Parasha: Kedoshim · Aliyah: Sixth (Yesod)

כי איש איש אשר יקלל, "for any man whatsoever who curses, etc." Why did the Torah commence this verse with the word כי, a word which indicates that the reason for something is to be found in what had been discussed previously? How is the fact that someone might curse his father or his mother related to what the Torah described in the previous verses? Moreover, why did the Torah have to repeat the word איש? Torat Kohanim claims that if the Torah had written the word איש only once I would have assumed that the prohibition applies only to males and not to females. As a result the Torah was forced to repeat the word איש איש to include everybody in this prohibition. This is most perplexing. Why would anyone have doubted that this commandment applies also to females? We have learned repeatedly that negative commandments apply equally to males and females and that the penalties are the same for both males and females (compare Baba Kama 15). If the Torah did not feel comfortable with the choice of the word איש, it could simply have written the word אדם and I would have known that both males and females were being addressed. Furthermore, why did the Torah repeat the words: "for he has cursed his father or his mother?"

I believe that the key to all this is in the previous commandment concerning someone who subjected a son or daughter to the cult of the fire-god Molech. In that instance the Torah was careful to make the culprit culpable only if he sacrificed "some of his own seed." Nothing was said about someone inducting someone else's offspring to the cult of that fire-god. According to that verse if someone sacrificed his brother, sister, or other relative to the fire-god he would not be punishable. In fact we have the following Baraitha in Sanhedrin 64 which states: "he is not guilty (of punishment) unless he committed this abomination with a direct descendant of his." Thus far the Baraitha. We have to explain why there should be a penalty for inducting one's offspring whereas doing the same thing with one's other relatives is not punishable. The reason may be that one's children are considered as if they were part of a person's assets. This is why there is a direct relationship between someone who sacrifices his possessions to an idol such as passing his child through the fires of the Molech cult. When one does a similar thing with people who are not considered as his possessions the idol to whom one presents such a sacrifice remains unimpressed When the idol remains unimpressed so does G'd; seeing one did not"sacrifice" his dearly beloved possessions to an alien deity. We know from Baba Metzia 7 that even when one sanctifies one's property for G'd one cannot do so unless one owns what one has sanctified. In view of all this a person may say that a father does not own his child outright seeing that the mother is an equal party. The Talmud in Niddah 31 tells us that father and mother are partners in the child they produce, the father having contributed the white (bloodcells) whereas the mother contributed the red (bloodcells). Seeing that this is so the father cannot be held totally responsible for the actions of his son because the son represents the mother's input also. After telling us of the punishment for a father who uses his son or daughter as an offering to the fire-god Molech, the Torah continues with איש איש אשר יקלל, saying מות יומת, such a son or daughter shall be executed. The Torah is careful to speak about cursing את אביו ואת אמו, i.e. either the father by himself or the mother by herself. Torat Kohanim explains that it suffices to curse either father or mother to incur the penalty prescribed. In other words, we do not apply the principle that seeing son and daughter are both composites of the input of both father and mother, that the mother's part (of the sinner) cannot be executed on account of a sin committed by the father's part of the sinner. The reason the son has to die is because he insulted either the father's or the mother's honour.

The Torah repeats אביו ואמו קלל, "he cursed his father or his mother," to tell us that anyone cursing father or mother automatically also cursed his other parent. This is so because each individual contains elements of both his father and his mother. This is a practical consequence of the statement of our sages in Berachot 24 אשתו כגופו, that one's wife is considered part of one's body.

Accordingly, it does not matter whether the sin is committed by either son or daughter or is committed against either one's son or one's daughter, the act is totally culpable, i.e. it is considered as if it had been committed by both the female and the male part of the human being who executed it. The words איש איש remind us of the fact that every individual is a composite of male and female input but that the Torah does not separate between them once they are part of one body. We are taught in Niddah 31 "when a woman experiences orgasm first she will give birth to a male child." This means that the female input determines the sex of the male child and that the male input determines the sex of the female child. As a result of this statement the Torah differentiates in the ritual impurity legislation applying to the mother depending on whether she gave birth to a male child or to a female child. This also demonstrates that the two partners who respectively beget or give birth to the child are not equal in all respects. This fact gave rise to the thought that fathers should not be executed when they use a son for the Molech cult, nor mothers when they use a daughter for that cult seeing a person is considered the product of his father or mother respectively rather than an independent entity. The Torah therefore had to repeat איש איש to ensure that we appreciate that the individual committing the sin is evaluated as an entity by itself, is not part of either mother or father when it comes to his culpability. Either a father or a mother using either son or daughter for the abomination described in our paragraph is fully liable for his or her respective sin.

Yalkut Shimoni item 619 on our verse interprets the word אביו, "his father," as excluding the grandfather from the death penalty if he uses his grandson as an offering for the Molech cult, and the word אמו as excluding the grandmother from that penalty if she does likewise. The Torah was very conscious that careless wording would lead to faulty conclusions on the part of the sages. Therefore the Torah wrote איש איש in the legislation about cursing father or mother so no one should interpret that the culpability extends only to אביו, "his father," and not to אביה, "her father," i.e. that if a daughter cursed her father she would not be culpable for her deed.

ושמרתם את כל חקותי, "And you shall observe all My statutes, etc. The reason the Torah had to repeat this verse although we have read it already in 18,26 is to urge us to ensure that the statutes do not become abolished in practice through failure of either oneself or others to observe them. Observance of the statutes insures that the land will not spew you out. If the community one lives in fails to protest non-observance of these חוקים by others one will still be subject to the land spewing out its inhabitants even if personally one had been meticulous in one's observance of Torah law.