Mishpatim
You shall not wrong a
stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the
Do not wrong him with words...The
reason the Torah chose the convert as the example of the victim in our verse is
that converts have less of a chance to protect themselves against abuse, seeing
they have no family to stand up for them if a wrong has been committed against
them.
Rashbam (12th Century)
Should a proselyte come to study
Torah, do not say: the mouth that has
consumed forbidden meats and vermin has the audacity to study Torah given from
the mouth of the Almighty…The Torah cautions us regarding our behavior towards
a stranger no less than 36 times. No
other Mitzvah, not even the commandments to love God, keep the Shabbat,
circumcision, or uttering falsehood or theft are so often referred to.
Bava Metzia
58b – 59b (6th Century)
Do past memories and experiences
of strangeness and slavery really influence the newly liberated and
independent, to adopt an attitude of tolerance and love to the stranger living
among them? Do we not often find the
opposite to be the case? The hate,
persecution and shame the individual or community experiences in the past, do
not act as a deterrent…how often do we find the slave
or exile who gains power and freedom, or anyone who harbors the memory of
suffering…finds compensation for former sufferings by giving free rein to
tyrannical instincts…
Nechama Leibovitz (20th
Century)
Who is a stranger but a person out
of place, a displaced person?...Many of Mishpatim’s metaphors are metaphors of place; for example, literally, “go far away from
a lie.”
This parsha teaches that places and placement have a spiritual
meaning…It implies that who you become is very much a function of where you put
things and where you place yourself in the world…Of course where you are
physically may not have any connection with where you are spiritually…At the
dedication of his stained glass windows in Jerusalem, Chagall asked: “How is it that the air and earth of Bitebsk, my birthplace…find themselves mingled in the air
and earth of Jerusalem?...Disputes over boundaries are not about inches and
acres…they are about feeling secure, seeking a…place to call home….
Debra Orenstein (Contemporary)
When the knotty problems of
affirmative action or equal worth demand our response, do we say, “I did it the
hard way…no one helped me…let them pull themselves up by their own
bootstraps?” Or do we say, “my
experience was difficult…I know how hard it is…I was a stranger too…what can I
do to ease the way?”…The point is that philanthropy in Judaism is simple
justice. Each person is instructed to
say: “I was redeemed; therefore God and
humanity depend on me to keep the process going…
Michael Monson (Contemporary)