Emor – Sticks and Stones May Hurt My Bones But Words Will Never Harm Me

Parshat Emor

“Sticks and Stones May Hurt My Bones
But Words Will Never Harm Me”

By: Rabbi Jeffrey H. Miller and Rabbi Avi Miller

 

Parshat Emor contains – by Rambam’s count – fifty six of the 613 Mitzvot enumerated in Torah, including such diverse ones as:

• The prohibition of a Kohen going to funerals or cemeteries for anyone except relatives (Lev. 21:1);
• The prohibition of slaughtering an animal and her offspring on the same day (Lev. 22:28); and
• The commandment to use ritually a Lulav and Etrog on Sukkot (Lev. 23:40).

Snuck into this collection of miscellaneous laws is the peculiar incident of a man who is described by the Torah as half-Jewish on his mother’s side (Lev. 24:10).  This unnamed man, the son of Shelomith bat Dibri and an unnamed Egyptian guy, quarreled with another unnamed man who was apparently a full-fledged Jew.  What they fought about was beside the point since the Torah omitted it from the narrative (Id.).  Immediately after (or perhaps during) the argument, the half-Jew uttered God’s Ineffable Name, sending a spiritual shock wave through the Israelite camp.  The offender was placed under arrest (Lev. 24:12) until God Himself Pronounced Judgment:

Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and all who heard [his blasphemy] shall lean their hands on his head.  And the entire community shall stone him.

הוֹצֵ֣א אֶת־הַֽמְקַלֵּ֗ל אֶל־מִחוּץ֙ לַמַּֽחֲנֶ֔ה וְסָמְכ֧וּ כָל־הַשֹּֽׁמְעִ֛ים אֶת־יְדֵיהֶ֖ם עַל־רֹאשׁ֑וֹ וְרָֽגְמ֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ כָּל־הָֽעֵדָֽה:

God then repeats to Moshe the Law of blasphemy (along with a few other random laws) before the Torah concludes with a description of the death penalty imposed (Lev. 24:23):

…So they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him, and the children of Israel did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

וַיּוֹצִ֣יאוּ אֶת־הַֽמְקַלֵּ֗ל אֶל־מִחוּץ֙ לַמַּֽחֲנֶ֔ה וַיִּרְגְּמ֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ אָ֑בֶן וּבְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל עָשׂ֔וּ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה ה אֶת־משֶֽׁה:

 

The Problems

As with many Biblical stories, the incident of the blasphemer becomes more curious as we apply critical thinking to it.  Let’s focus on four textual difficulties:

1. The Half-Jewish Lineage:

One is either Jewish or not.  There is no such thing as being anything less than 100% Jewish.  The Torah explicitly states that our protagonist had a Jewish mother and he chose his Jewish roots by joining with his mother’s family on the arduous journey to freedom.  In fact, the Talmud (Baba Metzia 58b) frowns upon drawing attention to someone’s non-Jewish lineage:

אם הוא בן גרים לא יאמר לו זכור מעשה אבותיך, שנאמר וגר לא תונה ולא תלחצנו

Why then did the Torah make what seems to be a gratuitous negative reference (twice in two successive verses) to his non-Jewish father?

2. Moshe Needs Help Deciding:

We learned in Parshat Yitro that after he completed a forty-day (and night) crash course in Torah and Halacha, Moshe Rabbeinu spent much of his time adjudicating disputes.  However, Moshe seemed unsteady and needed to consult with God about what to do with blasphemer^[1] even though the law seemed rather straightforward.  The prohibition of blasphemy is, after all, one of the seven universal, Noachide laws (see, Sanhedrin 56b).  Taking God’s name “in vain” is also important enough to be ranked as number three on the Ten Commandments.

How is then that Moshe did not know that the blasphemer was to be executed for his crime?

3. The Ceremony of the Hands:

Why were the witnesses ordered to place their hands upon the head of the blasphemer?  The only other Torah-example of hands being placed on someone’s head is when Moshe transferred leadership to Joshua (Num. 24:18ff):

The Lord said to Moses, “Take for yourself Joshua the son of Nun, a man of spirit, and you shall lay your hand upon him	וַיֹּ֨אמֶר ה אֶל־משֶׁ֗ה קַח־לְךָ֙ אֶת־יְהוֹשֻׁ֣עַ בִּן־נ֔וּן אִ֖ישׁ אֲשֶׁר־ר֣וּחַ בּ֑וֹ וְסָֽמַכְתָּ֥ אֶת־יָֽדְךָ֖ עָלָֽיו:
You shall bestow some of your majesty upon him so that all the congregation of the children of Israel will take heed.	ְנָֽתַתָּ֥ה מֵהֽוֹדְךָ֖ עָלָ֑יו לְמַ֣עַן יִשְׁמְע֔וּ כָּל־עֲדַ֖ת בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל:

The placing one’s hands on the head/shoulders of an animal is also a prominent part of the sacrificial ceremony, symbolically transferring our sins to the animal.  What was the meaning of it in the context of the blasphemer?

4. HaShem is a Reluctant Judge

It is only after the people bring the matter to Moshe Rabbeinu – who then calls upon God – does God issue His verdict.  Why didn’t God Himself exact punishment against the blasphemer at the outset?  He was, after all, the Target of the verbal assault?  That God can and does exact Retribution for sins against Him is not all that uncommon.  Back in Parshat Sh’mini, God caused a fire to emanate for the unsanctioned sacrifices of Nadav and Avihu, consuming Aaron’s wayward sons (Lev. 10:1-2).  Why was this blasphemer treated differently by God?

One Solution

By comingling several Rabbinic texts and traditions, we can gain nuance, insight, and even some sympathy for the blasphemer.  Let’s start with who his parents were.

According to the midrash (Vayikra Rabba 32), one day, during the time of slavery, an Egyptian taskmaster ‘hooked up’ with a married Jewish woman while her husband was out of the house.  Our blasphemer was conceived during that sexual union.  Later that day, when the husband found out, he angrily stood up to the Egyptian.  A heated fight ensued just as Moshe was passing by.  Moshe looked around; he saw that no one else was there to either intervene or to witness his intervention, and so he killed the Egyptian man.  The outline of this story appears in Parshat Shemot soon after we are introduced to Moshe (Shemot 2:11-12).

Of course, in the #metoo era, it’s fair to say that the relationship between Jewish woman and her Egyptian taskmaster must be considered in the context of the unequal power dynamic between them.  Unfortunately, for the Midrash Rabba and Rashi, she bore at least some responsibility by being overly flirtatious and friendly.

In any event, the boy was raised by his mother, where he experienced slavery, plagues and the fight for freedom from the Jewish part of town.  Why then did Rashi still describe him as a convert?  Ramban offered two suggestions.  The child was not quite Jewish because he we born during the pre-Sinai period when patrilineal decent still held sway.  Ramban also suggests that the boy converted just like the rest of the Jews by undergoing the communal circumcision and standing at Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah.  According to this alternate explanation, the mention of his Egyptian roots was a testament to his embrace of God and Israel.

He could not, however, escape the harsh reality of his complicated family roots.  According to the midrash (cited at length by Rashi), the man tried to set up his home in the portion set aside for the tribe of Dan among his cousins.  They objected, arguing that the same letter of the law that considered him Jewish also rendered him tribe-less since tribal affiliation was still determined by the father.

The Zohar elaborated further on the intra-tribal dispute.  It suggested that the woman’s Jewish husband was so enraged by her liaison with the Egyptian man that he divorced her.  He then remarried and fathered sons.  It was these boys who objected to the presence of their father’s ex-wife’s son in the camp.  They didn’t stop there, though.  They reminded him caustically that he was the illegitimate product of a cruel Egyptian taskmaster and an unfaithful woman.

They also shamed him by reminding him that his own father had been killed by none other than Moshe Rabbeinu himself.  Moreover, Moshe had done so in spectacular fashion by employing the power of God’s Unspoken Name! (מדרש אגדה (בובר) שמות פרשת שמות פרק ב סימן יב)

Now we can understand why the Torah omitted the specifics about the dispute.  On its face, it was a straightforward legal argument about property rights and who can claim membership in the tribe of Dan.  This dispute could easily have been resolved by a simple examination of the Biblical code.  But like many legal disputes, the real fight was rooted in a very personal and dysfunctional relationship.

