It’s a strange thing to sit at a seder in an air-conditioned room in the suburbs, acting out what it must have been like to be enslaved in Egypt. The number one complaint I hear about the seder is that it’s too long – even if it is shorter than it was when we were kids and Grandpa would read the entire Haggadah in the original language. Even if we just had a full lunch, and then a snack during the car ride, and we’re eating dinner (a feast!) at a normal hour. 

There must be one major takeaway that the sages of millennia past were hoping we would internalize – more than the four glasses of wine. And maybe it is also the centerpiece of Torah, the main idea of all Judaism. 

The Torah instructs us to love with three different instructions. V’ahavta, in the paragraph after the Shema, tells us we must love God. Then there is the quote printed on bus stops these days, put on bumper stickers and billboards: V’ahavta l’Rei’ekha Kamokha – love your neighbor as yourself. Those are both deep and meaningful parts of Judaism, worthy of discussing. And they are each written one time in the Torah. And we quote them a lot.

The other commandment to love, the only love-related commandment that is repeated in the Torah, the only one written more than once, in fact is written dozens of times in the Torah, is to love the Ger. 

But who or what is the Ger? 

The chumash we use at my temple, Etz Hayyim, which we use on Shabbat mornings, translates the word Ger as “stranger,” which, I guess, alludes to anyone you don’t know. Love the stranger. The King James Bible uses the translation “sojourner.” There are two problems with that word. One is I don’t ever use that word in everyday life, so it feels as foreign to me as ger. I have never told someone that I plan to sojourn near them, or ask how long will you be sojourning here. The other problem with the word sojourner is that it implies someone on a temporary journey. One passing through on their way to somewhere else. 

It is a temporary status without any curiosity about why this person is traveling. I have heard the word Ger translated as “convert,” as it is also the word for one who converts to Judaism . And I do believe that loving converts, those who choose our peoplehood, is exemplary. But I don’t think that’s what this repeated line in Torah means, that we should love the convert, as it is almost always followed by, “for you were a Ger in the land of Egypt.” And I don’t believe anyone would really translate that line as, “You must love converts because you were converts in Egypt.” 

Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, one of the greatest scholars of Judaism, who lived nearly a thousand years ago in France writes, “Wherever the word Ger occurs in Scriptures, it signifies a person who was not born in that land, but has rather come from another country to dwell there.” He has defined the word Ger as an immigrant. 

Rashi knows that people are leaving their homelands for all sorts of reasons – none of them good. These are not vacationers, not people merely sojourning, passing through. They are people fleeing, people who assume that they are safer being a stranger in a strange land than they are staying in their homes, in the land of their parents and grandparents. A Ger is on the run, seeking shelter. 

Contemporary scholar Rabbi Shai Held teaches, “A Ger is a vulnerable outsider who is not part of the kin group, which means not part of the in-group.” This commandment is repeated over and over because it is hard. Some commandments I only have to hear once, and I promise to never break them. But to treat someone who is different, who speaks another language, who doesn’t fit in, as one of our own? I need that reminder time and again. Perhaps every week. Maybe even every day. 

And the commandment gets stronger throughout the Torah. It starts with Ohev – you must love the strangers in your community. Note: You don’t have to like them. You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t have to want them there. But you have to love them. Love is, among many other things, a vague verb. How do I love the stranger? 

It then gets more specific as the Torah unfolds. Leviticus adds: Do them no harm. A bit more concrete. And then it adds: Treat them as well as you treat your own. In fact, do not treat the stranger any differently than you would treat a natural born citizen. 

In a world surrounded by enemies, wandering through the vast nothingness of the wilderness, this is quite a commandment. It’s not about how to treat another Israelite you haven’t met. With every iteration, it becomes clearer that these people are different and might appear dangerous, and the only choice you have is to show them love, to treat them as you would your own sibling. Or, for some people, better than you treat your own sibling. 

By Deuteronomy, the end of the Torah, the commandment includes giving the Ger food and clothing. 

This appears in stark contrast to the world we just left, we barely escaped. Pharaoh, the pharaoh of the Moses story, hates from the very beginning. He sees outsiders – us – and uses words like vermin to describe us. The verbs chosen are the ones you would use to describe an infestation. 

The commandments are not merely to create a society, but to create a society the opposite of the one we just left. In one, there is a hierarchy of people, the top being someone who is wealthy and powerful and god incarnate. Someone with so much gold that he will be buried with it rather than share it with the people who have nothing. Outsiders are loathed, treated poorly and uncounted. 

In the other, everyone has equal access to sanctity. Everyone counts, and we count everyone over and over. Everyone shares their wealth to create a communal center where even the strangers are welcomed. One of the greatest moral revolutions the Torah gives us is an alternative to Egypt and all it represents. 

But there’s another side to this. God is trying to remind us: Yes, you suffered. What do you learn from your suffering? You have to acknowledge it. How can you turn that pain into something good in the world? What have you learned from those who dehumanized you? You learn empathy, to never treat anyone else that way. To fight hate by bringing more love.

It is a commandment: We shape the memory that in turn shapes us. It is a commandment to reclaim our dignity so that we can understand the purpose of our suffering. 

And, in these impossible demands, God is challenging us. Who do you think the God you believe in loves? Only you? Only people like you? 

In Deuteronomy, it again reiterates that we must love the Ger, because God does. And we are trying to emulate God. This line doesn’t just say God using one of God’s names. It says, HaEl HaGadol HaGibor v’HaNora, a phrase we use three times a day in our Amidah, the central prayer of Judaism. An allusion, three times a day, through this biblical quote, that – to be like God, we must love the immigrant, the stranger, the sojourner. 

Other gods love the powerful. The Egyptian gods, the Babylonian gods, the Hittite gods all loved the powerful. Our God? Our God loves the powerless. 

Other gods would have sided with Pharaoh, using his power and riches and army to prove their favor. That their gods bless Egypt. Our God sides with those trying to escape tyranny. Our God, time and again, chooses the underdogs. 

To dehumanize immigrants, strangers, orphans,and widows is an assault on who God loves. You cannot take the Torah, or Judaism, seriously and treat strangers, outsiders, immigrants, as lesser. 

A line that has been ringing in my ears for about 15 years is by Leon Wieseltier: “The incompleteness of the presence is the premise of the Jew’s existence.” We are put here, we are still here, because the world is not yet whole. And it is our sacred duty to spend our lives trying to make it whole. 

For the rabbis of history, the most dramatic moment of the seder is when we open the door and proclaim: Ha Lachma Anya. The paragraph that follows is written in Aramaic. It ends with, “All who are hungry, come and eat. All who are needy are invited to celebrate this holiday with us.” 

Living on a suburban cul-de-sac, there is no one around when I open my door. But I can imagine that scene for most of history. 

My childhood rabbi was the incredible Harold M. Schulweis (z”l). He taught me a midrash from 1500 years ago. The angels on high know every language on earth. So when we pray – whether in the traditional Hebrew, or any other language – the heavenly angels hear our prayers and respond accordingly. 

But, the midrash teaches, the angels do not know Aramaic. Therefore, when we open the doors to invite in all who are hungry, it is our way of acknowledging that we cannot rely on angels to provide for the Ger. 

As we reenact being strangers in a strange land, we remember the To rah’s most-repeated mitzvah: loving the outsider. Loving them enough to welcome them into our air-conditioned dining rooms. To give them a warm meal. To remind them that we, too, were once in their shoes. And to remind ourselves that if we want to live as free people, we have a lot of work to do.