‘For You Were Strangers in the Land of Egypt’ from the ‘On Second Thought’ series

By: Ezra Nadav

Recap of Part 1: Recognising the Stranger

In Part 1, we explored the foundational Torah commandments that urge us to remember our shared experience of being strangers in Egypt. These verses call us to see and honour the humanity in those who are unfamiliar, different, or marginalised. We examined two key themes:

• The Cycle of Exclusion: How those once oppressed can, in turn, exclude others if they forget their own story of displacement. The Torah urges us to break this cycle and respond with radical hospitality, not fear.
• Seeing the Soul of the Stranger: Each person carries a universe within. The command to “know the soul of the stranger” calls us to see beyond difference and to respond with reverence, recognising our shared vulnerability and divine dignity.

These teachings set the stage for Part 2, where the Torah’s moral vision deepens—not only must we see the stranger, we must love, befriend, and refuse to hate.

Introduction to Part 2

If Part 1 called us to see the stranger, Part 2 challenges us to go further—to love them, befriend them, and to refuse hatred, even when it feels justified. These teachings ask not just for empathy, but for moral courage—inviting us to transform memory into connection, and difference into dignity.

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The Challenge of Love

“The stranger … shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:34)

Love is quite possibly the most difficult aspects of human life. It is easy to love someone who looks like you, thinks likes you and behaves like you, but what of the stranger who neither looks, speaks, or behaves as you do? What is our capacity to love that stranger? Our capacity to love the stranger is perhaps the truest test of the depth and integrity of our love. Love, in its most expansive form, is not merely an emotion, it is an act of will, a discipline, a moral imperative (Levinas, 1969). The Torah’s command does not ask us simply to tolerate the stranger or to extend them basic kindness; it demands something radical: “you shall love him as yourself.”

This is no small request. Love, when easy, is instinctual, it flows naturally toward those who reflect our own identities and affirm our sense of belonging. But love that reaches across difference requires something more: a surrender of fear, a willingness to unlearn prejudice, and a commitment to encounter the other with open hands rather than clenched fists.

Yet, the commandment does not leave us without guidance. It roots the obligation in memory: “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Our own histories, whether personal or communal, hold the key to unlocking our capacity for love. When we recall our own moments of displacement, exclusion, or longing for belonging, we gain the ability to recognize that same vulnerability in another. If we are honest, we know what it is to be the stranger, to stand outside looking in. And if we have known the pain of being unseen or unwelcome, how can we turn away from another who stands where we once stood?

Loving the stranger requires us to expand our understanding of self. It challenges the notion that love is limited, reserved only for those within our immediate circles. Instead, it insists that love is abundant, that our humanity is bound up with the humanity of those who differ from us. It asks us to recognize that in the face of the stranger, we may see not just an outsider, but a reflection of the divine, a piece of the infinite universe that dwells within each of us.

The question is not whether we have the capacity to love the stranger, but whether we have the courage to do so.

Beyond Love: The Call to Befriend
“You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19)

Befriending the stranger is a step beyond love, it is an act of radical inclusion. Love can sometimes be distant, abstract, even theoretical. One can love in principle but still maintain separation. Friendship, however, requires proximity, vulnerability, and mutuality (Greenberg, 2004). To befriend the stranger is to actively draw them into one’s life, to dismantle barriers, to move from “us” and “them” to “we.”

The Torah does not merely ask for empathy; it demands engagement. Loving can be an internal disposition, but befriending requires action. It means sitting with, listening to, sharing meals, creating bonds of trust. It means making space, not just in thought, but in community.

But why this added command? Because love alone is not enough if it remains passive. Love without action can be pity; love without presence can still allow for exclusion. Befriending the stranger means seeing them not as someone to care for from a distance but as an equal, a companion, a part of one’s own circle.

“For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Again, the commandment is rooted in memory. We are not just to acknowledge the stranger, we are to remember that we, too, have been in their place. And what did we long for when we were the stranger? Not just kindness, not just love, but a hand that reached out, a voice that said, “You belong.”

