Did you know that one of the most frequently occurring commandments of Torah is to love the stranger? The commandment is repeated in various forms over 30 times in the Jewish Scriptures, for instance: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev. 19:18); “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God” (Lev. 19:34); “Love the stranger, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19); “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 22:21); “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong” (Lev. 19:33); “Do not oppress the stranger” (Zech. 7:10); “Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due the stranger” (Deut. 24:19); “The stranger shall be as the native born children of Israel among you” (Ezek. 47:22), “There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you”(Exod. 12:49; Num. 15:16), and so on. Clearly the LORD does not want people to feel ostracized, excluded, or otherwise left out of His providential and loving plans… Indeed, the message of the universal love of God is at the heart of the gospel itself, hearkening back to God’s earliest promises to redeem humanity and restore paradise lost. “Religion,” tribalism, prejudice, ethnic pride, and so on, are anathema to the Kingdom of God.
Hebrew Lesson:
Deut. 10:19 Hebrew page (pdf)
Jewish tradition says that King David was born on Shavuot (“Pentecost”), the holiday of shtei ha-lechem, the “two loaves” that prophetically foretold of the advent of the “one new man” (Eph. 2:14-22) and of the mysterious inclusion of the Gentiles into the covenant promises of God (Eph. 3:6). God has a great compassion for the outsider, for the lost, for the orphan and those who are without inheritance in this world. During Shavuot it is customary to read the Book of Ruth which tells the story about redeeming love and the advent of King David. Recall that King David was a direct descendant of Ruth, who as a Moabitess was an outsider and “stranger” to the promises of God (Ruth 4:17). Despite being part of an despised and rejected group of people (see Deut. 23:3), Ruth overcame the law’s demand by believing in the love and acceptance of a redeemer of Israel (Ruth 3:9). Ruth’s great grandson was named David (דָוִד), meaning “beloved,” which has the same numerical value as the word “hand” (יָד). It is no wonder that the LORD chose David to represent God’s extended hand of love for the stranger, for the convert, for the outsider, the leper, and the lost, since his descendant Yeshua the Messiah came to love and redeem the entire world by means of His outstretched hands. ברוך הוא יהוה ישוע
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matt. 25:35). We are commanded (i.e., blessed) to practice ahavat ha’geir (אהבת הגר), the “love of the stranger.” This means showing compassion and empathy to an “outsider” who may question their worth and place in your midst… On a somewhat deeper level, the duty to “love the stranger” applies not only to someone whom we regard as an “outsider,” but more radically to the “stranger within ourselves,” that is, to those aspects of ourselves we censor, deny, or reject. Self-hatred is a spiritual dead-end, chaverim…. Like the prodigal son, we have to “come to ourselves” to return home (Luke 15:17), yet we can’t know that we are unconditionally loved until we venture complete disclosure and seek acceptance – despite the mess of our lives. That is the great risk of trusting in God’s love for your soul. Those parts of ourselves that we “hide” need to be brought to the light, healed, and reconciled. After all, if we don’t find healing for our self-rejection and pain, how can we hope to love and accept others? Dear Lord, deliver us from the torment of self-hatred, in the Name and passion of your love, amen.