The matter came before Moshe Rabbeinu, who looked only at the legal aspect of the dispute.  Drawing upon Num. 2:2, אִ֣ישׁ עַל־דִּגְל֤וֹ בְאֹתֹת֙ לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֔ם, Moshe Rabbeinu held that the protagonist could not encamp with Dan.  As a result, our man without a name also became a man without a country.  He was alone.

In anger and frustration, he cursed God and the Torah that caused him so much pain.  By uttering the same Unspoken Name that had killed his father years earlier, he also broke with his Jewish roots once and for all.  He took the fateful step to separate himself from the Jewish people only after his brethren couldn’t find room in their hearts for him.

Now we can also understand why Moshe was at a loss to adjudicate the subsequent capital case.  Moshe Rabbeinu was intimately involved in the litigation that led this man to sin.  Moreover, he had a personal connection with the man’s father.

However, it gets even more personal and painful for Moshe when we consider the Egyptian man’s death.  The Torah recounts that when Moshe killed the Egyptian,

He turned this way and that way, and he saw that there was no man; so he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

וַיִּ֤פֶן כֹּה֙ וָכֹ֔ה וַיַּ֖רְא כִּ֣י אֵ֣ין אִ֑ישׁ וַיַּךְ֙ אֶת־הַמִּצְרִ֔י וַיִּטְמְנֵ֖הוּ בַּחֽוֹל

The plain meaning is that Moshe acted secretly and buried the corpse.  But according to the midrash (Shemot Rabbah 1:29), Moshe did not just look around to see who may be watching.  He also glimpsed into the future and saw that none worthwhile would descend from the Egyptian.

Relying of this prophetic vision, Moshe washed his hands of this boy.  Why waste time and energy on a boy whose destiny was preordained?  Believing that nothing worthwhile could emerge from him, the child was cast aside and left rudderless.  The boy’s fate was thus sealed even before he was born.  He grew up without an adult male teach him and protect him.  He grew up bullied and shunned, scorned and alone.  He was an outlier.  He grew up knowing that Moshe Rabbeinu considered him worthless.  It’s no wonder the sons of Dan did not want him as a neighbor.

Moshe was now painfully aware that he played an instrumental role in this self-fulfilling prophesy.  As a result, he could not be a dispassionate dispenser of justice this time.  God, who previously Gave Moshe the gift of prophesy, now took away Moshe’s knowledge of a simple law as a rebuke for his insensitivity.

We can also appreciate the Divine Command that the witnesses had to place their hands on the blasphemer’s head.  When Moshe performs this intimate act with Joshua, he is bestowing, transferring and conferring some of the Spirit of God onto his favored disciple.  Conversely, when the witnesses to the blasphemy – the man’s own family (or his mother’s ex-husband’s children) – were commanded to rest their hands on the blasphemer’s head, they were symbolically sharing in his crime and punishment.  True, they did not curse God, but they rejected their brother and violated cardinal rule of Torah: show kindness to an innocent.  A direct line can and must be drawn from the mistreatment of the bullied boy who grew to be a blasphemer.

Perhaps we can infer from the fact that God did not Act on His own acord that He was prepared to overlook the blasphemer’s sin.  After all, as the Aggrieved Party, it was certainly within His Right to Forgive the man who had suffered so grievously.  However, the incident ceased being a local, small dispute; it circulated widely through the nation and was brought to the judicial bench of Moshe Rabbeinu.  At that point, the rule of law, however imperfect, had to prevail.

By including this anecdote in the Torah, HaShem taught that the blasphemer was wrong and his punishment was ‘just’.  The Torah lets us know that angry people – even those with justified rage at the world and society – cannot take the law into their own hands.  Society must triumph over anarchy and chaos.

But at the same time, God made sure that everyone knew that there was plenty of blame to go around.

Shabbat Shalom!

 

[1]. There are six episodes in Torah were Moshe Rabbeinu is unsure about matters of law and/or policy.  Lev 10:16ff, Lev. 24:11ff, Num. 9:6ff, Num. 15:32ff, Num. 25:6, Num. 27:1.