Parashat
Emor
Recent
events in the news teach us again to be careful about the words that come out
of our mouths. This week’s fiascos in
sports culture and foreign policy illustrate that when public figures spew out
their anger or frustrations particularly in situations when they wrongly assume
the conversation is private they are being self destructive. Private and public
communication continue to be blurred in today’s world especially when it comes
to public officials or celebrities let alone any of us who use of social media.
First I am
referring to the racist and misogynist comments made by the LA Clippers magnate
Donald Tokowitz or Sterling. Second we listened to unfortunate comments by the
US Secretary of State suggesting Israel would become an apartheid state if it
didn’t make peace with the Palestinians. Each man has felt the sting, incurring
the public wrath of the nation in the Sterling case and as for Kerry- Israel
and the American Jewish Community. The question is whether they realized how their
words were in a modern sense blasphemous by stripping the dignity and humanity
from their offended parties?
The Torah
teaches us that blasphemous and volatile speech can create serious and adverse repercussions.
In fact we learn in this week’s parasha Emor by reading Leviticus chapter 24 of
a situation where one person speaking blasphemous speech was adjudicated by
Moses to have committed a capital crime! The Torah describes a fight that broke
out in the Israelite camp between two men. One was the son of an Israelite
Mother and Egyptian father. The other was, I infer from the text, an Israelite
on both sides. It appears that the former uttered blasphemous speech against
God by actually pronouncing the unpronounceable Divine name of God which is
only to be uttered by the Priests. He was brought to Moses for adjudication for
this crime of blasphemous speech. Remember just by saying the Name of God one
violates the ritual and spiritual laws of proper respect for the Deity in
ancient times. In ancient religions great power underlay the authority and
ability of a priest to invoke the actual Name of the Deity.
The sentence
for this half Israelite man was, according the Torah and to God’s own words, to
take him outside the camp and stone him. The Torah says that he shall be put to
death and ultimately that is exactly what the text says happened to him. We are at a disadvantage here because we do
not understand this practice in today’s world nor why it is such a major sin. Yet vestiges of it still survive in Orthodox Judaism
where serious adherents to the tradition never say the word Adonai except in
communal worship. They substitute other words like Hashem which means the Name.
They will, for example, write God’s name
as G-D. The point is that they will not say the actual name of God unless it is
in prayer and to do so outside of prayer is to diminish the respect and
reverence for God.
What is a
blasphemer? This is someone, in traditional terms, who speaks of god in an
irreverent and impious manner. It can also mean to speak evil or even slander
against someone as well as against God. We have seen the definition of
blasphemy leveled against Salmon Rushdie by the Iranian Ayatollahs. Do we recall the reaction to the Arab filmmaker
in LA who came out with that film mocking the Prophet Mohammed? Judaism in its
biblical foundations viewed blasphemous language as a capital crime.
Christianity has a long tradition amongst its theologians dealing with
punishments and reparations for committing the sin of blasphemy.
In a modern context
speech which demeans the fundamental humanity or dignity of another human being
or especially a religion could be viewed as examples of blasphemy. Briefly what
Donald Sterling said about women and his black ballplayers and other African
Americans fit into a narrative in our culture that triggered a secular kind of
blasphemy which runs counter to proper and respectful speech today. In a sense the
NBA director’s pronouncement of his lifetime ban from professional basketball
seems to be the equivalent of taking him out to be stoned until death.
Secretary of
State Kerry is a different situation altogether. He made the remarks likening
Israel to an apartheid state in private during a report to the Trilateral
Commission warning that if Israel did not embrace the two state peace plan it
could become an apartheid state. The
criticism was enormous and he has since retracted the use of the word
acknowledging that it was not the best word to express his vision for a shared
peace. One could infer from his invoking this term apartheid a shift not only
from Mr. Kerry but from the entire administration to a less supportive American
position towards Israel. Yet once the word is out the damage has been done even
if he did take it back. Mainstream Jewish organizations viewed his remarks as
if they were blasphemous since they felt his comments completely stripped
Israel of its legitimacy as a democracy.
Back to the
torah portion for a minute, the rabbis in commenting on the verse where it
says, “And the son of the Israelite mother and Egyptian father went out into
the camp,” said that the phrase he went out really meant that “He had left his
world which is the Divine Presence that invests himself in the worlds god
created.”(Luria) Another commentator said, “He went out of his own world since
a man is a world of his own.” (Bahya ibn Pakuda). I interpret their comments to
say that they felt the blasphemer in the torah lost touch with reality, that
is, the basic and fundamental norms and proper behaviors of his culture by pronouncing
profane words about God. Similarly can we extend the lesson to the mindset of
Mr. Kerry who should have stayed away from that kind of language knowing full
well the reaction he was going to provoke?
Here we are
close to the eve of Israel’s 66th birthday next Tuesday. Does the use of this word apartheid suggest,
even in a weak moment, that Israel has betrayed all its core values? Sadly, his
remarks cannot take back the words and the unalterable effects they have upon
Israel and all its supporters in this country and around the world. The word
apartheid fuels the fires in the propaganda wars that currently rage on around
the world. Some may agree with his viewpoint who are Jewish and who care deeply
about Israel. My question is whether the use of the term apartheid by an
American Secretary of State dehumanizes Israel and denigrates its purpose for
existing?
The lesson
here for Mr. Kerry, let alone for LA Clippers owner Mr. Sperling, is that one
must be extremely careful and cautious about the words we say in public or
private. Whether or not the intention is to denigrate or criticize someone
else, one must beware of the severe consequences and volatile reactions of the
community or the nation to harsh words which undermine the foundation of
goodness and integrity of others let alone God. The upshot is that words
matter.
Shabbat
Shalom
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