To befriend the stranger is to recognize that there are no true strangers, only people we have yet to welcome into our lives. It is a commitment to seeing the divine in the unfamiliar, to creating a world where no one stands alone.

Rejecting Hatred

“You shall not hate an Egyptian, for you were strangers in his land.” (Deuteronomy 23:8)

What of this command? Should the oppressed not have the right to hate that which oppressed them. Torah is clear, no they do not. This commandment challenges one of the most instinctive human responses to oppression: hatred. When one has suffered, it seems natural, almost justified, to direct resentment toward those who inflicted harm. The impulse to hate is not merely emotional; it is a means of reclaiming power, of asserting one’s dignity in the face of past subjugation. And yet, the Torah rejects this entirely.

“You shall not hate an Egyptian.” This is astonishing. Egypt was the land of enslavement, the place of suffering and degradation. If ever there was a people seemingly entitled to hate their oppressors, it was Israel after their exodus from Egypt. But the Torah’s moral vision is not about settling scores; it is about breaking cycles. It demands something greater than vengeance; it demands transformation.

Hatred chains us to our suffering (Berman, 2008). It keeps us bound to the very thing we seek to be free from. The Torah’s command is not about forgetting injustice but about refusing to let it define our relationships. It teaches that moral clarity does not require hatred, and that justice is best pursued not through the corrosion of resentment, but through a commitment to something higher: dignity, righteousness, and the refusal to become what once harmed us.

The commandment also reminds us of a simple truth: history is complicated. “For you were a stranger in his land.” Even within oppression, there were moments of refuge. Egypt was not only the land of slavery, it was also the place where Israel first took root and multiplied, where individuals like Joseph once found favour (Genesis 41). The Torah demands nuance, resisting the temptation to reduce entire peoples to the sum of their worst acts.

This is not to excuse oppression or to suggest that injustice should be ignored. Rather, it is a call to transcend the corrosive power of hatred and to build a future where past wounds do not dictate the possibilities of tomorrow. It is a challenge to rise above the easy path of bitterness and instead walk the harder, but holier, road of justice and reconciliation.

The oppressed do not have the right to hate, not because their pain is invalid, but because hatred itself is another form of bondage. True liberation is not just physical; it is also spiritual. And to truly be free, one must refuse to carry the weight of hatred into the future.

A Glimpse of What’s Ahead: Part 3 – Memory as Moral Responsibility

As Part 2 calls us to love and include the stranger, Part 3 will ask us to remember why. In the final section of this series, we’ll explore the Torah’s insistence on memory—not as nostalgia or grievance, but as a moral compass. It challenges us to transform our past suffering into a foundation for justice, not justification for exclusion.

Because remembering that we were once strangers is not simply about the past—it’s about the choices we make now.

Shalom Aleichem

References and Bibliography

Primary Sources

Exodus 22:20 – “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 23:9 – “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Leviticus 19:34 – “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Deuteronomy 10:19 – “You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Deuteronomy 23:8 – “You shall not hate an Egyptian, for you were strangers in his land.”

Deuteronomy 24:22 – “Always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.”

Commentaries and Interpretations

Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a – “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if they saved an entire world.”

Rashi’s Commentary on Exodus and Leviticus – Insights on the treatment of the stranger.

Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings and Wars 10:12 – On the ethical treatment of strangers.

The Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot) – “Do not judge your fellow until you have stood in their place.”

Academic and Theological Sources

Berman, J., 2008. Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Heschel, A.J., 1962. The Prophets. New York: Harper & Row.

Sacks, J., 2002. The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations. London: Bloomsbury.

Greenberg, I., 2004. For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter Between Judaism and Christianity. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.

Lexical and Dictionary Sources

Cambridge Dictionary, n.d. Definition of ‘stranger’. [online] Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/stranger> 3 March 2025.

Modern Ethical and Philosophical Reflections

Levinas, E., 1969. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.

Nussbaum, M., 1986. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.