In looking over the long list of rules contained within this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, it would be easy to miss, what I would call the most important one of all: “you shall not taunt or oppress the stranger, because you too were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20). Don’t worry if you missed it, because variations of this rule occurs no fewer than thirty-six more times in the Torah.
Why all of the repetition? Because even here, only a short time removed from our own experience of alienation in the land of Egypt, the People of Israel are already violating the law.
True story from one of the first synagogues in America, Congregation Mickve Israel in Savannah, Georgia – they built a cemetery on the slope of a hill, at the top were buried the Sephardic Jews who came to the city first, in the middle and the bottom of the hill were the German Jews who came in the early 19th Century. If your family came after the Civil War you were out of luck. They ostracized you even in death.
Jews, despite our history, are certainly not immune from oppressing the stranger. Unfortunately, it is built into the human DNA. The only recourse is to be reminded again and again, in countless Torah portions following this one of the importance of the rule, again and again that we once were strangers in Egypt.
To help CSS members we have put a new message on our sign about treating one another with respect no matter what political or religious background you come from. The message is from the founder of Unitarianism, Francis David, who wrote in the 16th Century: “We need not think alike to love alike.” It is a way of reaching out to our UU neighbors on Main Street who had their Black Lives Matter sign vandalized in November. It is a way of telling them that, as their neighbor, we have your back.