The Jewish Lens on Immigration and Obligation

Jacob Milgrom, "Reflections on the Biblical Ger," Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible, 2000).

The ger...is a resident alien; he has uprooted himself (or has been uprooted) from his homeland and has taken permanent residence in the land of Israel... Having severed his ties with his original home, he has no family to turn to for support. Thus deprived of both land and family, he was generally poor, listed together with the Levite, the fatherless, and the widow among the wards of society (Deut. 26:12), and exposed to exploitation and oppression. (Ezek. 22:7)

Discuss:

1. What does this insight add to your understanding of the ger, the resident alien?

2. How should you treat the ger?

3. Despite this interpretation, what perceptions or beliefs will prevent citizens from extending protection and support to the ger?

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, "Torah Concept of Empathic Justice Can Bring Peace," The Jewish Week, (New York, 3 April 1977), P. 19

[Empathic justice] seeks to make people identify themselves with each other – with each other’s needs, with each other’s hopes and aspirations, with each other’s defeats and frustrations. Because Jews have known the distress of slaves and the loneliness of strangers, we are to project ourselves into their souls and make their plight our own.

Discuss:

1. What is empathy and what is its role in social activism? Is emotion a powerful and/or reliable motivator for social change?

2. How do we make the plight of others our own? To what extent?

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Judaism and Immigrant Rights (Jewish Funds for Justice website excerpt)

For the rabbis, themselves living under foreign rule, it may have been inconceivable to imagine a situation in which Jews constituted the majority and non-Jews needed protection. Perhaps for this reason, the rabbis reconstructed the biblical mandate to protect the stranger as a warning not to discriminate against converts to Judaism. Such is the nature of the world: in times of personal struggle, it becomes difficult to look outward.

Ultimately, the lesson implicit both in the biblical protections of sojourners, and in the rabbinic re-imagination of the ger as a convert, is that history imposes obligations. For the bible, the experience of not being fully secure in Egypt obligates the Jewish people, now secure in their own land, to care for those who remain perpetually on the outside.

Discuss:

1. Do you agree that we are obligated "to care for those who remain perpetually on the outside?"

2. Is the argument that "we were once slaves" an effective tool for pushing people to pursue justice and fight for the rights of others?

Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, Exodus 22:20

“You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Here it says simply and absolutely, “for you were strangers,” your whole misfortune in Egypt was that you were strangers there. As such, according to the views of other nations, you had no right to be there, had no claim to rights of settlement, home, or property. Accordingly, you had no rights in appeal against unfair or unjust treatment. As aliens you were without any rights in Egypt, out of that grew all of your bondage and oppression, your slavery and wretchedness.

Therefore, beware, so runs the warning, from making rights in your own State conditional on anything other than on that simple humanity which every human being as such bears within. With any limitation in these human rights the gate is opened to the whole horror of Egyptian mishandling of human beings. [Translation by Uri L’Tzedek. Original in German]

Discuss:

1. According to Rav Hirsch, why are we commanded “You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger"?

2. Can you think of an example (or two) in which contemporary societies have taken away/denied/invalidated the rights of "strangers" and that has led to oppression and wretchedness?