The Episode of the Blasphemer

 

                              

In Parashat Emor Vayikra (Leviticus), 21:1-24:23, we are told about a son of an “Yisraelite woman” and “Egyptian man” who quarrelled with an Yisraelite man (24:10). Torah continues and shares with us that “The son of the Yisraelite woman pronounced the name of G-d, cursing Him... His mother’s name was Shelomit bat Divri of the tribe of Dan” (24:11-12).

The sinner is detained and upon G-d’s directive, he is put to death by stoning

Following the event, G-d speaks to Moshe and orders him, “You must speak to Bnei Yisrael, saying: ‘Any man who curses his G-d must bear his sin. One who pronounces the proper name of G-d while cursing it must be put to death. The entire community will stone him to death. Whether he is a convert or a native Yisraelite, if he pronounces the Divine Name as part of his curse, he must be put to death” (24:15-16).

Who is this “blasphemer” whose name is not mentioned other than his being the son of an “Yisraelite woman and the son of an Egyptian man?” What was the dispute about? Why did he curse G-d?

This story, as it seems, is one case where Jewish sages diverged on how “dramatically” they read the account.

Rash”i, for instance, brings a Midrashic explanation with a few key ideas. He draws his interpretation from Midrash Tanchuma and Vayikra Rabbah. Using these sources, Rash”i focuses on why the Torah emphasizes the man’s mixed parentage. Midrash Vayikra Rabbah (32:3), offers that the “Egyptian father” is the same Egyptian who was killed by Moshe in Shemot (Exodus) 2:12, after the latter witnessed him beating a Hebrew man. According to Midrash Tanchuma (Emor 24), that Egyptian disguised himself as Datan, the husband of Shelomit bat Divri, entered her room when Datan was absent and assaulted her. The child born from that union is the blasphemer in our Parashah.

Rash”i further explains that this man tried to “pitch his tent” among the tribe of Dan, his mother’s tribe. Unfortunately for him, tribal identity followed the father’s line. The court, therefore, ruled against him. Out of frustration, anger and humiliation, Rash”i asserts, he escalated from a personal dispute to blasphemy.

Unlike Rash”i, Ramba”n and Ibn Ezra do not lean on the Midrashic approach. Rather, they read the story in a straightforward manner. For them the key issue is legal identity and do not see any need for a backstory drama or link the event to a morally tainted origin story that happened in Egypt. Like Rash”i, they believe that the blasphemy is the result of social dislocation and legal rejection.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks reads the episode quite differently from the classical commentators mentioned above. Though like Rash”i and Ramba”n, Sacks notes that the Torah’s detailing of the man’s parentage is unusual. Unlike Rashi, he doesn’t focus on who his father was and unlike Ramba”n, he doesn’t center on the legal technicality of tribal placement. Rather, Sacks dwells on what the story says about identity, belonging and speech. For Sacks, the episode reflects human and social tension.

Rabbi Sacks takes it further, psychologically. In his view, the sinner lived with a fractured and unresolved identity, torn between two worlds. On the one hand, he was inside the camp yet not fully accepted. In a way, Sacks uses the Midrashic backstory to frame a modern psychological and social lesson about the dangers of exclusion and humiliation and how the anger and frustration they create can lead to desecration of the most sacred, in this case, the Divine Name.

Sacks believes that “One law shall be for you, for the stranger as for the native” (24:22) tells us about the kind of society the Torah is trying to build. He points to this verse, as the Torah’s own concluding lesson on the event, one that demands equal justice even for those whose origins make them social outcasts.