Emor and Defying bad laws / אמר און אַקעגנשטעלן זיך שלעכטע חוקים
The only way to "meet the moment" is through material action
This is a weekly series
of parsha dvarim written by a frum, atheist, transsexual anarchist. It's crucial in these times that we resist the narrative that Zionism owns Judaism. Our texts are rich—sometimes opaque, but absolutely teeming with wisdom and fierce debate. It's the work of each generation to extricate meaning from our cultural and religious inheritance. I aim to offer comment which is true to the source material (i.e. doesn't invert or invent meaning to make us more comfortable) and uses Torah like a light to reflect on our modern times.
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Content note: Fascism; sexism; ableism; the death penalty
If I'm honest, I believe most of us are failing the moment.
Fascism is here.
Most "actions" against it are planned arrests as failed bids to get media attention. Maybe I live in a bubble, but I think "raising awareness" is unhelpful: most people are aware of the erosion of our civil liberties, the raids on activists' houses, the trumped-up charges of "terrorism", the deportations, and the genocide in Palestine. People who are not aware are committed to ignorance.
It's our duty to actively resist it and undermine fascism. Our halakhik inheritance with this parsha is to find ways to stop violence, even when violence is decreed from Hashem. Kol v'khomer—how much more so—when the decrees come from presidents and judges.
Parsha summary
Hashem gives Moishe more rules for the ritual purity of the Kohanim: they may only have selective contact with the dead; they must marry virgins; if a Koheyn has a physical "defect" (מוּם) like blindness, he is not fit to offer certain sacrifices, giving us difficult questions about disability and ritual participation.
This parsha also contains verses we read in shul on every yontif, because it lists all the yom tovim: Shabos, Peysakh, Shavuos, Rosh Hashono, Yom Kipur, and Sukos. We're instructed to count the Omer (remember that tonight!).
We're given legal punishments for transgressions: an eye for an eye, restitution for a killed animal, the death penalty for murder. All of these criminal laws and punishments are ripe for analysis, but I'm especially interested in the death penalties for harlotry (burning) and blasphemy (stoning).
Death by stoning and burning are both quite extreme punishments (the Rabbis argue back and forth about which is more severe). Difficult verses might compel us to change the subject and talk about nicer things like Jewish time, or leaving the corners of our fields for the hungry stranger, or how we care for the dead. These are subjects worthy of discussion, but I think it's insulting to shy away from the ugly parts of our text and history. Shying away enables fascism.
One method of engagement is to find loopholes to avoid fulfilling commandments which we know are wrong.
Art by William Blake: "Satan, Sin, and Death: Satan Comes to the Gates of Hell" in a collection of illustrations of Milton's Paradise Lost, the Butts set, London, 1808; The Whore of Babylon", London, 1809.
Harlotry
Vayikro 21:9
Rashi defines a harlot, or זנה, as "a woman who had sexual intercourse with an Israelite who is forbidden to her as a husband". The Rabbis clarify that a daughter of a Koheyn is only eligible for the death penalty by fire if she is already married, but not if she is simply betrothed—and that a betrothed woman who commits adultery, whether the daughter of a Koheyn or not, is sentenced to death not by fire but by stoning.
But, sentencing any woman to death for adultery requires either two witnesses (more on that below) or, failing that, a ritual called "bitter waters", described later in Torah (Bmidbar 5:12–31). The accused must make an oath before a Koheyn, drink water mixed with dust, and is only found guilty if it "causes [her] thigh to sag and [her] belly to distend". This elaborate ceremony is a means of avoiding hurting women, and exonerating them from the jealousy of their husbands.
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Blasphemy
The parsha ends with the story of a blasphemer who takes the Name in vain. Hashem tells Moishe that the witnesses and community leaders are to stone him to death.
Vayikro 24:23
The Israelites know that the blasphemer has sinned, but they don't know the penalty for such an aveyra until Hashem tells them to stone him.
It's clear from the text that we are commanded to kill people who blaspheme. But the Sages determined that blasphemy is only punishable by death if the ineffable name of G-d, the Tetragrammaton, is spoken. Because it is impossible to commit the crime of saying Hashem's name out loud, we are released of the punitive obligation.
An aside: on the same page of Sanhedrin (56a) the euphemism of "blessing" to mean "curse" reveals something interesting about Jewish thinking. In Yiddish you can "bless" someone like, "אַ פֿאַרמעגן זאָלסטו פֿאַרדינען און באַצאָלן דײַנע דאָקטאָרס" ("That you should make a fortune and pay your doctors.") In Hebrew and Yiddish we recognize that some of Hashem's blessings are undesirable. We are chosen—chosen to suffer.
Another example of an obligation from Torah to hurt people is the genocide of Amalekites ("you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven"), which we avoid by declaring that Amalekites no longer exist. There is consensus that we cannot use that line as a justification for murder, even if someone claimed to be a descendant of Amalek.
אָמַר רַב כָּהֲנָא: סַנְהֶדְרִי שֶׁרָאוּ כּוּלָּן לְחוֹבָה – פּוֹטְרִין אוֹתוֹ.
Rav Kahana says: In a Sanhedrin where all the judges saw fit to convict the defendant in a case of capital law, they acquit him.
In Jewish law, convicting and sentencing someone to death is deliberately very difficult. The standard for witnesses is high. There must be two witnesses to the crime, and the judges must hear testimony directly from them; interpreters are not permitted. The penalty for bearing false witness is also severe: for example, maliciously claiming that a woman committed adultery is punished by stoning. The court must be a Sanhedrin of at least 23 people. If all judges see fit to convict, the defendant is acquitted because they clearly didn't have adequate legal representation.
While these limitations on capital punishment are sometimes undermined—Maimonides and the Shulkhn Arukh provide exceptions for the sake of public order and quelling rampant sinfulness, which to my mind are not sufficient bases—the framework of stringency to prevent us from causing harm is instructive.
Moishe argues with Hashem on a few occasions, but he doesn't advocate for the blasphemer.
Why does Hashem create, enable, and sometimes go so far as to insist on violence? Why is Moishe's intervention—his pleas for mercy upon his people—selective?
The question of why Torah is written this way is less interesting to me than what we do about it now. I'm disturbed when other Jews use Torah's harsh decrees to hurt people. But our Sages try very hard not to kill. By their example, we are instructed in ignoring bad laws in favor of mercy and life.
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מיר וועלן זיי איבערלעבן
