“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt“; we read this in the torah portion this week. Parashat mishpatim records hashems giving of several laws, many of them concerning how to upkeep a functioning society – how you should treat the people around you and how to solve certain problems and injustices.
Being in a religious town in Israel, somewhat distanced from society or the non-jewish society, it sometimes feels like I am trapped in a bubble. Every now and then, it seems as though the only people that exist are jews and thats all we talk about here. For many people in the orthodox world, non-jews are not part of their lives and everything seems to revolve around the jewish people (which makes sense if you live here). As someone who spent almost all my life with non-jews, talking, sharing and interacting I know that many feel looked down upon and put in an inferior position on the jews behalf. This makes me very upset because this feeling is valid and doesn’t come out of nowhere.
Making ourselves “superior” because we have to keep so many laws is not something we as a nation stand for. The jewish people went through a lot of trauma and were treated horribly by non-jewsh nations in the past but it is time to release the judgement and to not keep our light and love within us but realise that all the other people that don’t share judaism are to be treated kindly and with an open heart, not just when in direct contact with them but also when you are among jewish people and mention non-jews.
All of humanity is waiting to be healed. We cannot achieve this by excluding people that are strangers to us, excluding them from your compassion, full acceptance and love ! Let’s light up the world fully, expand ourselves and follow G-ds will by releasing judgement and illusions about people that are different from us, remove our ego and open the gates for the redemption.
Shabbat Shalom