Parashat Hashavua: Mishpatim
“Do not oppress the sojourner, as you know the nefesh of the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Shemot 23:9). What does it mean to know the nefesh of the sojourner? A sojourner is a temporary resident, often translated as stranger, or foreigner. And their nefesh? According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs biblical dictionary, the word nefesh carries multiple meanings: soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, and passion. Following the writings of Dr Ed Greenstein, I teach my students to translate the word nefesh, not as soul, which can be separated from the body, but rather as “body-AND-soul,” the entire living being. This command, not to oppress a foreigner, was given while the people stood at Mount Sinai, just three months after leaving Egypt. It would take an act of imagination for the people to conceive of a future in which they would have power over others, power enough not only to rule over but even to oppress others. Yet, it would take no imagination to feel the after-effects of the oppression that they carried in their bodies, in themselves, “body-AND-soul.” To recall the oppression of the stranger would be simply a matter of closing their eyes and feeling the hurt, breathing the hurt, allowing it to enter. This is a visceral memory.
Then, three verses later, this: “Six days you shall do your work and on the seventh day you shall cease, so that your ox and donkey may rest, and the son of your handmaid and the sojourner may be refreshed/vayinafash” (Shemot 23:12). The note on this verb on the AlHatorah website reads, “The verb is related to the noun ‘נֶפֶשׁ’ a soul, and might more literally mean: ‘breathe deeply’, or ‘catch one's breath.’” Or perhaps it means, to become re-embodied, to reunite “body-AND-soul.” While all Israelites are commanded to rest on Shabbat, this wording almost seems to imply (can it be so?) that the Israelite should rest so that his animals, the son of his handmaid, and the sojourner may rest and be refreshed. If the Israelite works, they have to work, but if the Israelite would just sit down a minute and catch his breath, then everything and everyone else could too.
To be a sojourner, a stranger, a foreigner, is to suffer from a separation of body and soul, breath, spirit. The body is one place, but the source of the person’s identity lies elsewhere, in another land. To be oppressed is to have this split imposed from the outside - the body is here but the identity is less than, insignificant, powerless. The commandment not to oppress protects the sojourner. The commandment to keep Shabbat revives the sojourner. For six days, despite the protection of law, the sojourner’s body and identity are separate; but on the seventh day, the sojourner experiences the world in which all humans are equally created in the image of God, whole.
How might this understanding of the laws connected to the sojourner be relevant to high school students or their loved ones? While one of the core tasks of high school is to develop identity, to end the four years feeling more comfortable in one’s skin than at the start, the journey inevitably involves the experience of foreignness, outsiderness, I-am-from-somewhere-else-ness. Two teachings from this week’s parsha offer insight. First, we have all been there. Can we, student and adult, find the place in ourselves that remembers, in body and soul, our experiences and recognizes that experience in others? Second, there is the gift of Shabbat, the gift of breath and refreshment and revival. By reuniting the body with its soul, Shabbat reverses the weekday experiences of oppression and foreignness. But Shabbat is not magical, this reversal does not happen merely due to the special qualities of the day. Like the Israelites long ago, may we lead by example, allowing those in our care to catch their breath, to re-nefesh.
Rabbi Miriam Greenblatt
High School Learning Specialist, Tanakh and Tefillah Teacher
