HeritageandHistory Zurich

The text of this parasha puts me in a slightly delicate situation, as it brings laws, rules – mishpatim. Not that I don’t appreciate them and don’t like order and discipline. It’s no surprise that I studied to be a graphic designer, putting texts, colors and images in order. But I am generally bothered by certain applications of laws as commanded in the Torah, either by their rigor dating back centuries or millennia, or by their lack of contemporaneity or context. Therefore, I am a faithful defender of the approach appropriate to our time and moment.

But especially this excerpt from the Torah brings something not only very current, but also fundamental for the formation of the ethical conduct of the Jewish people at any time: dealing with others who are in a less privileged situation than you, either because they are so, or because this situation was caused by you. In the case of the parasha: servants and foreigners, vassals of a system of rural and family organization that necessarily privileges some over others. This is repeated throughout the history of man in any system: often in socialism, officials and the ruling echelon have an unequal relationship with a population without any political influence; in capitalism, those who hold capital in relation to workers who are forced to sell their labor; in any system of power, in which one can command and is in a dominant position, and the other must obey.

The Torah does not ignore this! We read in Exodus (Shemot) chapter 20, verse 22: “Do not deceive or oppress a foreigner, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.” Divine law understands this human structure of social organization but imposes justice and ethics on us to deal with it.

I have been busy reflecting on oppression for some time. For oppression, to oppress, the root LACHATZ is used in the Torah, which in modern Hebrew is used to define stress, psychological stress, a state of mind, a state that can cause both psychological and behavioral illnesses – so commonplace today. While not completely understood today, it has gained at least some fame and use in popular vocabulary.

Close friends know how this theme of oppressed and oppressor consumes me, especially those linked to the Jewish community. Even before the heinous attack committed by the terrorist group Hamas on the population of the modern democratic state of Israel.

In my opinion, we Jews have chosen or part of us has chosen to abandon our oppressed status and dress up as oppressors. I say cross-dressing, because we are not! As a historical minority in any time or place, we are not per se oppressors. And in our ancestral home, where as a majority we could even behave or assume this oppressor status, we are reminded especially in this parasha, and in the Haftarah of Jeremiah that is read this Saturday, that we are not: that we will not oppress the foreigner, for foreigners we were in the land of Egypt.

The Haftarah read for this weekly portion is from Jeremiah. The transgression on the part of the Jewish elite in the kingdom of Judah in the treatment of their slaves, in this case Hebrew men and women, is very serious. Jeremiah appeals in Jerusalem for the freedom of slaves. By freeing the slaves physically, those Israelites would also achieve their own moral freedom. The elite, from the height of their oppressor disguise, frees the slaves to save their skin, but enslaves them immediately afterward when they feel saved. And thus, they cause the moral and physical defeat of Judah.

This parasha brings the shalosh regalim, the three great festivals of future pilgrimage, in Ex. 23:14: “Three times a year you will hold a festival for Me: 15) celebrate the feast of Unfermented Bread – hag hamatzot”; 16) “and the Festival of harvest, of the first fruits of his work – hag hakatzir bikurei”, which became Shavuot; “and the Feast of Harvest, at the End of the year”, which will be Sukot. From this parasha onwards, with the mention of Pessach, hag hamatzot, we begin to prepare for the celebration of freedom. But the message is clear: Ex 23:9: “Do not oppress a foreigner, for you know the feelings of the foreigner, because you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.” 

This theme of oppressed and oppressor has nothing to do with the role of victim or executioner, even less with an explicit situation of oppression. But rather the state of identifying oneself as an oppressed person and thus developing empathy for other oppressed people and treating them with dignity and from the perspective of ethics. As God commands us in this parasha.

Has it been enough though to be the oppressed ones? No, I don’t think so. Understanding yourself as one who was oppressed and freed from Egypt does not mean that your fate is to be enslaved or mistreated or reprimanded. In this same parasha we read countless laws (mishpatim) on how to treat and relate to the slave or the one who is there to serve us. The text is clear, especially for those who are excited about sticking to the literalness of the biblical text: “Do not deceive or oppress a foreigner, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.”

Being the oppressed is a stance. The oppressed are empathetic towards other oppressed, the oppressor is generally not. Pessach is not a family dinner where we celebrate a victory. The victory is not yours, Jew or Jewess! It was God who brought you out of Egypt, and we are reminded of this every time we recite Kiddush. And He always reminds us that we were slaves in Egypt and, especially on Pessach, we are forced to feel as if we ourselves had been freed from Egypt. Having empathy or compassion is not an option for you in Judaism, out of kindness or interest: it is an obligation!

Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince, but he reconnects with his oppressed condition when he sees a Hebrew slave being flogged. He does not sympathize with the oppressed, he identifies himself as the oppressed. The Torah does not want us oppressed. God guarantees that our enemies will be His enemies and through His intervention we will win wars and have Peace.

Does this mean that Israel should not defend itself with military movements in the Gaza Strip? It doesn’t mean that, because Israel must defend its citizens. Because Israel is the country of these people, of those who are kidnapped. If Hamas let the Israelis leave, as they did with the Brazilians, British, Filipinos, Swiss or French, we would not be at this level of military offensive. But Israelis are not given this luxury of freedom. And they have only Israel to try to free them.

When I read that there are Jews and Jewish women in a condition of abandonment, when I read that Holocaust survivors in Israel live in poverty, or when I witness that our Jewish elite, whether in Brazil or anywhere else in the world, has no commitment to our own afflicted, I wonder: do they understand that matzah is not unfermented bread, but rather the bread of the afflicted. That those who say the blessing and eat this bread must also feel like they have been freed from Egypt? That they are nothing more than oppressed people bestowed with material well-being and should have compassion on other afflicted and oppressed people?

Reading the Haftarah of Jeremiah, or even the entire book, can be enlightening. We are no longer in the age of judges and prophets. With the democratization of information and our increasingly easy and often uncompromised access to knowledge, we skip the phase of elaboration, distinction, learning and, thus, the filter. And many of us cling to low-quality messages and easy paths, necessarily leading to frivolous behavior. But the Torah is there, as are its infinite interpretations and comments and reflections. If those who can only remember reading this parasha, for example, the section that prohibits cooking a baby in its own mother’s milk and don’t understand that this is just strogoffe, then it’s time to read it all again. The chance is given every year.

Regarding last week’s very interesting discussion, based on the study brought by our emeritus Germano Fraifeld, I understand that the Diaspora has put us back in the position of the foreigner again, everywhere. And that this position became more uncomfortable with the European and Arab nationalist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. And that society in general convinced us and allocated us as the international foreigner – a threat!

But I believe that we who have the privilege of reading and are guided by the message “Do not oppress a foreigner, for you know the feelings of the foreigner, having been foreigners yourself in the land of Egypt”, have a moral obligation to reverse this situation as light among nations, not with political arrogance, toxic machismo, or extreme speeches. We were foreigners and we produced the Talmud. We were foreigners and we shined in the Golden Age in Spain. We were foreigners and illuminated Europe with art, culture, architecture. And it was in this foreign situation that we realized the dream of our ancestral home. This is what I want to believe as a local and as a foreigner!