Emphatic Ethics
“When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34 NASB
With you – Who is the stranger? According to this command, it is anyone who resides (the word is “sojourns,” i.e., is a temporary resident) in your land. That’s sounds clear enough. Who would that include today? Migrants, travelers, short-term renters. Basically, anyone who is not permanently connected in some way to your community. Anyone who is not “family.” The commandment says that those who follow YHVH, who accept His way of doing things, are to not take advantage of these people. They are to be treated as though they were ‘ezrah, arising from the soil. In other words, as if they were born here, natives, part of the tribe.
You go on a trip. You stay a few days in another city. The retailers and taxi drivers and restaurateurs know that you aren’t local. Maybe you don’t speak the native tongue. Maybe you dress differently or you carry a big camera. You are a tourist. How are you treated? Do you discover that you have been overcharged? Were you promised one thing but delivered another? Are you ignored or worse? Does anyone make you feel as if you really belong there? I often find that unless I have some local connection, I am not treated as a native-born. Taxis cost more. Meals cost more. Inferior goods are passed off as better quality. Everything is a haggle and a hassle. Has this been your experience?
YHVH says that His children do not take advantage of the outsider. His children give the stranger the same deals they give their friends, the same courtesy, the same help. We are to love the stranger as ourselves. Why?
Because we are the stranger. We were once outsiders. We were taken advantage of. We were oppressed. We were overcharged, underpaid, ripped off. And we are not to pass it on! The emphasis of this ethical instruction is not the stranger who resides in our land now. Rather it is the stranger who once resided in Egypt. Us!
You and I know what it is like to be mistreated. Since we know what it is like, we are not to allow that undignified behavior to continue. We are not to contribute to any form of discrimination toward anyone who temporarily crosses our path. We are to treat every one of these as if we were the ones sojourning in Egypt again. What is the rule of thumb for the outsider? In a word, kamoka—“as yourself.” Perhaps it’s time to reconsider who we really are—strangers in a strange land, resident aliens awaiting the call of the Master, sojourners recently released from Egyptian bondage. Not so long ago you and I were abused, neglected, ignored, oppressed. Now we have been freed to stop all this. Now the next one I meet will not experience what happened to me.
Topical Index: stranger, sojourn, kamoka, as yourself, Leviticus 19:33-34
Who was the ultimate Stranger Who resided among us? Who was the rejected Jew, tossed into the trash can in favor of Yeshua Bar-abbas; the false-messiah insurrectionist son-of-our-father-the-devil (sorry, a little liberty there)? Who was the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief? Who was the alien Who crash-landed on our planet; born of a virgin and called Emmanuel – God with us – that we handed over to other aliens to be nailed to a stake because He didn’t Look Like Us? We wanted a conquering king, and we got sent a dud. Who wants to identify with that? Certainly not non-dud me! LOL!
The flesh rejects the not-me. The flesh wants 360-degree mirrors around itself, reflecting itself to itself. The flesh wants to be stroked and told that nothing further is required of it; that the batter has been walked to first, and the bases are loaded, with the flesh at third on the front end of all the benefits. The last thing the flesh wants is to be reminded of its own NEEDS. It doesn’t want to be reminded of its past failures or of its current lacks. It for sure doesn’t want to be asked to “pay it forward” (whatever THAT means!) The flesh does not want to identify with the passion and the pain of others, for that reminds it of its own. I have this theory, Skip, that the Greeks did not invent the dislike of emotion – they just were the ones who invented an artificial dichotomy to separate themselves not only from their own suffering, but also from the suffering of those around them. I think I stand with C.S. Lewis when he says that paganism is the natural bent of the human mind. We don’t want to look at another and say “there, but for the grace of God, go I”.
We want to separate the world into “us’s and them’s”, with all the them’s being all the ones who do not look like how we want to look, and we want all the us’s to be who we believe our neighbor, our community, really is. The person who cuts me off in traffic, then, is a Them, because, of course, I would NEVER do such a thing. The Muslim in the Middle East is for sure a Them because, because, well, I bet he hates me; well at least, they all hate Israel, don’t they? And on it goes. We want to get along with all those who we already are getting along with, and we want to not HAVE TO get along with all those we already aren’t. And that’s a fact. In fact, when I look in the mirror, and don’t like who I see, that self-hatred also translates into discrimination against myself, and I end up opposing myself, which Paul said was a sin. Folks, there are no Us’s and Them’s. We have already met all the enemies, and they are all Us.
I think I may have discovered something interesting. When I slam into a wall, and can seem to get no further, no matter how hard I want to, and how hard I try, I have started to suspect that, in that particular place, I may have judged someone in the past, and been hard on them, in that place. For example, when I set out to overcome a sin, like being impatient, and find it impossible to do, I have found it beneficial to go and ask, and really look into the past, and find a place where I judged someone for being impatient with me. When I decide to let them off the hook, because NOW I can see how human, how Much Like Me, they were, and I can understand why they would have been so tempted – then, and only then, can I understand myself, and my own humanity, and why I would be impatient, and thus forgive myself. When I let them off the hook I let myself too, and I find that it is only when I am no longer in opposition – in essential competition (which is all varying species of the old word covetiousness, by the way) against others, and when I no longer subscribe to the belief that “every man’s hand is against me, and my hand against every man’s”, then I am no longer against myself, either. I am in natural opposition to all strangers, and that includes myself. We all get off my hook together. I DO get forgiven when I forgive! Who knew!
The Good Samaritan enjoyed side benefits. When he identified with the man in the ditch, he no longer had to be stuck in his. When I identify with all as my neighbor, then I am also included back into the commonwealth. I put myself out of community. Forgiveness and inclusion of others is how I get the same. We were told this is how it works, folks. It really does work! In Tolstoy’s cobbler story of the Christ Child, the cobbler found that when he included the stranger in front of him, he had already incuded the other Stranger, too. When I can look into the face of all those created in the image of God, and see Him, then I have let myself back into His kingdom., and He is no longer a stranger to me. There’s a nice side benefit to that, too, for when He is no longer a stranger to me, I am no longer a stranger to Him, either. I hold all the keys to all these doors, and it all starts, and ends, with forgiveness. Forgiveness is how there ends up being no strangers left; no accusers. At that point, He will say, “neither do I accuse thee”. Halleluah!
This reminds me of reading in the book of Hashed chapter nineteen. One of the things that brought judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah was their treatment of strangers or those traveling through or at least trying to travel through their land. They would starve them or not allow them to drink. If you haven’t ever read it, it’s very interesting.
Sorry it’s the book of jasher
Absolutely LOVE this one.
Torah is not about how much we know OF truth, but how we relate to folks around us IN truth.