Mishpatim
Rabbi Shefa Gold
When a mitzvah is repeated in the Torah, it's a sign to pay close
attention. We are commanded 36 times not to wrong or oppress the stranger. This
mitzvah appears twice in Mishpatim.
The first time we see this
commandment we are charged to keep it because we ourselves were once strangers
in the land of Egypt. But this reasoning does not quite hold. Those who suffer
oppression often themselves go on to oppress others. Whatever hurt I suffer
becomes the source of my destructive powers. The wound that is layered over
with scar tissue makes me insensitive to the suffering of others.
When we receive this commandment
again it comes with further clarification. "Do not oppress the stranger,
for you know the soul of the stranger, for you too were strangers in the land
of Egypt." The clarifying phrase, for you know (yada) the soul of the stranger, gives me
the key to the door of compassion. The Hebrew verb yada signifies intimacy. When I
encounter the stranger, I am commanded to know her soul, to step inside her
skin, to see that his pain, his joy, is not different than my own. This moment
of knowing breaks the chain of
oppression.
When I encounter the suffering of
the stranger it can be an opportunity for me to approach and begin to heal the
place inside myself that remembers suffering. From that place of newfound
wholeness I can then work for justice and become a healer of the world's pain.
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