Must I love the stranger as myself? To what extent?

(1) The LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. (2) I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing. (3) I will bless those who bless you And curse him that curses you; And all the families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you.” (4) Abram went forth as the LORD had said to him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. (5) Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the wealth that they had amassed, and the persons that they had acquired in Haran; and they set out for the land of Canaan...

(10) There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. (11) As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. (12) If the Egyptians see you, and think, ‘She is his wife,’ they will kill me and let you live. (13) Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you.” (14) When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw how very beautiful the woman was. (15) Pharaoh’s courtiers saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s palace. (16) And because of her, it went well with Abram; he acquired sheep, oxen, asses, male and female slaves, she-asses, and camels. (17) But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his household with mighty plagues on account of Sarai, the wife of Abram. (18) Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me! Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? (19) Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her as my wife? Now, here is your wife; take her and begone!” (20) And Pharaoh put men in charge of him, and they sent him off with his wife and all that he possessed.

(3)...Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying, (4) “I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.” (5) And the Hittites replied to Abraham, saying to him, (6) “Hear us, my lord: you are the elect of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold his burial place from you for burying your dead.” (7) Thereupon Abraham bowed low to the people of the land, the Hittites, (8) and he said to them, “If it is your wish that I remove my dead for burial, you must agree to intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar. (9) Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, which is at the edge of his land. Let him sell it to me, at the full price, for a burial site in your midst.” (10) Ephron was present among the Hittites; so Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, all who entered the gate of his town, saying, (11) “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.” (12) Then Abraham bowed low before the people of the land, (13) and spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying, “If only you would hear me out! Let me pay the price of the land; accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” (14) And Ephron replied to Abraham, saying to him, (15) “My lord, do hear me! A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Go and bury your dead.” (16) Abraham accepted Ephron’s terms. Abraham paid out to Ephron the money that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites—four hundred shekels of silver at the going merchants’ rate. (17) So Ephron’s land in Machpelah, near Mamre—the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the confines of that field—passed (18) to Abraham as his possession, in the presence of the Hittites, of all who entered the gate of his town...

You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.

(33) When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. (34) 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.

You shall not [entirely] abominate an Edomi [even though he came out with a sword against you (Numbers 20:18-20)], for he is your brother. You shall not abominate an Egyptian, [even though they cast your males into the Nile], for you were a stranger in his land.

You shall not abhor an Egyptian - all in all (utterly), although they cast your male children into the river. And what is the reason that you should not abhor him utterly? Because they were your hosts in time of need [during Joseph’s reign when the neighboring countries suffered from famine. Therefore although they sinned against you do not utterly abhor him.]

“Do not wrong them” -- This is verbal wronging/taunting. Don’t say to them, “Yesterday, you were an idolater and now you are coming to learn Torah, which was given from the Mouth of the All-Powerful?!”

“For you were aliens” -- “Don’t talk smack to someone else about your own defect”.

“I am YHWH your [plural] God” -- I am your God and their God

(39) If your kinsman under you continues in straits and must give himself over to you, do not subject him to the treatment of a slave. (40) He shall remain with you as a hired or bound laborer; he shall serve with you only until the jubilee year. (41) Then he and his children with him shall be free of your authority; he shall go back to his family and return to his ancestral holding.— (42) For they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt; they may not give themselves over into servitude.— (43) You shall not rule over him ruthlessly; you shall fear your God. (44) Such male and female slaves as you may have—it is from the nations round about you that you may acquire male and female slaves. (45) You may also buy them from among the children of aliens resident among you, or from their families that are among you, whom they begot in your land. These shall become your property: (46) you may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property for all time. Such you may treat as slaves. But as for your Israelite kinsmen, no one shall rule ruthlessly over the other. (47) If a resident alien among you has prospered, and your kinsman being in straits, comes under his authority and gives himself over to the resident alien among you, or to an offshoot of an alien’s family, (48) he shall have the right of redemption even after he has given himself over. One of his kinsmen shall redeem him,

"And if the hand of a stranger and sojourner attain with you, and your brother grow poor with him, and he be sold to the stranger sojourning with you or to the uprooted of the family of a stranger" "And if the hand of a stranger and sojourner attain with you": What caused him to grow rich? His attachment to you. "and your brother grow poor with him." What caused him to grow poor? His attachment to him.

