Emor 5767 – Gilayon #494
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Parshat Emor
AND MOSES TOLD [ALL THIS] TO
THE CHILDREN OF
SO THEY TOOK THE BLASPHEMER OUTSIDE THE CAMP AND STONED HIM, AND THE CHILDREN
OF
DID JUST AS THE LORD HAD COMMANDED MOSES.
(Vayikra 24:23)
The place of execution had to be outside the Israelite camp (Sanhedrin 42b, "outside the three camps"),
outside the city. If the law court itself was outside the city, the place of
execution had to be some distance away from it, so that it should not appear as
if the court considered its highest attribute to be "the sword of justice."
Altogether the essential character of the criminal court was to direct its
efforts to finding reasons for freeing the accused rather than for pronouncing
him guilty. The verdict of "guilty" was already before the court in
the warning of the accusing witnesses and the real task before the court was to
test and examine this pronounced sentence, and to find out if there were not
some mitigating reasons for a "not guilty" verdict. Another reason,
given there, for having the place of execution at a distance from the court is
so that some time must elapse between the pronouncement and the carrying out of
the sentence (the sentence had to be carried out immediately after the verdict), in which time some fresh reason for reconsidering the verdict
might arrive. For while the condemned man was being taken away a man stood at
the door of the court with a flag in hand, and a mounted messenger was posted
just within sight; should one of the judges find some
fresh reason in favor of the criminal, the one waved his flag and the other
galloped off at full speed and held up the proceedings. More, even if the
condemned man himself, on the way to the execution, declared he had something
fresh for his defense, he was taken back even four or five times provided that,
in the opinion of the two judges who accompanied him for this very eventuality,
there was some foundation, however slight, for his assertion.
(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Vayikra 24:14)
Ezekiel's Words
Contradict the Words of the Torah
Yehuda Pinchover
The haftorah for parashat Emor comes from the Book
of Ezekiel and, like the parasha, it deals with the
commandments for which the priests were obligated. The haftorah
presents us with a great difficulty that was already discussed by the Gemara:
Rabbi Yehudah said
in the name of Rav: However a certain man is
well-remembered – Hananya ben
Hizkiya was his name. If it weren't for him the book
of Ezekiel would have been hidden away, since its words contradict the words of
the Torah. What did he do? They sent three hundred flasks of oil up to him and
he sat in an attic and explained them [away]. (Shabbat
13b)
Hananya burnt the
oil for light so that he could sit in the attic, studying day and night. We are
not told how Hananya ben Hezkiya solved all of the halakhic
contradictions in Ezekiel, but his tremendous efforts bore fruit and that
wonderful book was not hidden away.
Let us now examine some of the halakhic contradictions found in the Book of Ezekiel. A
comparison of Ezekiel's laws of the priests that appear in our haftorah with those written in our parasha
reveals that Ezekiel ben Buzi
– himself a priest – usually gave stricter rulings than did the Torah itself.
A. The Torah only
prohibits the High Priest from marrying a widow; it does allow a regular priest
to do so. Ezekiel does not differentiate between a regular priest and the High
Priest, and writes:
And
neither a widow nor a divorced woman may they take for wives, but they shall
take virgins from the descendants of the House of
B. There
it also is written:
…also
the widow who is only a widow, some of the priests may marry. (Ezekiel 44:22)
In
contrast, we find our parasha saying the following
about a regular priest:
They
shall not marry a woman who is a prostitute or who is desecrated, and they
shall not marry a woman who is divorced from her husband for he [the priest] is
holy to his God. (Vayikra
21:7)
However, such a priest may marry any widow. In
contrast, the Torah will not allow a High Priest marry anyone but a virgin:
A
widow, a divorcee, a woman who is desecrated or a prostitute he shall not marry
[any] of these. Only a virgin of his people may he take as a wife. (Vayikra21:14)
C. Even though the priestly garb was kilayim – mixed wool and linen – Ezekiel writes:
And
it shall be, when they enter the gates of the
linen garments and no wool shall be upon them when they minister the gates of
the
and within. (44:17)
D. Ezekiel says in connection with
purification from the ritual impurity resulting from contact with a corpse:
And
after his purification they shall count seven days for him. (44:26)
In contrast, the Torah makes no mention of
the seven days following purification, but rather sets out the process thus:
On the third and seventh days, he shall
cleanse himself with it, so that he can become purified. (Bamidbar 19:12)
E. Concerning forbidden foods, Ezekiel
writes:
Anything
that has died of itself or is fatally wounded, whether it be
bird or beast, the priests may not eat. (44:31)
Are we to understand that all other
Israelites are permitted to eat carrion?
F. Communal sacrifices: Ezekiel states that a
bull should be sacrificed as a sin offering on the New Moon, while the Torah
has it that the bull sacrificed on the New Moon was a burnt offering.
G. According to Ezekiel, seven bulls, seven
rams, and a goat are to be sacrificed on Sukkot,
while the Torah specifies thirteen bulls, two rams, fourteen sheep, and a goat
as an offering of thanksgiving.
H. Ezekiel makes no mention at all of the
festivals of Shemini Atzeret
or the final day of Passover.
