Sounds like something straight out of X-Files! [cue haunting X-Files theme song]
I was sitting down to make a new installment of the Greatest Commandments hierarchy project this week, reviewing the commandments added by Kineti reader Nathan Tuggy.
(Nathan, by the way, is a rockstar programmer.
I sat down and reviewed commandment #14:
And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.
-Deuteronomy 10:19 (10:20 in Hebrew bibles)
Now, before I tell you how Judaism interprets this commandment, answer to youself, “what does this mean?” Yep. Go for a Joe Shmo’s simpleton interpretation for a moment.
Really. Answer it. Then scroll down.
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Did you answer it? Good.
Now here’s a prevailing interpretation of this commandment in Judaism:
“Be kind to the convert.”
Yep. Maimonides and other great and respected sages of Judaism claims this commandment means “be kind to the convert”.
Hrmmm.
If “alien” (or “sojourner” in some texts) is to mean “convert”, a literal reading would go like this:
And you are to love those who are [converts], for you yourselves were [converts] in Egypt.
It becomes a non-sequitur.
I know it is popular in Messianic Judaism to respect mainstream Judaism as an “essential point of reference”, and I am really hesitant to buck mainstream interpretation in favor of Joe Shmo’s plain English interpretation, but after having read some commentary and investigating several different translations, I think this is one of those times where Judaism’s traditional interpretation might just have it wrong here.
Maybe I’m missing something. Any comments from you fine blog readers?