(2) David gave orders to assemble the strangers living in the land of Israel, and assigned them to be hewers, to quarry and dress stones for building the House of God.

(20) All the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were not of the Israelite stock— (21) those of their descendants who remained in the land and whom the Israelites were not able to annihilate—of these Solomon made a slave force, as is still the case.

(16) Solomon took a census of all the strangers who were in the land of Israel, besides the census taken by his father David, and they were found to be 153,600. (17) He made 70,000 of them basket carriers, and 80,000 of them quarriers, with 3,600 supervisors to see that the people worked.

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, says: It is obvious to me that a resident of one town can prevent a resident of another town from establishing a similar business in the locale of the first individual. But if he pays the tax of that first town, he cannot prevent him from doing business there, as he too is considered a resident of the town.

The citizen of one city can prevent the citizen of another city [from moving to their city for business] but if they are included in the king’s taxes, they can’t prevent them [from coming]…”

The Aviasaf wrote, “I saw in the explanation of Rabbeinu Tam ‘if they are included in the king’s taxes,’ means that if they want to be included in the king’s taxes, to pay together with them and to carry the burden like the people of the city from here on in, they cannot prevent them, and they will be like the people of the city.' And this is why early [authorities] decreed cherems (bans) on settlement, because by way of the decree, they could force people [not to immigrate] which they couldn’t do from the strict letter of the law as I explained.

A question to my lord and father, the Rosh: A Jew who wants to go to a town to live there to earn money. And the people of the town say, “You are decreasing our livelihood,” and wish to distance them from their border. Answer: They cannot prevent them for the Talmud only talks about a person who lives in a different town and is coming to set up a mill or a store in a different place and they are not included in their tax, the citizens of that town can prevent them, but it is an obvious thing that a person can live wherever they want and the citizens of the town cannot prevent them, for did the original settlers acquire the land through legal acquisition?

The Mahari”k, in ch. 191 extensively discusses these rulings and writes answers like the Rosh, ״that a person can live wherever he wants and the citizens of the town cannot prevent him. It is obvious that he meant to say that the citizens cannot prevent them by way of Beit Din, but if they are able to close the door in their face whether by way of the secular authorities or by way of any block, it is obvious that they have that option. And the only person who would disagree with this must be stubborn and twisted, uncomprehending and unfit to rule."

Bedek HaBayit: His words are perplexing to me. How can he tell people to overcome this [immigrant] by way of the secular authorities and not by way of Beit Din?! And even though the Rabbi exaggerated in his condemnation of anyone who disagrees, I will not hold back what I think because of this. For it is the work of Heaven and one may not fear in these things.

…The Medieval authorities disagreed about one who wishes to settle and they want to be included from this moment in the taxes of the town and in all of its needs, if the citizens of the town can prevent them from the law of the Talmud. For there are those who say that they can prevent them because the presumption of authority over who settles in a town belongs to the citizens and they can prevent others. And this is the position of Rashi and many Medieval authorities. And there are those who say that when the Gemara said that they can prevent a person who is not included in the town taxes, this is when they don’t want to be included in the yoke of the city, but when they want to be included in all of the taxes and all of the needs, they cannot prevent them, for how did they citizens acquire the presumption of authority over who settles in the town? This is the position of Rabeinu Tam and the Rosh … It is among the decrees of the earliest authorities about the presumption of authority on settlement. And the reason is that in their time the Jewish settlement was extremely unstable and the barbarous non-Jews banished them from place to place and in the multiplicity of Jewish settlements chaos and disaster was prevalent and therefore they made these decrees as the Mahari”k wrote. This is not true today when the enlightened government allows Jes to settle wherever they want and these decrees are not appropriate at all. And therefore we should understand and teach and rule in every land individually even according to the second opinion.