The Ger: Zionism, Immigrant Justice, and Chrismukkah

This week’s parashah is called Vayeishev, after the first word of the portion. “And he [Jacob] settled…” (Genesis 37:1)

The root word is yashav, most literally “to sit”, and from there the secondary meanings of dwelling or settling down. It has the flavor of stability, an intent to ground oneself in place. In the context of our parashah, Jacob’s settling sets the context for the beginning of the Joseph story. 

But Ramban (13th century Spain) reads the whole verse closely and looks backward to the previous verse which concluded last week’s reading, about Esau choosing to dwell away from Jacob, in the land of Edom:

Now Jacob was settled in the land where his father had sojourned (root: ger), the land of Canaan (Genesis 37:1).

The meaning of the verse is that since Scripture had said that the chiefs of Esau dwelt in the land of their possessions (Genesis 36:43) — that is to say, the land which they took to themselves as a possession forever — it now says that Jacob, however, dwelt as his father had, as a stranger (ger) in a land which was not their own but which belonged to the Canaanites. The purport is to relate that they elected to dwell in the Chosen Land, and that God’s words to Abraham, That your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (Genesis 15:13), were fulfilled in them but not in Esau, for Jacob alone shall be called their progeny.

There are two startling interpretations Ramban offers here. 

First, when he quotes God’s words to Abraham, he is calling back to the original covenant. God promises a lot to Abraham’s descendents, but warns him that before fully inhabiting the Promised Land they will be strangers in a strange land, and fall into servitude for centuries. Most readings assume that the strange land is Egypt, where the Israelites will indeed be enslaved. But Ramban instead claims that the strange land is the Promised Land itself. Canaan is the location where Abraham’s descendents will live as the ger.

What is a ger? Rabbi Shai Held summarizes it this way: The “ger, commonly rendered as ‘stranger,’ ‘sojourner,’ ‘alien,’ or ‘foreigner,’ refers to a resident of the land who has no family or clan to look after him, and who is therefore vulnerable to social and economic exploitation” (Judaism is about Love). 

Or as Abraham ibn Ezra put it a thousand years earlier: 

In Hebrew a person who has a family is likened to a branch attached to its source. Therefore such an individual is called an ezrach, for the meaning of ezrach is a branch, as in a sprouting tree with many branches (ke-ezrach ra’anan) (Psalms 37:35). On the other hand, a stranger is termed ger in Hebrew from the word gargir (berry), for he is like a berry plucked from a branch. There are some unintelligent people who find this explanation farfetched. However, if they knew the meaning of each letter and its form then they would recognize the truth.

The second startling interpretation from Ramban, then, is saying that the way Jacob and his family inherit the covenant, in contrast to Esau, is by living without an outsized sense of possessiveness regarding the land. Even at a later time, when the Israelites are told to dispossess the Canaanites and possess the land fully themselves (Numbers 33:53), their own relationship to the land is qualified by their relationship to God. “The Land is Mine; you are but strangers (gerim) and residents with Me” (Leviticus 25:23). 

As Shai Held says, “Being a stranger is not just a historical memory from the past; it is an existential reality that is always also true in the present.”

~~~

There are at least three ways to apply these ideas to our moment in time. 

1. Settlers in modern Israel

It is hard for me to read Ramban’s comment and not immediately think about contemporary settlers in the West Bank and those who are pushing to resettle Gaza. This ideology of absolute claim to any land once promised by God feels like land-worship and not God-worship (remember, “the Land is Mine; you are but strangers with Me”). This excess of possessiveness belongs to the archetype of Esau, not of Jacob/Israel. 

What I find most interesting, though, is that Ramban himself is sometimes described as the “first Zionist”. After being forced into a disputation about the truth of Judaism versus Christianity in Spain, his safety was increasingly in question. Aware of the peril of being Jewish in hostile Christian Spain, he started to articulate a return to the land of Israel as a mitzvah. Eventually he himself left for Jerusalem at an old age, where he finished his Torah commentaries and helped build a synagogue that - although moved, rebuilt, destroyed, and rebuilt again - still exists today. 

Ramban embodies the complexity of diasporic vulnerability with a yearning for a real homeland. And embedded in his thought is a safeguard against the rabid idolatry of extreme nationalism. 

2. Immigrants in modern America

To speak of the ger is to be sensitive to the experience of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in our country. It is a given Jewishly that we cultivate empathy for anyone in a vulnerable situation. We may debate about the best policies but we do not demonize, dehumanize, or deny responsibility towards others. 

In a spiritual sense, we are all gerim. To be human is to be on the move (even if your family has been rooted in a place for generations). To be human is to yearn for solid ground in a world of impermanence. Kavana partner - and my thought partner in mussar and ethics -  Bruce Kochis pointed out to me that when we follow the value of “welcoming the stranger” (a trait exemplified by Abraham), we risk dividing the world into “us and them”, even with positive intent. Imagine working for immigrant justice with the humility of our own existential condition as a ger, and attunement to directing care and resources to those who are most materially vulnerable right now to that shared human experience. 

(If you are so moved to direct some end-of-year donations to refugee resettlement, Jewish Family Services of Seattle is a great choice!)

3. Jews in America

Finally, if there is anywhere that Jews have felt settled in Diaspora, it is the United States of America. And yet, the last year has more of us remembering our existential condition of being gerim. Do we belong here? Are we safe here? Where can we fully express ourselves? Feeling like a ger sometimes isn’t a failure of belonging, but a spiritual opportunity to remember deeper truths about Judaism, humanity, the world and its Creator. 

Hanukkah is nearly here - a holiday which originated in the land of Israel as a defiant attempt at cultural “purity” from Hellenistic Greek influence, and which today ironically derives a lot of its presence (and presents) from its proximity to Christmas. 

This year in particular, as Christmas and Hanukkah coincide (Chrismukkah), we will go through the intricate American Jewish dance of rejecting, embracing, and intertwining our heritage with larger cultural and religious rituals. It is a season where as an American Jew I feel the most fascinating, uncomfortable, and occasionally charming feelings of belonging and estrangement, of familiarity and wonder. 

May the winter season enlighten your own sense of belonging, and your own sense of sojourning. 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine