Parasha: Emor · Aliyah: Seventh (Malchut)

צו את בני ישראל, "command the children of Israel, etc." Why is this the appropriate place in the Torah to acquaint us with the rules of the oil for the Candlestick and the manner in which it is to be lit? We also need to explain why the procedures involving the Table have to be written at this juncture. After all, the Torah has dealt with those subjects when it described the construction of the Tabernacle! We shall leave aside Rashi's comment as we do not consider his words as adequate to answer the problem we have raised. Nachmanides wrote that at that time the olive oil which the princes had donated when the materials for the Tabernacle were being collected had come to an end. This is mere speculation, there is no supporting evidence for this assumption.

Perhaps the fact that the Torah here deals with commandments whose common denominator is the number seven, i.e. 7 days of Passover, 7 days of Tabernacles, the New Year and Day of Atonement which occur in the 7th month, prompted the Torah to add laws about the 7-armed Candlestick. The procedures involving the Table also have a mystical dimension involving the number seven, seeing the Torah speaks about two rows of six breads (verse 6). When you add the table itself to the respective rows of 6 showbreads you have the number seven. The number seven is always considered as completing a cycle. You also had the legislation of the Omer in this portion; that commandment also involved the counting of seven times seven days, i.e. seven weeks. You have a reference to the commandment of the Sabbath, another commandment which features the number seven. We may therefore assume that the Torah was interested in mentioning all the commandments featuring the number seven in one portion.

It is also possible that the laws pertaining to the Candlestick were written adjoining the legislation about the festival of Tabernacles to teach us some lessons about the difference between physical and spiritual light. G'd neither needs the light of the Candlestick to illuminate the Tabernacle for Him, nor did the Jewish people travel through the desert for 40 years using physical light (compare Torat Kohanim on the words מחוץ לפרוכת in verse 3). The ענני הכבוד, the clouds of glory i.e. the שכינה, illuminated the way for the Jewish people and the shade they provided actually screened out the sunlight during all those years (compare Tossaphot on Shabbat. 22,B). It follows that the commandment to light the Candlestick daily was only for the sake of the dividing curtain which was so called as it provided testimony for the nations of the world that G'd's presence resided within the camp of the Jewish people.

ויצא בן אשה ישראלית, The son of a Jewish woman went out, etc. We must understand the meaning of the expression ויצא as analogous to the way Tanchuma understood the same word when the Torah described the emergence of the golden calf in Exodus 32,24. Tanchuma defined the word as describing an unplanned occurrence, i.e. the emergence of the golden calf from that crucible was totally unexpected. We may therefore relate to the portion of the מקלל, the blasphemer, as the ultimate result of an act by the mother which was totally outside her consciousness. Shemot Rabbah 1,28 describes that the Egyptian overseer killed by Moses once entered the house of his victim pretending to be her husband and slept with her. The child born from that union developed into the blasphemer who is the subject of our verse. This is the reason the Torah describes the mother as אשה ישראלית, comparing her to איש הישראלי, to tell us that her guilt in this matter was no greater than the guilt of the איש הישראלי, i.e. she was free from guilt. The Torah goes on to write בתוך בני ישראל, to inform us that there were no ממזרים, bastards, amongst the Jewish people, i.e. children from unions who may not marry Israelites.

We may also deduce from the word ויצא that the Israelites were not prepared to allocate space to that individual in their respective parts of the encampment, each one claiming that he did not belong there. Torat Kohanim write that the manner in which the Torah introduces the blasphemer indicates that he had converted to Judaism. [seeing he was born before the Torah was given, he was not automatically Jewish due to his having a Jewish mother. Ed.] Both commentaries are perfectly true and compatible with Torah principles.

ואיש הישראלי. and the Jewish man. It is possible that the reason the Torah does not disclose the name of this man is that it was he who caused the name of G'd to be blasphemed by the son of the Jewish woman, Shlomit bat Divri. G'd is not anxious to condemn a person, especially not in a book such as the Torah which will be read for all future generations so that a dishonourable mention is especially painful to the party concerned.

Furthermore, the Torah wanted to reveal that the substance of the quarrel between these two men concerned the difference between being known as merely "the son of a Jewish woman," and being known as "the son of a Jew." The wording of the Torah comprises all that our sages have said about the substance of this quarrel in Vayikra Rabbah 32,3, some saying the quarrel was about the showbread legislation, the blasphemer ridiculing it. Others say that the quarrel centred about whether the blasphemer was a member of the Jewish people, and if so if he could claim membership of a particular tribe. The Torah did not bother to be specific and mention his name as it did not make any difference in the end.

ושם אמו, and the name of his mother, etc. Why was the name of this woman only mentioned here instead of at the time her existence was mentioned in verse 10 prior to the confrontation of her son with Moses? One may answer this in either one of two ways. 1) It reflects credit upon her seeing the Torah wrote: "they brought him to Moses, whereas the name of his mother was Shlomit." This implies that his mother was one of those who brought the blasphemer to Moses to be judged. 2) Mention of Shlomit at this stage reflects discredit upon her. Had it not been for the fact that others brought the blasphemer to Moses for judgment his mother could have remained anonymous. The general tenor of the story indicates that the blasphemer's mother could not overcome her feelings of pity for her son. The Torah teaches the lesson which we learned in Proverbs 12,10 that compassion for the wicked is actually an act of cruelty. The Torah discloses the name of the woman who had been foolish enough to display such feelings for her son the blasphemer. The fact that the Torah also reveals the name of her tribe is an indication that members of a tribe have a tendency to be protective of members of that tribe. This is why the Midrash we quoted earlier stated that when a person disgraces himself he also disgraces his tribe.

כגר כאזרת, convert and natural-born Israelite alike. The Torah did not write: הגר כאזרח, "the convert himself is equal to the natural-born Israelite." The reason is that in the scale of relative degrees of sanctity the convert ranks below the natural-born Israelite. The wording the Torah did use relates only to both categories of Israelites being equal before the law.

ובני ישראל עשו כאשר צוה השם. The children of Israel did as G'd commanded. Why did the Torah write that the children of Israel did what G'd commanded after it had already reported in the first part of the verse that they took the blasphemer out of the camp and executed him by stoning him? Seeing that the cause of this execution was a quarrel between a Jew and the son of a Jewess, one could have argued that though the judgment was carried out, many people harboured reservations in their hearts about this execution. The Torah therefore repeats that the children of Israel did what G'd commanded to indicate that their motivation was to carry out G'd's commandment.

Alternatively, the Torah wished to give credit to the whole people for having fulfilled this commandment although it was obviously impossible for the entire nation to physically participate in this execution.

The Torah may even go beyond this and credit the whole people with having fulfilled all the commandments because they all identified with this execution. This is why the line is couched in general terms, the Torah not specifying which command of G'd the people had fulfilled.

It is also possible that the Torah had to write this line seeing that the command to execute the blasphemer had been addressed to Moses, G'd addressing him in the singular and saying (verse 14) "take the blasphemer outside the camp and have all those who heard his blasphemy place their hands upon his head and the whole congregation shall stone him." According to that verse we thought that whereas Moses was only to take the blasphemer outside, the entire people had to execute him. Here the Torah wrote: "they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him to death." The verse makes the people the whole subject. The Torah now proceeds to praise Israel for not having waited until Moses took the blasphemer outside the camp; they did so themselves and proceeded to complete the commandment to execute him. If we adopt the previous ways of interpreting the verse the word הוצא "take out" which G'd said to Moses may be understood to mean that either Moses or the people were to do this.