We are not two, we are one
- Dave Davies (The Kinks)
(כד) אִם־כֶּ֣סֶף ׀ תַּלְוֶ֣ה אֶת־עַמִּ֗י אֶת־הֶֽעָנִי֙ עִמָּ֔ךְ לֹא־תִהְיֶ֥ה ל֖וֹ כְּנֹשֶׁ֑ה לֹֽא־תְשִׂימ֥וּן עָלָ֖יו נֶֽשֶׁךְ׃ (כה) אִם־חָבֹ֥ל תַּחְבֹּ֖ל שַׂלְמַ֣ת רֵעֶ֑ךָ עַד־בֹּ֥א הַשֶּׁ֖מֶשׁ תְּשִׁיבֶ֥נּוּ לֽוֹ׃ (כו) כִּ֣י הִ֤וא כְסוּתֹה֙ לְבַדָּ֔הּ הִ֥וא שִׂמְלָת֖וֹ לְעֹר֑וֹ בַּמֶּ֣ה יִשְׁכָּ֔ב וְהָיָה֙ כִּֽי־יִצְעַ֣ק אֵלַ֔י וְשָׁמַעְתִּ֖י כִּֽי־חַנּ֥וּן אָֽנִי׃ {ס}
(20) You shall not wrong (לֹא־תוֹנֶה) or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (21) You shall not ill-treat (לֹ֥א תְעַנּֽוּן) any widow or orphan. (22) If you do mistreat them (אִם־עַנֵּ֥ה תְעַנֶּה), I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me, (23) and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you (וְהָרַגְתִּי אֶתְכֶם) to the sword, and your own wives shall become widows and your children orphans.(24) If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor; exact no interest from them. (25) If you take your neighbor’s garment (שַׂלְמַת רֵעֶךָ) in pledge, you must return it before the sun sets; (26) it is the only available clothing (שִׂמְלָתוֹ)—it is what covers the skin. In what else shall [your neighbor] sleep? Therefore, if that person cries out to Me, I will pay heed, for I am compassionate.
(ט) וְגֵר לֹא תִלְחָץ וְאַתֶּם יְדַעְתֶּם אֶת נֶפֶשׁ הַגֵּר כִּי גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
And a stranger shall you not oppress; for you know the soul of a stranger (יְדַעְתֶּם אֶת נֶפֶשׁ הַגֵּר), for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Even though the debtor cannot complain to Me about you, seeing he owes you repayment for a loan, if he nonetheless cries out to Me complaining about his economic situation which causes him to be practically naked seeing you took his clothing as security for his overdue loan, I will give him part of what I had intended to give you as recognition of your supplying his needs. If you had been granted more financial means than you needed, the only reason was so that you could use your excess to assist the needy. I will therefore display My compassion for anyone who has no one else to turn to. It is in your own interest then to demonstrate your compassion by returning his pledge to him when he is in need of it. If you will do this you will ensure that I will not withdraw My compassion from you. This, in turn, will enable you to extend loans to other needy people.
On one level, of course, the Torah is appealing to the collective memory of the Jewish people: the formative story around which we orient our collective life is about our harrowing sojourn in Egypt and our eventual miraculous redemption by God. We should not oppress the stranger because we as a people remember what oppression can mean. But I would argue that we should also individually personalize the Torah’s demand that we remember. Each of us is obligated, in the course of our lives, to remember times when we have been exploited or abused by those who had power over us. (Such experiences are blessedly rare for some people. Tragically, they are part of the daily bread of others.) From these experiences, the Torah tells us, we are to learn compassion and kindness.
The way we act toward "others" is shaped by how we imagine them...This is true even when the person is a friend or acquaintance; the problem is further magnified with the person is a stranger or "foreigner."
Our injuring of others...results from our failure to know them...The human capacity to injure other people has always been much greater than its ability to imagine other people. Or perhaps we should say, the human capacity to injure other people is very great precisely because our capacity to imagine other people is very small.
Some time after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen.
[Moses] set his eyes and mind to share in their distress.