Rabbi Daniel Siegel

Chosen places

In a recent Australian Jewish News article, Thundering Bolt Strikes Bagel Belt, note is made of Andrew Bolt’s comment in his Daily Telegraph op-ed piece, The Foreign Invasion:

In Melbourne’s North Caufield, 41 percent of residents are Jews, including hundreds who have fled South Africa. 

Bolt speaks to “immigration becoming colonisation” as the “clustering into tribes” leads to a sweeping away of the Australian “national identity”.

Ki Teitsei, this week’s parashah, warns us: “You shall not surrender to his master, a slave who seeks refuge with you”. While antithetical to the prevailing practices of their Ancient Near Eastern contemporaries, the Israelites, a nation of runaway slaves, are understandably expected to heed this call of their Liberator God.

The attendant subsequent statement is a significant amplification:

“He shall reside with you, in your midst, in the place he shall choose, among one of your settlements, wherever he pleases.”

As the former Israelite refugees now make a home for themselves, so they are to open their land to those who come after, seeking safe harbour.

It is not clear if “wherever he pleases” is to counter protestations of the “foreigner” residing “in your midst” and/or is to countenance one seeking comfort in whatever locale and circumstance one deems best. Whether a “melting pot” or “salad”, and, however, widely/narrowly construed, the verse concludes “you shall not ill-treat him”.

Perhaps most significant are the words “BaMakom asher yivchar” – “In the place he shall choose”. This phrase, which appears repeatedly throughout Sefer Devarim/the Book of Deuteronomy, except in this one exception of the run-away slave, is used only in reference to God. As well, God announces he will dwell “in the midst” of the people by virtue of the “place he shall choose”.

Our Torah thereby teaches us that God, the Great Liberator, resides among those who do not forget their own/their people’s liberation and who keep vigilant to partner with others seeking their choice place of freedom. Fighting against slave owners, Abraham Lincoln was reported to have said: “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side”.