On April 15th, 1936, a group of Palestinian insurgents loyal to Izz Ad-Din al-Qassam, shot and killed two Jewish motorists on the road between Nablus and Tulkaram. Days later two Palestinian laborers were shot and killed while sleeping in a hut on a banana farm near Petach Tikvah. Wide scale violence then erupted which claimed the lives of several Jews in Jaffa. This violence spread into a general Arab uprising against British rule known as “The Great Revolt of 1936-1939.” The revolt is notable in my family because of a letter my grandfather wrote, in 1937, from his home in Germany to his sister living in Palestine, that he had not taken advantage of an immigration visa to Mandate Palestine because, in part, of the danger and violence there.
In time, the ascendant leadership of the Jewish community embraced a policy of “havlagah” which means “self restraint.” Even as the Haganah grew in numbers and strength during this period, they restrained themselves from any actions of revenge or hostility against Palestinian civilians. David Ben Gurion explained the benefits of Havlagah as being consistent with the very necessary cooperation with the British who at the time were still broadly supportive of Jewish immigration.
In contrast, the right-wing Jewish militant group, the Irgun, adopted a policy they called “active defense” and in November 1937 began indiscriminate deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Interestingly, and surprisingly, one of the fierce critics of the policy of Havlagah was none other than Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel, the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. Among the many reasons that Rav Amiel has a special place in my heart is that he participated in, and won, the most celebrated rabbinic search process in modern history to become chief rabbi of Tel Aviv. The other candidates were Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik of Boston and Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog, then the chief rabbi of Ireland and soon to be the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel.
For the past month, several of us have been meeting on Shabbat afternoon to read two short essays that Rav Amiel published in the religious newspaper HaTzofeh during the time when the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael was debating havlagah. Rav Amiel claimed that havlagah was deficient in two ways: restraining ourselves from full throated expressions of grief and outrage at Jewish suffering was not noble and was not mature. It was callous. Jewish tradition demands that we cry out, to God and to humanity, whenever we are in distress and danger. Havlagah as an embrace of “restraint” and self-control was therefore a betrayal of an authentic Jewish position that demands that we deeply sympathize with the suffering of others and that we give voice to our suffering.
And, on the other side of the coin, the policy of havlagah implicitly states that pragmatic considerations were the reason we were holding ourselves back from revenge against innocent civilians. The authentic Jewish reason why we do not harm innocent civilians is written on the Aron Kodesh behind me: Lo Tirzach – you shall not murder. Jewish ethics is built on a foundation of a categorical prohibition against murder and against punishing people for crimes they did not commit. The discourse of Havlagah suggested that the policy against indiscriminate killing of innocent people was rooted in pragmatism rather than a core principle of justice and ethics.
Rav Amiel argued that the policy of Havlagah reflected a fear that if we were to actually give voice to our own pain and suffering and outrage when our Jewish brothers and sisters are killed in a violent struggle, our response would lead us to copy the tactics of our enemies. But Rav Amiel reminded us that if we embrace and reinforce our Jewish commitments, we can avoid becoming callous at the same time as we avoid crossing ethical redlines or blacklines.
At the end of Parashat Emor the Torah shares an episode which is so cryptic in its details that it practically screams out “darsheini” – explain me – and the midrashic tradition answers that call.
וַיֵּצֵא֙ בֶּן־אִשָּׁ֣ה יִשְׂרְאֵלִ֔ית וְהוּא֙ בֶּן־אִ֣ישׁ מִצְרִ֔י בְּת֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַיִּנָּצוּ֙ בַּֽמַּחֲנֶ֔ה בֶּ֚ן הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִ֔ית וְאִ֖ישׁ הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִֽי׃
There came out among the Israelites one whose mother was Israelite and whose father was Egyptian. And 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 Moses—now his mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan—
and he was placed in custody, until the decision of the LORD should be made clear to them.
According to one strand in the midrash, this individual, with a Jewish mother and an Egyptian father, tried to pitch his tent among the tribe of Dan, the tribe of his maternal grandfather. His neighbors objected and took him to the beit din presided over by none other than Moshe Rabbeinu himself! The Danites were victorious in their suit. While Jewish status follows a maternal line, tribal status follows a paternal line and this man was excluded from living among his mother’s relatives. In his anger and outrage he curses God’s very name and is then brought into custody. The midrash is sensitive to the phrase בַּֽמַּחֲנֶ֔ה the struggle took place “in the encampment” which the midrash understands to mean that the struggle was about the encampment in the wilderness in which each patriarchal clan had its own location to pitch their tents.
The midrash, following the so-called Law of the Preservation of Biblical Characters, goes on to suggest that the Egyptian father of the blasphemer was none other than the Egyptian whom Moshe killed all the way back in Parashat Shemot. Through this identification, in addition to benefiting from the elegance of being able to tie off that plot line, the midrash is able to connect the blasphemous use of God’s name in our parasha, to a tradition that Moshe himself used a Divine name to kill the Egyptian through supernatural means.
The verdict that this man receives is swift and severe. He is to be stoned to death. A harsh punishment for what should be understood to be a heinous crime. But the Torah does not tell this story in a straightforward narrative of crime, verdict, and punishment. Instead, the Torah, in the middle of a story, pivots away from narrative and returns to mitzvot. After the blasphemer is placed into custody to await a verdict and a sentence, the Torah incorporates his sentence into a litany of mitzvot. And only after seven verses of law, does the Torah conclude the narrative with a description of the execution of the blasphemer.
In this way, when we learn the consequence for blasphemy: וְנֹקֵ֤ב שֵׁם־ה֙ מ֣וֹת יוּמָ֔ת one who curses the Name of God shall be surely put to death, we also are told that murder is a capital offense but other damage to animals or to people are compensated through money. And we are also taught, right in the midst of these seven pesukim of law and mitzvot:
מִשְׁפַּ֤ט אֶחָד֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם כַּגֵּ֥ר כָּאֶזְרָ֖ח יִהְיֶ֑ה כִּ֛י אֲנִ֥י ה אֱ-לֹהֵיכֶֽם׃
There shall be one law for citizens and foreigners alike for I am the Lord your God.
The blasphemer must be punished for his crime but the Torah is sympathetic to his struggle and the Torah offers corrective legislation to prevent future acts of marginalization. In this way the Torah shows us that clear moral or legal consequences for misbehavior can coincide with caring about the context which could lead someone to commit an offense. The Torah shows us that criminal acts can be punished at the same time as legislation is developed to tackle root causes.
Feeling two things at the same time is something we do each year during this time of Sefirat Ha’Omer. We abstain from weddings and other celebrations in mourning for the students of Rabbi Akiva who died during this period of the calendar. And we prepare for Shavuot and accept the Torah, through honoring the tradition that Rabbi Akiva’s students died “because they did not treat one another with respect.” We mourn and recognize the sadness of the loss. And we evaluate the circumstances and context of those deaths so we can learn how to be better.
And in this complex world, where Israel and the Jewish people confront complicated and sometimes confusing situations, we need to relearn how to feel two or more things at once. Rav Amiel taught we can express grief and outrage while also preserving a devotion to our essence as Jews. Parashat Emor teaches that we can punish evil actions while also caring about context and responding in nimble ways to prevent their recurrence. Our mourning customs of Sefirat Ha’Omer come to an end this coming Tuesday, Lag BaOmer, when we celebrate how Rabbi Akiva, reeling in the aftermath of grief and loss, committed himself once more to teaching Torah to new students, and from those students the Torah has survived and thrived until today.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 