unorthodox torah
by William Finn


emor

The holy end of this holy portion of the holy Torah ends with the holy stoning of a blasphemer, who presumably wasn’t so holy. Isn’t this barbaric? Why should uttering God’s name merit the death sentence?

At the time of the giving of the Torah, people thought that God’s holy name held enormous power. There is a comment by Rashi that suggested that Moses murdered the Egyptian slave master by uttering God’s ineffable name.

The law against blasphemy was first applied to a specific person who had cursed God’s name. The ancient Israelites assumed that anyone who cursed God must be amoral if not crazy. They reacted to the blasphemer the same way a modern person would react to a psychopath wielding an atomic bomb. He’s unsafe! He has a powerful weapon! What will he do next?

This specific blasphemer had an interesting family history. His father was the Egyptian slave master killed by Moses. The Israelites may have been frightened that the blasphemer would use God’s name to kill Moses, which is how the prophet murdered his father.

The death penalty for the blasphemer makes more sense now. Just as a cop would shoot a criminal who refused to surrender his gun (or a nation attack a sociopathic dictator who supposedly has weapons of mass destruction), the people of Israel put to death an out-of-control person who had a deadly weapon.

Now, some of you are horrified. We are not a superstitious, primitive people. We believe in free speech. Words don’t kill people. We have risen above such barbarism.
This is wrong. We are not a better people than our ancestors. We are still barbarians. Words do kill.

If ever a man was killed by words, it was Yitzhak Rabin. I was in Israel before his assassination, and never in my entire life have I heard such slander. In everyday conversations, in Torah lessons, at prayer services, and even at weddings, Rabin was routinely characterized as a traitor, a dog, a murderer, a Nazi, and worse than a Nazi. Abusing Rabin became a sport, with competitors trying to surpass each other in describing him in the worst possible way. Yigal Amir may have pulled the trigger, but the gun was loaded and aimed by thousands of Jews uttering thousands of curses.

When Rabin was murdered, a horrified Israel angrily demanded an explanation from those who had defamed him. Their response was pathetic. “He started it first. We didn’t mean it. Our words were not responsible. Who would have thought a Jew would kill another Jew?” None of these are the proper answer for a people who claim to observe the Torah. Our rabbis have warned us. The Torah has warned us.

God has warned us. Guard your tongue!

What is truly appalling is not that the Torah our ancestors co-created was violent, superstitious, and evil, because they were a primitive, bloodthirsty people. What’s truly appalling is that after thousands of years of God’s mercy and Divine Guidance, we are no better.

For feedback, contact editor@sdjewishjournal.com.