Parashat HaShavua - Shemot

כִּי-גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם, בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.  

For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Shemot 22:20)

Growing up in Israel, my mother used to teach her daughters that we all stood at Sinai and that we all survived the Holocaust. I understood my mother, whose Zionism caused her and my father to make Aliyah shortly after I was born, to be teaching us about Jewish Peoplehood. My mother believed in the collective and was trying to impart to us that since we too had experienced the pivotal moments in Jewish history, we were part of the collective.

This week's Torah portion, Mishpatim, echoes the important Passover teaching that in every generation we must see ourselves as if we left Egypt. Moreover, we are instructed to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt and therefore we need to be sympathetic to the plight of the stranger in our midst. Later in the Torah portion, the prohibition to oppress the stranger is repeated and this time it not only mentions that we were strangers in the land of Egypt, but that we therefore know the feelings – understand the experience – of the stranger. This suggests that feelings of empathy lead us to treat others with the care they deserve.

The question this teaching raises is whether we should treat others in our midst – the stranger, the widow, the orphan or (as Rashi states) anyone who is underprivileged – with dignity and respect simply because it is the right thing to do or only once we can empathize with them having gone through a similar experience to their own. To quote Rabbi Heschel: “Justice is good not because we feel the need of it; rather we ought to feel the need of justice because it is good.” 

We were slaves in Egypt. We therefore have a unique ability to empathize with those in our immediate community and beyond who need our help. Rabbi Heschel reminds us, even if we are not able to empathize – even if we cannot personally connect to their plight – we should work to alleviate their oppression because it is the right thing to do.  

Rabbi Dahlia Kronish
High School Associate Head