I. Ezekiel says that the Tamid
offering is offered only in the morning; he also cites laws of the libation and
of the meal offering that are at odds with the Torah's statements.
J. There is also substantial lack of
agreement concerning the communal meal offering [minhat
ha'tzibur] and the voluntary offering [nedava].
I shall not cite the Sages' attempts to solve
these salient contradictions. R. Yehudah and R. Yohanan offer an interesting solution: "Elijah will
explain this passage in the future" (Menahot 45a). That is to say: they admit our
inability to solve the contradictions but they have faith that the day will
come when "The Tishbi [Elijah] will come and
solve difficult questions and problems." In other words, we must not
struggle to propose forced interpretation in an effort to overcome these clear
difficulties. The perplexed of the generation will not accept such
explanations; they may even generate rejection. We must learn and teach that
sometimes we must live with problems whose solutions are unknown to us – and
with the possibility that there may be no solutions. This idea may be
illustrated by a fundamental and revolutionary theorem of mathematical logic – Kurt
Gödel's incompleteness theorem – which claims that in any sufficiently
rich logical system there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved.
On the other hand, the approach that requires
the hiding away or censorship of materials from our tradition that seem at odds
with prevailing views has been generally destructive. I believe that in our
actual world – as opposed to the ideal world of mathematics – we must learn to occasionally
live with contradictions.
Indeed, how fortunate it is that the Sages
managed to avoid hiding away the Book of Ezekiel and that this book lays before
us as part of Scripture despite the difficulties it raises.
I shall demonstrate this with three of Ezekiel's revolutionary ideas that bear
special importance in our day:
1. About two years ago, around a month before
the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, I traveled to Gush Katif
before its settlements were uprooted. We visited the
in Kfar Darom, where the
guide began explaining that the local settlers were guided by a motto taken
from Ezekiel (16:6):
And
I passed by you and saw you downtrodden with your blood, and I said to you,
'With your blood, live,' and I said to you, 'With your blood, live.'
I responded: Indeed these are the words of
Ezekiel, but that same prophet wrote the following harsh words which we should
also not forget:
Now
the word of the Lord came to me, saying: "Son of man, the dwellers of
these ruins on the soil of
speak, saying: Abraham was one, and he inherited the land, and we are many-the
land has [surely] been given to us for an inheritance. Therefore, say to them:
So said the Lord God, You eat on the blood and you raise your eyes to your
pagan deities, and you shed blood-and you should inherit the land? You stood on
your sword, you committed abominations, and you contaminated each man his
neighbor's wife, and you should inherit the land? (33:23-26)
In the haftorah for Parashat HaHodesh we read of
Ezekiel's complaint against
leaders. It reads as if it were written for our generation:
So
said the Lord God: Enough, princes of
plunder, and perform justice and righteousness; take away your evictions from My people, says the Lord God. You shall have honest scales,
an honest ephah, and an honest bath [a unit of measure].
(45:9)
Latter we find:
But the prince may not take of the
people's inheritance to force them out of their possessions, only from his own
possessions shall he give his sons inheritance, so that My people not be
scattered each man from his inheritance. (46:18)
3. We must be thankful for Ezekiel's doctrine
of reward and punishment, even if it does not easily accommodate the ideas
found in the Thirteen Divine Attributes or the Ten Commandments. Ezekiel claims
that it is possible for any sinner to repent and gain complete atonement:
The
soul that sins, it shall die; a son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,
and a father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the
righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon
himself. And if the wicked man repent of all his sins that he has committed and
keeps all My laws and executes justice and
righteousness, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions
that he has committed shall not be remembered regarding him: through his
righteousness that he has done he shall live. Do I desire the death of the
wicked? says the Lord God. Is it not rather in his
repenting of his ways that he may live?(18:20-23)
And as stated in the Gemara:
They asked wisdom: What is the sinner's
punishment? They were told: Evil
will pursue the sinners (Proverbs 13:21). They asked prophecy: What is the sinner's
punishment? It told them: The soul that sins, it shall die. They asked
the Holy One blessed be He: What is the sinner's punishment? He told them: Let
him repent and he shall receive atonement, as it is written: The Lord is
good and upright, therefore he shows sinners the way (Psalms 25:8) – he shows sinners the way to repent. (J. Makkot
2:4)
RaMBaM explains the
verse from Psalms thus:
It
refers to the fact that God sent them prophets to teach them the ways of the
Lord and bring them back in repentance; furthermore, that He endowed them with
the capacity of learning and understanding. For it is characteristic of every
human being that, when his interest is engaged in the ways of wisdom and
righteousness, he longs for these ways and is eager to follow them. (Hilkhot
Teshuva 6:10, Hyamson
translation)
Happy are we to merit hearing the words of
the prophet Ezekiel, a prophet of truth and justice who taught the world the
ways of truth. May we continue in the paths of his wisdom and justice, seeking
and pursuing them.
Yehudah Pinchover is a founder of Netivot
Shalom.
All Torah that is without Labor…: Rabbis Yishmael and Shimon bar Yohai
The Rabbis taught: And you shall gather in
your new grain (Devarim 11: 14) – what does this teach us?
