Vengeance and God’s Ways: Emor

Vengeance and God’s Ways

D’var Torah for Parashat Emor

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Couched within this week’s Torah portion, Emor (Leviticus 21:1—24:23), is a curious incident that involves a fight between two men.  One is an Israelite; the other is of mixed cultures—son of an Israelite woman but an Egyptian man.

It’s unclear what they fought about, but at a certain point the man born of two cultures curses God in the plain hearing of many witnesses.

The question of what to do with the blasphemer is brought up to Moses, who in turn refers it to the highest authority of all—God.  God decrees that the man be publicly executed by stoning.

Death by stoning was, in ancient cultures, the most public form of capital punishment. The particular crime leading to this penalty was understood to have been committed against the entire community; the entire community was thus expected to participate in the execution. 

It’s a peculiar coincidence that it this week that we read of this incident, in the immediate wake of the heartbreaking bombings at the Boston Marathon and the almost-surreal manhunt for the perpetrators.  When it became apparent that one of the alleged culprits was caught alive, a whole legal discussion began:  How is he to be treated?  Should he be “mirandized?” Would he be tried as a US citizen?  Would the bombing be viewed as an act of internal terrorism—or as yet another example of fundamentalist Islamic-inspired terrorism sweeping over the whole world?

In the heat of the moment, many thought of revenge.   Relying on a verse from this week’s portion (“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Lev. 24:18), their first impulse was to combine rage and pain with the instinctive need for immediate retribution.

One acquaintance went so far as to actually call for s’kilah—the public execution by stoning that Emor mandates. 

Thank God, the ancient Jewish laws concerning capital punishment changed rapidly (to the point where, by the year 0, any execution was illegalized by the early rabbis).  And yet, at least for those familiar with this week’s Torah portion, the concept was never far from mind or heart.

But was it really a similar sort of crime?

In Emor, there was a struggle between two men—and religion must have played a part, since the cultural chasm between them was considered important enough to include in the description of the fight.  But the final judgment had to do not with the fight itself or even with its unspecified result, but rather with the fact that the man of mixed culture cursed God in public.

What harm was caused to the public in this incident?  Why would this quarrel entail a public execution?  And is it really similar to the Marathon bombings?  After all, though religion did, apparently, play a part, the harm was not to God but to the many spectators who had gathered at the finish line.

My sixth-graders and I pondered these questions in class this week.  Did the alleged terrorists blaspheme against God?  Did they curse God?  And if so, would it not be up to God to assess the damage and impose the penalty?  How could the two attacks be comparable?

And yet, the parallels exist.

The Israelite camp had dedicated itself to God and to what they all agreed was holy.  The first part of the portion teaches about the holy days, why (and how) they must be celebrated.  Laws of ritual sancity are spelled out for the kohanim, the priests.  Laws detailing how the people must bring sacrifice to God are explained.  Lastly, a stern warning is issued reminding the people that our sacred responsibilities do not end with offering sacrifice to God.  Lev. 23:22 spells it out:  “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not completely harvest to the border of your field, and you shall not gather up the gleanings of your harvest.  You shall leave these for the poor and for the stranger.  I am Adonai your God.”

Compassion for the less advantaged in our society, taking care of the widow, the homeless and the orphaned children is a huge concept the Torah holds to be sacred obligation.

To curse or blaspheme God doesn’t mean only taking God’s name in vain, or even using it as a swear.  Rather, it is to go contrary to the commandment that dictates that we must act in a holy manner because of our sacred relationship with God.  To curse God means not only to raise your fist at heaven, but also to kill and maim women, children, unarmed men and innocent bystanders.

The Boston Marathon is held in celebration of America’s highest ideals, and many of these come straight from the Torah.  Education and enlightenment, healing the sick, providing for the needy, and above all providing food and shelter to the stranger and homeless—these are our sacred duties, responsibilities that Boston has championed from its very founding.

In a sense, what the terrorists did last April 15, Patriots’ Day, was to attack the very pillars of our existence, the very meaning and purpose of our heritage and culture.

And that IS cursing and blaspheming our God, the punishment for which—at least according to parashat Emor—is s’kilah, public execution by stoning.

Thank God, we no longer engage in this horrific sort of punishment.  Another concept Jews have taught the world is to hold life sacred.  All life; and that includes the life of vicious murderers.

Some may grumble and protest, but to take a life is contrary to our belief, and if it is done, it is done only after tremendous deliberation and soul-searching.  The rules couldn’t be more strict.

So what are we to do today?  How should the surviving perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing be dealt with?

In a word—justice.  Revenge is not our way.  As sweet as it is, revenge allays the pain for only a moment or two.  Complete investigation, lawfully conducted, must be the process we follow.  We’ve come a long way since the dictum of the Torah—which was never seen as final in the first place, but rather as a starting point for further discussion and interpretation.  That, too, is our way.

We don’t know what lies at the end of the road for Dzhokhar Tzarnaev.  Perhaps it will be the death penalty—permitted by U.S. federal law.  But it will not be through s’kilah, public stoning.  This may be the law still in some backwards countries, but not so with us.

Thank God.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman