There came out among the Israelites a man whose mother was Israelite and whose father was Egyptian. A fight broke out in the camp between that half-Israelite and a certain Israelite. The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the Name in blasphemy, and he was brought to Moshe …and he was placed in custody, until the decision of the Lord should be made clear to them … And they took the blasphemer outside the camp and pelted him with stones. The Israelites did as the Lord had commanded Moshe.
 Vayikra 24:10-23
This text tells us about a tragic event that happened not long after the giving of the Torah at Sinai. It is important to understand this event in context. Only a short time earlier we read about the most important and joyous event ever to befall the Jewish People, the covenant at Mount Sinai:
[God] said: “I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will work such wonders as have not been wrought on all the earth or in any nation; and all the people who are with you shall see how awesome are the Lord’s deeds which I will perform for you.”[1]
The incident of the blasphemer occurs soon after this wondrous event. Moreover, this is the first time we hear about a child of a mixed marriage in the days of Moshe. This episode ended in total disaster, the blasphemy of the Name, and a death penalty. What’s more, it ended in the loss of a potential Divine law!
What happened?
In his commentary on the Torah, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch maintains that there was doubt whether the child of this mixed marriage was Jewish. Although children who are born of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father are todayconsidered to be Jewish, this was not the case before the giving of the Torah. Rather, children of mixed marriages were considered non-Israelites unless both parents were Israelites. Although this story takes place after the revelation at Sinai, the child was probably born before that time, and the people at the time believed that such a child was not one of them, even though his mother was of the Children of Israel.
According to this interpretation, this young man was confronted with a major dilemma. He had experienced the splitting of the Reed Sea, the giving of the Torah, including hearing God’s voice at Sinai, and the thunder and lightning accompanying this Divine revelation. No doubt he felt that he was part of the tribe, just like everybody else, only to be told by the community of Israelites that he was not.[2]
This must have caused him considerable pain. Could it be that the fight depicted here started when he attempted to convince the others that he was an Israelite? Perhaps it was when he did not succeed that he cursed God for what he believed was a great injustice.
Among the two million Israelites who stood at Sinai, he was the only one who was specifically mentioned as having been born from a mixed marriage. It’s quite possible that he was seen by others as an illegitimate child, born in sin, similar to the case of the mamzer.
While he is the only one mentioned, there must have been many such children. The Torah mentions (Shemot, 12:38) the “mixed multitude” that joined the Israelites when they left Egypt. Thus, the blasphemer may have been indicative of a problem faced by an entire sector of society in the Sinai desert.
This man must have asked himself how he could be a witness to this unprecedented Divine revelation — and yet have no part in all of this? Was not anybody who experienced the giving of the Torah ipso facto a Jew? After all, how could one remain a non-Jew after such a radical transformative religious experience?
Did not the experience at Sinai itself cause all those present to be transformed into Jews — the ultimate “conversion”? No further proof for Jewishness should be needed! In later days those who did not stand at Sinai need Jewish parents to prove their Jewishness, but not those who stood at Sinai!
An appropriate response to injustice
Still, cursing God was the wrong response, and a major transgression. In fact, we will later see another story that stands in direct contrast to this one. In Bamidbar, we read how the daughters of Tzelofchad reacted very differently to a similar type of injustice.[3] These sisters discovered that their father, who had passed away without a son, was to have no part in the land of Israel when it was divided. His name would be forgotten among the people of Israel, and so they went to Moshe to protest and plead their case before God, because they felt that they and their father had been wronged:
Moshe brought their (the daughters’) claim before God. And God said to Moshe: the daughters of Tzelofchad are right. You shall surely give them a possession of inheritance …you shall cause the inheritance of their father to pass over to them.[4]
Here something extraordinary happened! Instead of cursing God, the daughters of Tzelofchad forced God’s hand! And in doing so, they initiated a Divine law: When daughters have no father or brothers to take care of them, they will still have an inheritance in the land of Israel!
This is an entirely new law!
What is astonishing is that had they not protested, the law concerning the inheritance of daughters would not have been changed, and they would not have inherited! This Divine law would not have been handed down to all future generations.
A most profound concept is established in this story: God only grants us a change in the Divine law if we fight for it. The reason is obvious: Justice does not exist in the abstract. We must be co-creators with God in Divine justice. But that is only possible when human beings take the initiative. Only then will there be a Divine response. And only when we see the need and fight for it, will we receive God’s law.
