Caring for the Disadvantaged

Two thousand years ago, Hillel was asked to summarize the Torah while standing on one foot. He responded, “What is hateful to you, do not do to another person.” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a)

Ethics are central to the Torah’s concern and many of its dictates revolve around how we care for one another. It devotes particular concern to how we look after disadvantaged groups. The stranger, widow and orphan merit our concern. Caring for them are seen as divine imperatives.

God proclaims, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. If you do mistreat them, I will head their outcry.” (Exodus 22)

Such laws are repeated throughout the Torah. Their observance is viewed not only as barometers of our attentiveness to justice but as measures of our devotion to God. Communing with God is not simply about how heartfelt are our prayers but how our hearts are attuned to the pain of others. The Torah makes clear. The suffering felt by the disadvantaged is heard by God and even prompts God’s anger. Caring for them prompts God’s rewards.

The prophet Jeremiah affirms, “If you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place then only will I let you dwell in this place in the land that I gave to your ancestors for all time.” (Jeremiah 7) Our very survival is dependent on caring for the disadvantaged.

The Bible is concerned with those who live on the edges of society and those who might fall outside the circle of our interest. In biblical times, the stranger is the foreign-born resident who resides in between native-born citizen and foreigner. That in-between status makes them particularly vulnerable to mistreatment and therefore worthy of God’s attention.

The widow and orphan lose the support of family in ancient times. Rather than casting them aside, they become the responsibility of the community. Just because they no longer have family members to care for them does not mean God’s people can forget about their needs. Just because the stranger is not accorded citizenship rights does not mean God’s people can turn away from their pain.

It would be understandable if our Torah lavished all its attention on the Jewish people and ignored the plight of the disadvantaged. It suggests however that those who are privileged to be counted on the inside must care for those on the outside. It directs our people’s compassion to the edges of our concern. Rather than directing our focus within and directing our attention to our own needs, it directs our hearts outward to society’s fringes.

Here is where our devotion is tested. Here is where we learn what God most wants of us.

Hillel concludes, “That is the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary. Let’s go and learn it.”