R. Shai Held: Loving the Stranger-Sojourner (Ger)

In addition to loving God and loving our neighbor, the Torah also commands us to love the stranger-sojourner (ger). This lecture delves into this surprising biblical mandate to love the stranger-sojourner and seeks to understand its relationship to more foundational ideas in Jewish theology, ethics, and spirituality. R. Shai considers questions like: Why does the God of the Torah love strangers-sojourners? How does a truly Torah-based society respond to its most vulnerable members? What is the relationship in our lives between our own memories of suffering and vulnerability and the ways we engage with others? Recorded in January 2026.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/HeldLovingTheStranger2026.pdf