Rabbi Menachem Creditor
In Jewish terms, the act of counting residents is
unambiguous: everyone matters.[1] Regarding the
individual – citizen and resident alien alike – the Torah frames the
governing power’s responsibility to count equally every person in its
jurisdiction by invoking its opposite: Egyptian slavery.[2] Just
as Jewish tradition outlines the responsibility of those in power to provide
adequate food, rest, and justice[3],
it also obligates residents who are not (yet) citizens to abide by the nation’s
covenantal laws.[4]
While the very category of ger (resident alien) indicates a legal
distinction between citizens and non-citizens, there is no difference in the
assertion of communal responsibility for both.[5]
The poor, the widow and the orphan of society are to be represented with
dignity. Judaism affirms that by counting everyone, we both distribute justice
ethically in our midst and we structurally remind ourselves that everyone
counts.
[1]
Ex. 22:20, 23:9; Lev. 19:33; Deut. 1:16, 10:18-19, 24:17, 19
[2] Lev.
19:34
[3]
see Exod. 20:10, 23:12; Lev. 19:9-10; 23:22; Deut. 5:14, 24:19-22, for some
examples.
[4]
Lev 24:16-22; Deut. 29:10
[5]
See Jeremiah 7:6; 22:3; Ezekiel 22:7, 29; Zechariah 7:10; Malachi 3:5 for some
prophetic responses to injustice perpetrated against resident aliens.
