The Stranger

The skittles comment made comparing them to Syrian refugees in an attempt to explain the United States’ problem in determining whether to allow refugees in to the country received quite the attention apparently today.  I’m no expert on how we determine whether or not a Syrian refugee should be considered dangerous, but it seems outrageous that we would simply ignore the fact that 11 million people have been forced out of their homes and are in need of help just because there may be some that are dangerous.  To me it would be like refusing to ever ride in a car because there is a 1 in 6700 chance that at some point in my life I might die from a car crash.  As Elder Kearon encouraged us, we must “focus on the people who have been driven from their homes and their countries by wars that they had no hand in starting.”  There has to be more ways that as a nation we can help the plight of these millions of people—especially the women and children.  Europe is overflowing with refugees—with well over one million claiming asylum in 2015 alone (with Syrian refugees by far the biggest contributor), and yet all we could do in the United States in the past year is admit about 6700.  We have, apparently 39 percent of the worlds wealth and yet we are clearly not doing our share in helping those people whose plight has been seared in our minds by the blood stained little boy named Omran from Aleppo. 

                This reminds me of the passages in the Law of Moses concerning strangers from which I think we could learn.  The Israelites were told, “Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9).  Those who were strangers among them were not to be mistreated since the children of Israel themselves had been strangers in Egypt.  The Israelites were also to help provide food for the strangers among them: “And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:10).  So the Lord required that they leave food in their fields that could be gathered by those without anything, including the strangers.  On another occasion they were commanded similarly: “Neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 23:22).  But it wasn’t just that the strangers were to receive the scraps in the field; the children of Israel were told: “But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:34).  We should treat those among us who might be considered strangers as “one born among” us.  Like the children of Israel, we too should help both those who are one of our own and those who are strangers: “And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee” (Leviticus 25:35).  I certainly don’t have the answers to some of the difficult political questions surrounding refugees, but surely we can do more to “relieve” those who have “waxen poor” and kicked out of their homes due to no fault of their own.