On Loving the Stranger
Reflections on four days of intercultural encounters in the City of Canals.
This piece was originally going to be about anti-Semitism, as since the start of the war in Israel and Gaza it has been a new constant in my life. But I really don’t want to fall into self-pity, nor have my personal hardships be seen as trying to eclipse the worse fates currently suffered by many peoples the world over. I would much rather provide something constructive than yet another litany of woe, of which the internet is full enough.
Over the past two years, life has afforded me several opportunities to travel to different countries, always with groups of strangers from a wide range of cultures and creeds. These journeys have given me the chance to think about the peculiar richness that can be gleaned from intercultural interactions.
I return, from my latest journey to Venice, truly moved, shaken even from the strength of the contrast between the difficulties I’ve been experiencing at home over the last few months and the gentle, open and inquisitive atmosphere I found in the City of Canals.
I spent four days there as part of an EU-funded project I’m coordinating. Our hosts in Venice organised a series of activities centred around the promotion of freedom, equality and other EU values. But beyond the official programming, I was able to enjoy tender moments of connection with the other participants. A single example: I sat in a multilingual library with a fellow Catalan Jew, an Andalusian, two Afghan Hazaras and two Protestant Dutch folk (one a pastor), where we read each other children’s stories in our different languages: Persian, Urdu, Spanish, Dutch and Hebrew. There was something magical in seeing a group of adults listening in attentive silence to the familiar singsong melody of children’s literature told in words we couldn’t understand.
I want to prelude these reflections by saying I don’t believe in interfaith dialogue on a theological level. To me, the notion that people of different religions should be made to sit together and talk about their practices and spiritual life feels like a poor, infantilising view of religion. Furthermore, it draws from the old trope that religion inevitably leads to war and conflict, and that if religious people would only realise they’re all talking about the same thing with different words, then the world would be a better place.
This is condescending at best. The similarities between religions, insofar as they can be found, are merely superficial and can be attributed to the fact that we all belong to the same species and navigate this world using the same biological and psychological toolkit. Every relationship with God, even within a single religion, is unique insofar as it belongs strictly to the realm of the intimate and, as such, does not lend itself to standardisation or universalisation. The moment we articulate an intimate feeling, we necessarily dress it up to make it cognisable in public; the quintessence of intimacy can only exist inside us.
However, as established earlier, intercultural encounters can be one of the most enriching experiences life has to offer. One would think that in a globalised world we would benefit from their fruits daily. But I believe the current rise of nationalisms, protectionist economies, racism, far-right policies and totalitarian trends indicate that we are failing at learning to be different together.
Some think the cause of this phenomenon was that we transitioned to a global market too fast and are now naturally reeling. I see something else: globalisation was defined by economic relationships as opposed to interpersonal relationships. We never learnt to be different together. We let the market level us all out and turn us into equal, faceless consumers where what we can consume and produce matter more than our cultural particularities. Now, as people work daily on their personal brand, they yearn for their lost collective identities. Globalisation could have been an opportunity to learn to be different together and instead we all cast aside our differences to better adjust ourselves to the expectations of those who sought to sell us a product or service.
One time I was putting the world to rights with a friend, asking myself what I would like to do with my life, and she asked me what it is I like to do the most. The answer rose to my lips without me giving it a moment’s thought: I like to make people uncomfortable.
Feeling uncomfortable is the acknowledgement of inadequacy, and this is the first step towards creating all things of lasting value in life, that is, acting in a way that benefits not only us but those around us. To apply this to intercultural encounters, people who see you or a member of a different race or religion and don’t feel uncomfortable but feel something more concrete - such as fear, anger, admiration or envy - are stereotyping you and have no real interest in your life as an individual. But if they feel uncomfortable, that is a sign they are doubting, and doubt is fertile soil for knowledge. At this point, when despite feeling uncomfortable, they push on and engage in dialogue, they open up to the experience of the Stranger.
For this to happen we need predisposition. Not predisposition to compare or understand, for both those attitudes are condescension. No, we need predisposition to feel uncomfortable, and as a society we need to create safe spaces where people can feel uncomfortable, where they can reach out to the Stranger and in so doing confront themselves and open the floodgates to meaningful action.
Time and time again I remember the Torah’s commandment to love the stranger. It’s a commandment so important it is repeated three times with different wordings. Exodus 23:9: “You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Leviticus 19:33: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.” Leviticus 19:34: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”
The first two are negative commandments (do not oppress, do not wrong) and the third one is a positive (love). So it is not enough to afford the Stranger dignity, we cannot ignore them. Why? Because we have all been strangers at some point. We all know what it feels like to be alone. We must not only make them feel welcome, but reach out and seek a degree of intimate knowledge. To learn to be different together. To become friends.
There is indeed a chemistry in connecting with the Stranger quite similar to that of love. Sometimes it’s brief and flickering; sometimes it’s long and languorous. Love exists almost without consideration to the specific aspects of a person's biography. It is a fascination that overrides every crease and prejudice. That's why in love everything seems possible; to tap into it is to transcend the hard facts of reality.
However, it is dizzying to wonder what was meant by “love” in the times of the Torah. What kind of love are we talking about? Infatuation? Desire? Brotherly love? All we have to hold onto is the Hebrew verb le’ehov, the same verb used to describe the way man is told to love God: “You shall love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
Earlier I stressed the intimate nature of man’s relationship with God. Perhaps this is the blueprint to follow when loving the Stranger. To invite them into a space of intimacy. Not focusing on our differences, but on what we have in common: the passions of the heart, the thoughts of the mind, the delights of the senses.
When we find our common humanity we are able to stand on it as if on a bridge we have built over the chasm that separates our different backgrounds and calmly converse while marvelling at the vistas that unfold around us, which are nothing less than the vastness of the world we don't know. This is the world as seen by God; in the eyes of God, there are no strangers. It is Man who makes the Stranger, but that doesn’t mean we cannot aspire to equilibrium.
Like listening to children’s stories in a foreign language, we don’t need to fully understand the Stranger’s experience to acknowledge its sacredness. Sometimes, to love the Stranger, it is enough to simply be there by their side and listen in silence.