leaders care so much about the often hard-working people or the children trying to get a solid education who also aren’t from here? I feel upset that safe places, like schools and churches are fine for ICE to enter and pull people from. I don’t have any answers, either. I just think I got dealt a long straw because of the color of my skin.
Our current government has been saying the quiet part out loud when it comes to preferring white skin. We are so close to being a majority minority country, and that terrifies some people, and activates them. Fear like that can make people very dangerous.
I wrote out a very long comment on this post, and of course got a notice from Word Press that it can’t publish it. But the gist of it was that this article was the best thing I have seen written on this issue! I wish others would put as much thought into it as you have, especially with the goal of trying to come up with a solution that works for all. Thank you!
Thank you so much!
Beautifully stated. Thank you
Thank you!
Great post, Rachel. I completely agree with you and this part was excellent: “Our ancestors believed that if we made an effort, we could do both: take care of ourselves and take care of others. And I’d like to believe that they were on to something.”
Thank you so much!
You’re very welcome.
Who is this little black and white cutie?
That is Tzipporah, our new four year old rescue dog. She’s a Havanese, puppy mill mama, and she is gradually figuring out how to be a happy dog.
I found this podcast episode enlightening. Hope you enjoy: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/general-chapmans-last-stand
Looks interesting. Thank you!
great read, Rachel. thought provoking. a dilemma that i’m sure your readers are pondering on as well.
Thank you so much!
Beautifully said. From a shiksa!
Thank you!