Voices of WRJ: Parashat Mishpatim

by Dara Amram Parashat Mishpatim begins a section of the Torah, the Book of the Covenant. It expands upon last week’s Parashat Yitro and presents the basic laws comprising a just society.  This includes laws, ritual instructions, and moral exhortation. It starts by going right into the social justice code of the Torah. There are two understandings of our relationship between us and God. We undertake to accept God's laws, but we also accept a responsibility for the welfare of our fellow Jew. This week's parashah is the focus on that second responsibility, that of caring for each other. If we don't care for the welfare of the other, then we've failed to maintain our own social justice. The Torah is clearly telling us that we have a responsibility to include anyone into society even a Jew that we would have a reason to exclude. One trademark of a just society is how it treats strangers. A classic Biblical rationale for treating strangers properly is, “…you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  We can do this through having empathy for one another, envisioning the life of being strangers in Egypt, or remembering a time when you felt like a stranger in a situation. Rashi, cautions we should not treat the stranger differently from ourselves because we will find ourselves in situations where we may be a stranger. In other words, a just society doesn’t have a society with insiders and outsiders. The Torah reminds us 36 times to treat the stranger properly. Is a society in which everyone is an insider viable? In our sisterhoods and women’s group the answer is yes. We need to engage the women that are strangers to us. We need to reach outside of our comfort zone and think of new ways to engage the women that are missing from our groups. The one stranger you meet could be your next energetic volunteer or even your next sisterhood president! For some, meeting a new person comes easy and natural and for others this is difficult. It takes courage and risk on both sides to develop the relationship. In WRJ's "Three R’s of Membership" publication, we offer you tools and strategies to build your membership and ways to engage someone new to sisterhood. The three-part series is available on the WRJ website here. 2014 is here and the time is now to build your membership with new women with new programming that engages strangers that won’t be strangers for long. Dara Amram is a WRJ Board Member and WRJ Southeast District Vice President of Marketing and Communications in Atlanta, GA.