Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig: The Torah’s Exodus Story and Immigrant Absorption
The new Trump Administration has a clear policy regarding this. Given the President’s significant Evangelical Christian support, as well as that of American Orthodox (and ultra-Orthodox) Jewry, the question arises: how does the Bible relate to immigrant absorption? To what extent should or can a society absorb immigrants, and how should we treat them? The last three week’s Torah readings – Shmot, Va’era, Bo – have several important insights to offer regarding these questions.
At the end of the Book of Genesis, Jacob and his family of 70 souls leave Canaan and (im)migrate to Egypt. They have no problems when in Egypt, not even when Joseph passes away. It seems that the Egyptians don’t mind such population migration into their midst.
Then the Torah states that Pharaoh dies, and a new Pharaoh comes to power “who did not know Joseph.” What was the real problem he had with the Hebrews? The fact that the Hebrew population expanded hugely (Exodus 1: 7-10) – the issue was one of numbers. As long as the Hebrews were a small group within Egyptian society, the latter didn’t worry about such (forgive the “anachronism”) multi-culturalism. But when the Hebrews turned into a significant demographic element, that’s when the Egyptians started getting concerned. Moreover, another aspect added to the problem: the Hebrews all congregated in Goshen i.e., they established their own socio-cultural “ghetto” that prevented them from assimilating into mainstream Egyptian society.
Compare this to what happened to the first Hebrew the Egyptians came into contact with: Joseph. He changed his own name (to Tzofnat Pa’nay’akh), dressed like the Egyptians, married an Egyptian woman, and gave his two sons Egyptian names. This constituted classic assimilation for which the Egyptians had no problem. They even enabled Joseph to reach the highest level of Egyptian society and government! The assumption was that over time the same would happen to Joseph’s family and future generations. But when it didn’t (the opposite occurred), the new Pharaoh radically changed policy direction.
The continuation of this story is well-known: Pharaoh enslaved the Hebrews and eventually tried to have all their male babies killed. But that didn’t work either.
So, we have to ask this question: if the Hebrews’ population increase was perceived to be a real threat to Egyptian society, and Pharaoh didn’t succeed in significantly lowering their numbers – and on top of that they weren’t becoming “Egyptian” culturally – why didn’t Pharaoh let them go, when Moses demanded this? To be anachronistic: why didn’t they take Trump’s policy lead: deportation!
Indeed, in this past week’s reading “Bo” (and the previous week too: “Va’era”), we see Moses several times giving Pharaoh the opportunity to let them leave, but Pharaoh refuses. I’ll provide the answer to that question shortly – but first, there’s another question to be addressed, based on what happens after they do leave Egypt.
When the Children of Israel finally are able to escape from Egypt, they are met by the soldiers of Amalek who try to attack from the rear, killing the weak and the young stragglers. Not nice at all! But still, there’s a tough question lurking here. What’s worse – what the Amalekites did in one battle skirmish? Or what the Egyptians did over hundreds of years: enslaving the Hebrews and even trying to kill all the male babies? Most reasonable people would argue that what the Egyptians did was far worse. If so, then why does the Torah command the elimination of every last vestige of Amalek, but no such commandment was ever issued against Egyptians? Indeed, for a few centuries before and after the destruction of the Second Temple, the largest Jewish communities outside of Israel resided in Egypt!
It seems that here the Torah is subtly suggesting that while the Egyptian policy against the Hebrews was not moral, it was at least understandable from their perspective – worrying about their cultural identity and political sovereignty. (That also might be why God gave Pharaoh so many opportunities to let the Hebrews go.) On the other hand, there was no such “logic” or reason in the Amalekite actions against the Children of Israel in the desert; it was morally indefensible.
Does this mean that persecuting foreigners is acceptable in the Torah? Of course not! There are many verses in the Torah on how to treat foreigners. Here are but two: “And if a foreigner lives in your land, do not persecute him…” (Leviticus 19:33); “And love the foreigner because you too were once a foreigner in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19).
Most interesting is that the word “foreigner” appears in the singular! In other words, if and when a foreigner (or a reasonably limited number of foreigners) arrive(s), we are commanded to treat them with respect. What the Torah does not command – or at least leaves up in the air – is what to do if, and when, a large number of foreigners arrive.
It is here that we return to my initial question: why didn’t Pharaoh let the numerous Hebrews go? The answer: the Egyptians had become economically addicted to exploiting Hebrew slave labor. Even if the Hebrews threatened Egyptian national identity (as Pharaoh saw it), their economy had become too dependent on slavery to let them go. In a conflict between national identity and the national economy, they chose the latter.
Here the Torah is suggesting two things for a nation. First, try not to face a situation where the country becomes too dependent on cheap labor – because of the cultural (religious/ethnic) danger that this entails. On the other hand, however, under no circumstances are foreigners living among us to be treated badly.
I leave for you to decide how this should relate to present Israeli policy regarding the presence of non-Jews. Similarly, whether President Trump’s threat of mass deportation of illegal immigrants has biblical justification. In any case, the Torah is clearly teaching that the issue is not black and white. We must be careful not to fall into the massive, multi-cultural trap – but we also have to treat all foreigners in humane fashion.
