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Orchard of Delights
blasphemer’s blemish was not physical, within the context of camp
life he could never forget the emotional badge of shame he wore.
While his ultimate outburst was entirely unacceptable, the pain he
experienced every day was quite hard to bear. Nevertheless, like all
souls that enter this world, the blasphemer had a choice of how to
deal with his lot in life.
In general, we can adopt one of two attitudes towards life. We can
believe that everything that happens has a reason and purpose, that
ultimately all is for the best and that justice will prevail, even if at
the present time that seems far from likely. Or, we can believe that
life has no intrinsic rhyme or reason, that everything that happens
is a result of blind luck or fate and we have no reason to expect that
all will turn out for the best or that justice will prevail. Obviously,
depending on how we approach life, our experience of it will be
significantly different.
The section describing the incident of the blasphemer begins with
the following words: “And the son of the Israelite women whose
father was an Egyptian man went out among the children of Israel”
(Leviticus 24:10). Rashi dwells on the phrase “went out,” which
he assumes implies that the blasphemer was in some sense “inside”
before he “went outside.” Drawing upon traditional readings, he
offers a number of possible interpretations, which range from more
straightforward peshat readings to more homiletic derash ones. One of
the more straightforward readings suggests that the blasphemer exited
the court of justice where he had just lost his case and subsequently
cursed God. A more homiletic reading proposes that he lost – “went
out of” – his portion in the World to Come as a result of his actions.
A third reading proposes that this story is connected to – “comes
out of” – the previous section in the Torah reading, which describes
the weekly ritual of the cohanim placing twelve loaves of bread on
the table of the showbread in the Tabernacle or Temple. When the
cohanim placed the new loaves, they ate the loaves from the preceding
week. The blasphemer scoffed at this practice as he reasoned that it
was foolish of them to eat stale old bread instead of fresh bread. This
anecdote confirms our assumption that the blasphemer’s bitterness
regarding his own lot in life led him to belittle and find fault with
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Kedoshim
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When the Jewish people entered the Land of Israel, the Land was
divided among the tribes, and then among the families in each
tribe. In one fell swoop, the Jewish people were transformed from
nomadic, desert people into landed, agrarian ones. In Kedoshim there
are several agricultural laws that define the Jew’s relationship to his
land and by extension to the weaker elements in society:
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not
complete your reaping to the corner of your field, and
the gleaning of your harvest you shall not take. You shall
not pick the undeveloped twigs of your vineyard; and the
fallen fruit of your vineyard you shall not gather; for the
poor and the proselyte shall you leave them – I am God,
your God. (Leviticus 19:9-10)
The laws of tithing, which appear elsewhere in the Torah, further
augment this attitude towards the land:
You shall tithe the entire crop of your planting, the produce of
the field, year by year…. At the end of three years you shall take
out every tithe of your crop in that year and set it down within your
cities. Then the Levi can come – for he has no portion or inheritance
with you – and the proselyte, the orphan, and the widow who are in
your cities, so they may eat and be satisfied, in order that God, your
God, will bless you in all your handiwork that you may undertake.
(Deuteronomy 14:22; 14:28-29)
The Torah ensures that no one in this agrarian society is left destitute
and hungry by mandating which crops must be left unharvested for
the poor and by creating an elaborate tithing system. The Torah sets
up what in today’s terms would be referred to as a welfare state, in
the most positive sense of the term. It is crucial from the Torah’s
perspective that Jewish society abandons no one to a life lacking in
the basic means for survival. Indeed, the Torah and the Prophets
repeatedly urged the people to set up a just and caring society, where
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