Since it is said, Let not this book of
Torah cease from your lips (Joshua 1:8) – [one might
wonder] should this be taken literally?
"We learn from the verse And you shall gather in your new grain – act
in accordance with the custom of the land [i.e., work for a living]";
these are the words of Rabbi Yishmael.
Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai says: "Can a man
plow in the season of plowing, sew seeds in the season for sowing, harvest in
the harvest season, thresh in the threshing season, winnow when it is windy –
what shall become of the Torah? Rather, when
is performed by others, for it is said, Strangers shall stand and pasture
your flocks (Isaiah
61:5). But when
perform God's will, they have to do their own work for themselves, for it is
said, and you shall gather in your new grain. Not only that, but they
have to do the work of others, for it is said, and you shall serve your
enemies (Devarim 28:48)." Abbayeiy said: "Many did as Rabbi Yishmael [said] – and succeeded, as Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai [said] – and they did not succeed."
(Berakhot
35b)
On Delusions and False Messiahs
[After] Bar Koziba
(Bar Kokhba) reigned for two and a half years, he
said to the Rabbis: "I am the Messiah."
They told him: "It is written that the Messiah will be able to pass
judgment by sense of smell, let us see if he can pass judgment by sense of
smell." When they saw that he could not pass judgment by sense of smell –
they [the Romans] killed him.
(Sanhedrin 93b)
A kokhav [star]
rises from Jacob
23:17) – do not say kokhav, say kozev
[disappointer].When Rabbi Akiva
saw Bar Koziva (Bar Kokhba),
he said: "That is King Messiah."
Rabbi Yohanan ben Torata said to him: "Akiva!
Grass will be growing from your cheeks and he will have yet to arrive."
(Eikhah
Rabbah 2)
Do not think that King Messiah will have to perform signs and wonders,
bring anything new into being, revive the dead, or do similar things. It is not
so. Rabbi Akiva was a great sage, a teacher of the Mishnah, yet he was also the armor-bearer of Ben Kozba. He affirmed that the later was King Messiah; he and
all the wise men of his generation shared this belief until Ben Koziba was slain in [his] iniquity, when it became known
that he was not (the Messiah). Yet the rabbis had not asked him for a sign or
token. The general principle is: this Law of ours with its statutes and
ordinances (is not subject to change). It is forever and all eternity; it is
not to be added to or to be taken away from.
(RaMBaM
Hilkhot Melakhim
11:3, English from pg. 223 of Twerskey's A Maimonides Reader)
As the Sojourner, So
Shall The Native Be
You shall have
one standard of judgment – Equal judgment for all of you.
(Bavli,
Bava Kama 84a)
As the sojourner, so
shall the native be – Just as I demand reparation for the native, so do I
demand reparation for the stranger and his beast.
(Hizkuni,
Vayikra 24:22)
For I the Lord am
your God. – Lord of both the stranger and the citizen, no preferential
treatment of the affluent over the indigent.
(Seforno,
Vayikra 24:22)
As
the sojourner, so shall the native be – The alien who comes from a
foreign land and who is separated from his land is termed a ger,
related to the word gargir – a berry –
which is separated from the tree. One whose ancestors are from the same city is
called an ezrah – as in (Psalms 37:35) Well-rooted
like a robust native tree (ezrah =
native tree) resembling a plant planted year ago. Thus the Torah is saying
that justice should be equal for all.
For I the Lord am
your God. If you do indeed render justice equally, then – I the Lord
am your God. From the positive we infer the negative, for whoever does not
apply the same standard in justice discards His divinity and denies the basic
principle. It is well-known that all beliefs and laws of the nations are
commentary on the Torah, and the rules of the Torah are basic principles of
Torah. Ignoring them is a desecration of His Name. Whoever has it in his power
to protest, but does not, desecrates the Name and exhibits respect for
idolaters, and demeans the Instruction of Moses, and causes the loss of Jewish
money. For the entire world is dependent upon laws.
(Rabeinu
Behayey, Vayikra 24:22)
As
the sojourner, so the native
It does not say the
sojourner as the native, for that would imply that the level of the
sojourner is beneath that of the native, for the lesser is dependent upon the
greater. Therefore it says As the sojourner
as the native – meaning: The native like the sojourner and the sojourner
as the native. They are equal before the law.
(Ohr HaHayyim,
Vayikra, 24:22)
Why was the Torah given
in the desert? To inform us: Just as the desert is ownerless, free for all, so
the words of Torah are free for whoever wants to learn. So that no one should
say "I am a Son of Torah, and Torah was given to me and to my fathers, and
you and your fathers were not Sons of Torah, but your fathers were
strangers". Therefore it is written (Devarim 33) An inheritance of the assembly of Jacob
– whoever assembles in Jacob, even sojourners who engage in Torah study are
equal to the High Priest, as is written (Vayikra 18) Which when a human does them, he
lives by means of them, I am the Lord. – It does not say 'Priest', 'Levite',
and 'Israelite', but rather human. Therefore, One instruction, one
law shall there be for you (Bamidbar 15:16).
(Tanhuma, Vayakhel, 8)
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