Minority rights.

One of the most striking features of the terror is its emphasis on love of and vigilance towards the gare, the stranger.

Don't oppress a stranger. You yourselves know how it feels to be strangers because you were strangers in Egypt, says Exodus.

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of Lords, the great God mighty and awesome

who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the stranger

residing among you, giving them food and clothing.

You are to love those who are strangers for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt, so says Sifadvarim. The sages went so far as to say that

the Torah commands us in only one place to love our neighbor, but in 36 places to love the stranger.

That's the Gemara and Baba Midsia.

Well, what is the definition of a gehr a stranger?

Clearly, the reference is to one who isn't Jewish by birth.

It could mean one of the original inhabitants of the land of Canaan.

It could mean one of the mixed multitude who left Egypt with the

Israelites. It might mean a foreigner who has entered the land seeking safety or a livelihood.

Whatever the case, immense significance is attached to the way the Israelites treat the stranger.

This was what they were meant to have learned from their own experience of

exile and suffering in Egypt. There were strangers. They were oppressed. Therefore, they knew

it nefeshagir, what it feels like to be a stranger. They were not to inflict on others what was

once inflicted on them.

The sages said that the word gear might mean one of two things.

One was a Gert-Sedek, a convert to Judaism, who had accepted all its commands and obligations.

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