Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Emor, which mostly contains more laws that apply only to priests: who they can marry, how to offer sacrifices, which relatives they are allowed to attend the burials for. It also contains the calendar of holidays bestowed upon the Israelites immediately upon their national formation: Shabbat, Passover, Shavuot (and the omer counting in between), Rosh HaShana (more or less), Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. Toward the end of the parasha, we get the second of the only two narrative pieces of the whole Book of Leviticus. Amongst the chapters upon chapters of priestly laws, there are two stories that break into the Torah narrative in this book: the death of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu, and the fight in this parasha between a fully-identified Israelite and a man with an Israelite mother and Egyptian father. 

As with many Biblical stories, this short tale is light on the details: 

There came out among the Israelites a man whose mother was Israelite and whose father was Egyptian. And a fight broke out in the camp between the son of an Israelite woman and a certain Israelite.

The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the Name in blasphemy, and he was brought to Moses—now his mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan—

and he was placed in custody, until the decision of HaShem should be made clear to them.

And HaShem spoke to Moses, saying:

Take the blasphemer outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing lay their hands upon his head, and let the community leadership stone him.

And to the Israelite people speak thus: Anyone who blasphemes God shall bear the guilt;

and one who also pronounces the Ineffable Name shall be put to death. The community leadership shall stone that person; stranger or citizen—having thus pronounced the Name—shall be put to death.

We don’t know where the man came out from, where he was going, why he fought with the man of uncomplicated Israelite heritage, or why he cursed at the Holy Name of God instead of at the man he was fighting. 

    Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg brings a host of Midrashim to answer these questions in her book The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus. According to one Midrash, the Egyptian father of the blasphemer took advantage of his position of power over the Israelite mother. Different sources recounting the same story vary her level of complicity, but in any case, the Egyptian has used his power to remove her husband from the picture and asserted himself over her. The blasphemer is no product of star-crossed lovers, but the result of rape. Another Midrash continues this storyline to suggest that the Egyptian taskmaster killed by Moses in the early chapters of Exodus is the blasphemer’s father, and the Israelite Moses sees him abusing is the rightful husband of the blasphemer’s mother. This is what the text means when Moses describes his abusive behavior “in the house and in the field,” - the Egyptian has assaulted the wife and is now beating the husband! Further, Rashi takes these pieces of early midrash and runs with them, fleshing out the sordid tale even more. When Exodus tells us that the day after Moses killed the Egyptian taskmaster, an Israelite says to him, “Do you say to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” this teaches us that Moses killed the Egyptian by uttering the Ineffable Name of God. This is why the punishment for blasphemy in this week’s portion is death, and the verse immediately following this tale is the commandment for a “life for a life.” The very name of God holds the power of Life and Death. 

    Rashi includes one last detail that brings all these midrashic explanations of this week’s Torah tale together: The son of the Israelite woman and Egyptian man had tried to pitch his tent in the midst of the encampment of the Tribe of Dan. But he had been told that he may not do so, as the norm in the camp was to settle according to the flags of the fathers. Moses ruled in favor of upholding the norm, and did not make concession for the man of mixed heritage to camp with his Israelite brethren. Moses has killed his father, and now does not allow him to camp with his mother’s people, and in the man’s sorrow and frustration with his life, he curses God, invoking the Holy Name just as Moses had done when he killed the man’s father. And yet, the man finds that though no one dies (the Israelite he is fighting with is also brought into custody after the fight, so he is apparently unharmed), the full force of the law comes down upon him. 

The Torah tells us here that there shall be no difference between Israelite and the mixed multitudes in the law of blasphemy, but it appears that there is a discrepancy. One could argue that the law had not yet been given when Moses used the holy name, but Zornberg points out that the law has not yet been given at this time either. We have been given some commandments at this point, and “You Shall Not Take the Lord’s Name in Vain,” could be interpreted as a prohibition against blasphemy, but the specifics around cursing with God’s name have not really been determined until this case arises. This man is the precedent for which all future blasphemy cases will be decided. Zornberg tells us that the very point of including this traumatic and terse story in the Torah is for its purpose in future case law, just as so much of our later rabbinic texts are. 

