“Parashat Mishpatim 5786: I’m a Stranger Here Myself” Rabbi Oberstein’s Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon, 2/13/26
Rabbi Andrew Oberstein
Qabbalat Shabbat, February 13, 2026
Temple Israel of Boston
I think some of you may know this about me already,
but I am —
despite years of trying to see myself otherwise —
at my core,
a rule follower.
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I can’t help it.
I know it’s not exactly cool.
But it’s who I am.
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Some people get a high from living on the edge,
from breaking the rules and getting away with it.
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Honestly?
Even saying that out loud raises my heart rate.
My high comes from understanding what’s expected of me and then meeting — or, if I’m honest, slightly over-preparing for — those expectations.
I’m less “rebel without a cause” and more “student who already highlighted the syllabus.”
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It’s maybe no surprise, then,
that I chose a career that involves spending so much time exploring and interpreting legal codes.
Even as Reform Jews —
who do not see ourselves bound by halakhah in the same way as our Orthodox siblings —
we still take law seriously.
We wrestle with it.
We interpret it.
We argue about it.
Rules matter to the Jewish people.
So much so that our tradition created categories for them.
Not just commandments —
categories of commandments.
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The rabbis distinguish between chukim and mishpatim.
Chukim are laws that don’t come intuitively.
Think of the prohibition against wearing garments made of wool and linen mixed together.
Or the laws of kashrut.
These are commandments that may carry meaning,
identity,
discipline —
but they are not self-evident moral truths.
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Mishpatim,
on the other hand,
are laws that feel ethically obvious.
Don’t murder.
Don’t steal.
Establish courts.
Return lost property.
Regulate damages.
These are the kinds of laws that,
had they not been given in Torah,
societies might reasonably have developed on their own.
They regulate harm.
They build a just society —
at least within the moral universe of the ancient world.
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Which brings us to this week’s Torah portion:
Mishpatim.
It is filled with laws,
some of which we may not like,
but laws that mostly make sense.
Laws that create accountability.
Laws that restrain chaos.
And yet —
in the middle of this list of rational,
civic laws — we encounter Exodus 23:9:
“וְגֵ֖ר לֹ֣א תִלְחָ֑ץ” —
You shall not oppress the stranger.
That alone would be enough.
It’s a perfect mishpat.
It makes moral sense.
A healthy society does not prey on the vulnerable.
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But the verse continues:
“וְאַתֶּ֗ם יְדַעְתֶּם֙ אֶת־נֶ֣פֶשׁ הַגֵּ֔ר
” — You know the soul of the stranger —
“כִּֽי־גֵרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם
” — for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
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Why add that?
If mishpatim are self-evident,
why the reminder?
Why the history lesson?
Why the emotional appeal?
Shouldn’t “do not oppress” be enough?
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Apparently not.
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Because even when something is obvious…
even when it is rational…
even when it is clearly right…
we will still find ways to justify doing the opposite.
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And that is not a partisan observation.
It is a human one.
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Two weeks ago,
on a rabbinic listserv that I am part of,
a colleague in Minneapolis wrote to us about what he has been witnessing in his city.
It was not a press release.
Not a political manifesto.
It was a tired rabbi describing what it feels like to shepherd a community living in fear.
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He described immigrant families afraid to leave their homes.
Clergy organizing grocery deliveries for neighbors too frightened to go to work or school.
Communities experiencing enforcement not as protection,
but as intimidation.
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I can’t personally, independently verify every detail he shared —
and that is not the point.
The point is this:
when neighbors begin to experience the law as a threat rather than as a safeguard,
something is breaking.
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Immigration enforcement may be done legally.
Nations have the right to secure borders and uphold their laws.
That is not controversial.
But when enforcement becomes indiscriminate,
when due process erodes,
when entire communities feel hunted rather than protected,
we are no longer debating policy preferences.
We are confronting mishpat — justice itself.
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And Mishpatim teaches that justice is not merely the application of rules.
It is the protection of the vulnerable.
It is the remembering of the nefesh of the stranger.
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If loving America means holding it accountable to its highest ideals,
then the same must be true for the other country I love.
I would lose credibility —
with you and with myself —
if I spoke about justice in one place and fell silent in another.
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You know my love for the land,
the people,
and the State of Israel.
I have been there twice in the last four months.
My connection is not abstract.
And precisely because that connection is real,
I cannot ignore what threatens Israel’s moral integrity.
Much of the world’s attention has been fixed on the war in Gaza —
often with an intensity that feels disproportionate and,
at times,
singularly focused.
And yet,
alongside that war,
there has been a documented rise in extremist settler violence in the West Bank that disproportionately harms Palestinians.
According to The Times of Israel,
in 2024, the IDF recorded 682 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence perpetrated by Jews against Palestinians in the West Bank.
In 2025, that number surged to 867 incidents.
Based on data from Israel’s own security establishment,
there have been multiple arson attacks by Jews targeting Palestinian property, including Jewish extremists recently breaking into a mosque and setting Muslim holy books on fire.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Jews setting fire to a Muslim house of worship.
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If we are devastated —
as we should be —
when synagogues are vandalized or burned in places like Jackson, Mississippi,
then we cannot look away when Jews desecrate a mosque in the West Bank.
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Mishpat does not bend around our tribal loyalties.
These are not policy disagreements.
These are criminal acts committed by Jews against Palestinians.
They undermine the rule of law.
And they violate the Torah’s demand for justice.
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Naming that is not anti-Israel.
It is pro-Israel in the deepest sense.
Because a Jewish state cannot endure if Jewish power is severed from Jewish ethics.
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The Torah knows something about us.
It knows that even mishpatim —
even the obvious laws —
require reinforcement.
So it adds memory.
“Because you know the nefesh of the stranger.”
Because you were strangers.
Because empathy is not automatic.
It must be activated.
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Rules matter.
Law matters.
But law without memory becomes cruelty.
Law without empathy becomes oppression.
That is why the Torah triples down.
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And so yes — I am a rule follower.
Not because rules are about control.
But because at their best, they are about protection.
The laws of Mishpatim exist to protect the vulnerable from the powerful.
And when we find ourselves holding power — even in moments when we also feel vulnerable — we need that reminder most of all.
Because vulnerability does not exempt us from responsibility. It deepens it.
And I also want to say this.
Many Jews in this country — and around the world — are feeling like strangers again.
There has been a rise in antisemitism that is real.
People feel it in their schools,
on campuses,
online,
in public spaces.
We would be naïve not to acknowledge that fear.
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But the Torah’s memory of Egypt was never meant to turn us inward.
It was meant to steady us.
Feeling vulnerable does not give us permission to abandon empathy.
It reminds us why empathy matters.
Our history does not exist to harden us.
It exists to humanize us.
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May we be a people who love our countries enough to tell them the truth.
May we never allow fear (our own, or others’) to dull our empathy.
May we hold fast to mishpat — to justice that is not only rational but compassionate.
And in moments when we feel like strangers again, may we remember that we know this story.
And may we choose – again and again – to write it differently.