A missed opportunity for a more just law
The daughters of Tzelofchad were convinced that God is just. But they knew that they needed to ask for this justice. There was no reason to curse God. The reverse was true; they went to “converse with” God because they were convinced that their complaint was just and that they would be heard.
And so, in the case of the blasphemer: he should have pleaded his case before God. Because his cause was just, there is no doubt that God would have responded that, yes, he was certainly Jewish.
This idea is mindboggling: Human beings are able to precipitate Divine law!
This means that the text of the Divine Torah is human in the sense that it is the human condition and human requests that determine what will appear in the Divine text and what will not. Rather than human beings following the text, the text sometimes follows human beings. [5]
But if we fail to take the initiative, the Torah fails to acknowledge our requests.
Laws of justice are a response to human needs; they are not a priori assumptions about human nature.
In the case of the blasphemer, he should have argued that children with one Israelite parent should also be included in the Children of Israel. After all, is it not entirely unfair that such children are left out? Their forefathers also stood at Sinai and heard the voice of God!
The Divine response to human needs
Further, is it not conceivable that some other Divine laws which seem to be unfair would have been different had people protested against them and sought God’s intervention? But God waited, and human beings failed Him and never asked nor protested.
Perhaps this is also true about the law of the mamzer. Just like the law of the ben sorer u-more, the rebellious son[6] was declared inoperable, so it should have been the case with the mamzer.
And what about women who might want to give a Get, a bill of divorce, to their husbands? Had they organized a massive protest movement against the fact that only their husbands were able to give them a Get but not the reverse, perhaps they would have had their way, and God would have agreed. (In fact, in the face of such inequality, should not the men themselves be leading the protest movement on behalf of the women?)
So God waited, but no protest was heard. And consequently, a nobler and just Divine law failed to come into existence.
Such is the case when we do not speak up before God.
It is important to emphasize that with the “closing” of the text of Torah it is no longer possible to change the text — and its laws — as was still possible in the days of Moshe and the daughters of Tzelofchad. This can only be done by way of the Oral Torah, and only when the majority of Jews agree with such changes. Such agreement would require the re-institution of the great Sanhedrin of 71 Sages. Alas, this institution has not yet been reconstituted!
I’m aware that these are far-reaching suggestions, but as can be seen from the case of the daughters of Tzelofchad, the Torah was not yet a “closed text” in those days. It was still “in the making”, and God was willing to amend His text accordingly.
But alas nobody spoke up in some of the above cases. Only in later days did the sages, via the Oral Torah, take the initiative, as can be seen in many instances in the Talmud. While they believed in the complete Divinity of the written Torah, they realized that this Divine text was meant as a point of departure, not as a destination.[7]
As such, the tragic event of the blasphemer could have been prevented! And the Torah would have become even nobler in the process. There is a lesson here for us in our day.
Questions to Ponder
- Rabbi Cardozo suggests that Divine justice requires human collaboration to manifest fully. Does this imply that justice is incomplete without human intervention, or that Divine justice is intrinsically relational? What does this mean for humanity’s responsibility in shaping a just world?
- Do you agree with the idea that had the blasphemer pleaded his case before God, God might have declared that anyone with a single Jewish parent was to be included in the Israelite community? Can we assume that all legitimate grievances would receive a favorable response from God?
- Do you feel that leaving unjust laws unchallenged is a missed opportunity for reform? Should religious communities today encourage dissent and questioning to address perceived injustices within the tradition? How might we challenge laws like those concerning the mamzer or the one-sided nature of Jewish divorce from within, without undermining the authority of Jewish law?
- Despite the “closing” or the Written Torah, the Oral Torah continues to adapt Divine law to changing human needs. Does this imply that the Oral Torah is more responsive to ethical progress than the Written Torah? If so, what does this mean for the authority and hierarchy between these two parts of Jewish law?
Notes
[1] Shemot 34:10.
[2] See also Sifra, Emor,235.
[3] Bamidbar 27:6-9.
[4] A similar situation happened when some Israelites could not bring the korban Pesach, the special Pesach offering, because they were ritually “unclean” They complained to Moshe, and God told them that they could bring this offering a month later when they would be “clean” again This is called Pesach Sheni, Bamidbar, 9:6-14.
[5] See my book Jewish Law as Rebellion, Urim Publications, chapter 27 (also available in Hebrew, Yediot Acharonot), in particular the chapter “On the Law of the Mamzer: The Theology of the Halachic Loophole and the Meaning of Torah min ha-Shamayim”, pages 288-299 where I discuss this issue in great length.
[6] Sanhedrin, 71a.
[7] See Jewish Law as Rebellion, page 294.