For me, one question remains largely unanswered by Zornberg’s commentary. What exactly is the cause of the difference between this man and Moses? Is it simply that Moses is, well, Moses?! Is it that this man is only “a half-breed,” as Zornberg repeatedly calls him? Is it specifically that his father is the non-Israelite, in a patrilineal society? It seems obvious that the issue of the man’s parentage is relevant to the narrative and narrator in some sense, because they mention it three times while never actually naming the man. The Midrash certainly highlights the particular issue of which parent is non-Israelite, but in the Torah itself it is not clear to me that a man with an Egyptian mother and Israelite father would not also be singled out in a similar way should he overstep the cultural norm. Unfortunately, the debate about Jewish parentage continues to this day. 

The Talmud is clear that the Jewish community may not call attention to the conversion of a Jew-by-choice or ask the Jew-by-choice about their families of origin (unless they initiate such conversation). Zornberg even reinforces this rabbinic commandment with regard to the blasphemer, who has clearly chosen to identify with the Tribe of Dan over settling with the “mixed multitudes” who may share complicated heritages with him. In her personal midrash, the Israelite who fights him has called out the man’s mixed heritage and called attention to a less-Israelite past, explicitly against halakha. And yet, anyone who has ever ventured onto Jewish Twitter will see constant, ongoing, virulent debates about the ethnic nature of Judaism and the validity of “conversions.” I have heard from Jews-by-choice (and Jews of color, regardless of their actual background) that this sort of thing also happens in synagogues constantly, though I must admit I’ve never personally witnessed such a transgression to someone’s face. Even well-meaning pluralists and those wishing to bring progressive Jewish education to the masses mistep. Just recently, a notable modern yeshiva dedicated to egalitarian traditional learning advertised that a fellowship was open to applicants with “two Jewish parents” or who have undergone formal conversion. Their explanation when faced with backlash, was that this was an attempt to side-step the debate about matrilineal vs. patrilineal descent. Instead, the wording of this advertisement simply wrote out the entire large swaths of the Jewish population that come from interfaith families. In the end, the language for the fellowship was changed, and the institute insisted upon its traditional definitions of Judaism, that the application was in fact open to matrilineal Jews with non-Jewish fathers, or those who have undergone formal conversion. 

This definition was also the requirement of my pluralistic rabbinical school, requiring me to go to the mikveh and “convert” after 25 years of being raised Jewish, becoming a Bat Mitzvah, being Confirmed, teaching in my Hebrew School, going to Jewish camp. The State of Israel has mixed rulings on the question of Jewish heritage. One Jewish grandparent is enough to qualify for the Right of Return for olim status by the state government, but since the Orthodox Rabbinate controls domestic law, one must have a recognized Jewish mother to be married or buried in the Holy Land. I told a classmate in rabbinical school once, during yet another frustrating conversation on the topic, “I have three Jewish grandparents, but I have the wrong one non-Jewish grandparent for too many in the Jewish world.” She tried to console me, “You don’t have any wrong grandparents.” Let me be clear, I know that. Even though I never met most of my grandparents, I am proud of what I know of them, and have no shame around my ancestry. I certainly have no need to curse God about it. And yet, it would be a denial to gloss over the issues we still face as a people around the questions of parentage and Jewish identity. Also - I have it easy on this matter. I am white-skinned with thick enough brown hair, and although I have certainly gotten “You don’t look Jewish,” (whatever that means) or “Elizabeth isn’t a Jewish name” (there is literally another Rabbi Elizabeth Goldstein on the west coast, about 15 years older than me), I know I have not faced the level of gate-keeping many other Jews have faced. 

Finally, Zornberg connects the strife of the two men back to the verse from last week's parasha: "You shall love your fellow as yourself." In her reading, the "fully-identified" Israelite is the true protaginst whose world is disrupted by the intrusion of an outsider. But the meaning of the commandment to love our neighbor is to understand that the neighbor too is the protaginst in his own story. In any encounter with an Other, we are forced to face our own unconscious and our own attachments to the social order we're used to. Nothing is a given, but we take for granted our own cultural norms, and take as a challenge someone merely existing near us with different cultural norms. To rise above that feeling of defensiveness is required before we may love the Other. "Standing at the margins," Zornberg says, "can make one aware of and help to release one from the defensive postures of the insider." 

I will conclude with this quote rather than using it as a jumping off point for an even deeper dive into how trauma and existential dread has too often served to reinforce gatekeeping and oppressive behaviors in the Jewish community, because I think this D'var Torah has already gone on long enough. I pray that our place on the margins serves to remind us to be open-hearted, to serve in the big tent of the diverse Jewish community, and to demonstrate our love for each other through deeds rather than empty words. May all the mixed multitudes feel welcome among us, and may we celebrate the beauty of Jewish diversity. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.