Passover, with its special foods, symbols, and rituals, is behind us. Many of us have also been initiated into new modes of distancing, self-isolation, and connecting remotely.
Over time, the echoes may fade from our shared journey out of slavery and oppression to freedome. An yet, Jewish tradition encourages us to re-amplify those echoes and re-visit that journey throughout the year. The Exodus from Egypt is recalled in the regular synagogue litergy, and in the Friday evening kiddush recited weekly in many homes. Kedoshim, the second of this week’s double Torah portion, presents another of many reminders that our ancient past includes a sojourn in a land not our own.
In what ways are these reminders so important?
In Leviticus 19, the Israelite farming community is instructed to leave some of its produce in the fields for the poor and the stranger to glean; to avoid defrauding or otherwise wronging one another; to “love thy neighbor as thyself”. A little later in the same chapter, we are also instructed not to oppress the stranger (the Hebrew word for stranger, ger, is also translated more technically as resident alien, or in later strata of Jewish law, as convert). In a striking parallel, we are instructed to “love the stranger as thyself”, with the rejoinder “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34).
Our history of having been “strangers in the land of Egypt” is supposed to teach us, to sensitize us to others, to move our behavior in the direction of justice and fairness and compassion toward both the fellow traveler and the stranger in our midst.
Our Torah and our liturgy encourage us to hold in our hearts our people’s historic experience of oppression and injustice and disempowerment. They also encourage us to examine our personal experiences of estrangement, of vulnerability, of feeling like an outsider.
The experience of grief, for example, often goes beyond a temporary mix of emotions or adjustments to an external loss that happened to us. Something also happens within us; our core sense of ourselves – the sense of “I” who is feeling the emotions – may be different, at least for a time. In that terrain, we may seem like a stranger to ourselves, like some novice – or perhaps veteran – self-in-grief. We may be surprised by our grief-colored expressions, not entirely familiar with own needs or capacities.
Paradoxically, these experiences can provide common ground which help us humanize and connect with others who appear strange, distant, or alone, or who find themselves out of sorts in alien territory. You may be in a hospital bed, isolated at home, reaching out to a loved one or a neighbor who is ill or grieving, or venturing into a scary new situation. In each case, you likely share some of the fears and concerns of the stranger, as well as the understanding and compassion of a veteran, which can help us connect through the sense of isolation and loneliness that afflict so many of us at one time or another. After all, most everyone has been bereaved or scared at some point our lives, even if we normally try to keep that hidden. As we acknowledge or act out of that personal and collective awareness, we may be better able to nurture and respond to the tender yearnings and caring that reside in each of us.
Hence, this week’s Torah reading gives us another opportunity to reflect – and maybe talk with someone else – about the ways we have found ourselves estranged.
May we all find ways to turn our experiences of vulnerability and alienation into greater sensitivity and respect and love toward our fellow human beings – including both those who may appear awkward or strange, and those who feel the most familiar to us.
This legacy resource of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center (BAJHC) is used by the Northern California Board of Rabbis with permission of BAJHC.