Terms are not innocent, objective tools, but often carry within them assumptions of older scholarship. Since the answer to any question already lies, to a certain degree, within the question itself, the conclusions we give birth to become the offspring of the language we use. Terminology is pregnant with meaning often unnoticed in the analytical process, which it nevertheless controls from within. Rethinking the way we speak may therefore result in the discovery of new landscapes.
A cursory Google search on ‘Judaism and intermarriage’ suggests a monolithic forbiddance of the practice within Judaism and uniform disgust for this stance from those outside the tradition. On the one hand, Orthodox and Hasidic websites host articles and books such …show more content…
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks claims that the commandment to not oppress a stranger “[leaps] off the page by [its] sheer moral power.” He grounds this commandment in its theological-historical context, quoting Baba Metsia 59B from the Bavli, which reminds us that the Torah “warns against the wronging of a ger in thirty-six places; other say, in forty-six places.” He also quotes Ramban, who situates the commandment to love the stranger in Jews’ former status as strangers in the land of Egypt. As Rabbi Sacks posits “You know the heart of the stranger because you were once a stranger in the land of Egypt… [G-d] made you into the world’s archetypal strangers so that you would fight for the rights of strangers.” On the discursive history of the term ger, he reminds us that the Tanakh never precisely defines this word. Other words used in the Bible such as zar or nochri convey a stronger sense of the ‘alien,’ whereas ger comes to signify “one who is not an Israelite by birth but who has come to live, on a long term basis, within Israelite society.” Rabbi Sacks clarifies that the oral tradition designates two types of ger: the ger tzedek, or convert, and the ger toshav, someone who agrees to keep the seven Noahide laws upon coming to live in the land of Israel. This term is often translated as ‘resident
A cursory Google search on ‘Judaism and intermarriage’ suggests a monolithic forbiddance of the practice within Judaism and uniform disgust for this stance from those outside the tradition. On the one hand, Orthodox and Hasidic websites host articles and books such …show more content…
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks claims that the commandment to not oppress a stranger “[leaps] off the page by [its] sheer moral power.” He grounds this commandment in its theological-historical context, quoting Baba Metsia 59B from the Bavli, which reminds us that the Torah “warns against the wronging of a ger in thirty-six places; other say, in forty-six places.” He also quotes Ramban, who situates the commandment to love the stranger in Jews’ former status as strangers in the land of Egypt. As Rabbi Sacks posits “You know the heart of the stranger because you were once a stranger in the land of Egypt… [G-d] made you into the world’s archetypal strangers so that you would fight for the rights of strangers.” On the discursive history of the term ger, he reminds us that the Tanakh never precisely defines this word. Other words used in the Bible such as zar or nochri convey a stronger sense of the ‘alien,’ whereas ger comes to signify “one who is not an Israelite by birth but who has come to live, on a long term basis, within Israelite society.” Rabbi Sacks clarifies that the oral tradition designates two types of ger: the ger tzedek, or convert, and the ger toshav, someone who agrees to keep the seven Noahide laws upon coming to live in the land of Israel. This term is often translated as ‘resident