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From the Desk of Rabbi David Lyon
February 17, 2012

This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim. One of the most familiar verses is the mitzvah, “You shall not oppress the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

                Being strangers in Egypt is remote from our contemporary circumstances. Our rabbis of old were likewise challenged. They lived in the diaspora. It was not Egypt, but it was not the Holy Land, either. They lived in times and places where Jews were tolerated. They were permitted certain freedoms, but they never felt at home. As tolerated Jews, their past imposed upon them an indelible alien status.

                The rabbis took a biblical teaching and turned it into a contemporary lesson for all time. How did they do it? They used to teach the following, “Do not scold your neighbor with a fault which is also your own.” Here, fault doesn’t mean blame; it means weakness or tragic flaw. To find the tragic flaw, we have to look deeply within ourselves to tap into our historical memory as Jews.

                First, historically, we are bound to our ancestors’ struggle in Egypt. If there were ever a tragic flaw from which our people needed to be redeemed it was 430 years of slavery in Egypt. Torah tells us their hearts were “crushed by cruel bondage.” They were redeemed from there by God and they arrived at Sinai to receive Torah. The remedy for Egyptian slavery was Torah, itself. Torah isn’t an elixir that heals because we hold it; Torah is a means to freedom and peace because we live by it.

                Second, the rabbi’s lesson is personal and timeless. The lesson, “Do not scold your neighbor with a fault which is also your own” speaks to us every day. Whatever proverbial Egypt we struggle in, today, doesn’t have to be permanent. Torah is our means to freedom and peace, too. Torah is our salvation.

                I know that salvation is an unfamiliar word to most Jews, but it shouldn’t be. In the Tefilah, the central prayer that speaks of Abraham and Sarah, etc., it also speaks of God as our Savior and our Help. We are delivered by God through Torah and mitzvot. In Judaism, salvation is personal. We are not overcoming original sin; it doesn’t exist in Judaism. Rather, we are overcoming human imperfections and limitations by “holding fast to Torah” and living by its teachings because “all its paths are peace.”

                The only original fault we live with as Jews is the memory of Egyptian slavery. When we recall it we overcome it by recognizing God as Redeemer and Savior. And, then, rather than “save” others which is not our mission, we can empathize with others who are held back by contemporary forms of bondage and work to win their freedom and peace. Is it hunger or homelessness they have to overcome? Is it spiritual emptiness they need to revisit?

                Our Jewish historical memory and personal experiences are linked. We have the unenviable responsibility to carry the weight of all of it with us, and the remarkable ability to learn from it so that we might live by it. May we never go back to times of bondage in Egypt, or in any other land. May we remember and learn from the fault which is also our own, and let us never visit it upon anyone else. Lech L’shalom, may we and all God’s children enjoy freedom and peace.

                From my family to yours, Shabbat Shalom.