Emor

ויצא בן אשה ישראלית AND THE SON OF THE ISRAELITE WOMAN WENT OUT — Whence did he go out? Surely not from the camp, since Scripture states “and they strove in the camp”! Rabbi Levi said, “He went out from his eternal life . R. Berachya said, “He set forth (יצא) (started his argument) from the above section. He said sneeringly: “Every Sabbath he shall set it in order!? Surely it is the way of a king to eat fresh (lit., warm) bread every day; is it perhaps his way to eat cold bread of nine days?! (Midrash Tanchuma 38 23). A Baraitha states that ויצא means, he came out of the judicial court of Moses where he had been pronounced to be in the wrong in the following matter: although his father was an Egyptian he had gone to pitch his tent in the camp of the tribe of Dan to whom his mother belonged (cf. v. 11). They (the men of Dan) said: what is your character that gives you the right to come here?. He replied. “I am one of the children of the tribe of Dan”. Thereupon they said to him, “Scripture states: (Numbers 2:2) “Every man by his own standard, that bears the signs of their father’s house”! He thereupon went in to the judicial court of Moses to have the matter decided and came forth (יצא) declared to be in the wrong. He then stood up and blasphemed (Sifra, Emor, Section 14 1; Leviticus Rabbah 32 3).

בן איש מצרי THE SON OF AN EGYPTIAN MAN — It was the Egyptian whom Moses had killed (Leviticus Rabbah 32 4; cf. Exodus 2:11 where Scripture also uses the expression “איש מצרי”; cf. also Rashi thereon).

ונקב שם AND HE THAT UTTERS BLASPHEMOUSLY THE NAME [OF THE LORD SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH] — He is not liable to the death-penalty at the hand of the judges unless he utters the Divine Tetragrammaton blasphemously, but not if he expresses loathing for the Lord by only mention of one of the substitutes for the Divine name (e. g., רחום, חנון, אל etc.), (cf. Sifra, Emor, Chapter 19 5; Sanhedrin 56a).

(16) and one who also wounds/pierces the name יהוה shall be put to death. The community leadership shall stone that person; stranger or citizen—having thus blasphemed (pierced) the Name—shall be put to death.

ונקב here is an expression denoting “cursing”, like (Numbers 23:8) “How shall I curse (אקב) [when God hath not cursed]” (Sanhedrin 56a).

After losing all his possessions and children, Job had still blessed God. But he now just remains silent. This time, he could not bring himself to do so. His wife taunts him: Are you still resolved to be perfect? Bless/curse God once more again and you'll be dead!

and blasphemed Heb. וברכו, lit. blessed. A euphemism [used in] referring to the Most High.

“… say (Emor) to the Cohanim, the sons of Aharon, and you shall say to them, do not make yourselves impure from the dead of your people.” (Vayikra, 21:1) Cohen represents the servant of God who sees all actions in the world as a result of the direct involvement (hashgacha) of God. He also sees that God’s desire is only to improve the creation. One who sees the world this way can will inevitably bear greivences when he confronts difficult situations in the world that are expressions of God’s stern judgment, (saying, “it’s not fair.”) One who believes that the world is run by chance has no address for his greivences. When he confronts situations in the world contrary to his desires, he will say that it came about by chance. Thunderous anger is only possible for the believer who sees everything as a decree from Heaven.For this reason the Holy One, blessed be He, commands the Cohanim, believers and servants of God, “do not contaminate yourself from the dead of your people.” In other words, don’t become angry at God when confronting pain and suffering, as this kind of anger is itself the contamination from the dead. It is a response to the God’s judgments that bring about loss and absence in the world, as discussed in the holy Zohar. Therefore God commanded, “Emor el haCohanim - say to the Cohanim.” “Emor – say,” means speaking softly.. God enjoins us to whisper into the ears of the servants of God that they should not hold grudges when it comes to His stern judgment, for the intentions of God are always in order to improve. Even when He conducts the world with the attribute of stern judgment, then too, His intention at the depths is only to improve.

“And the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and this son of the Israelite woman and a man of Israel fought together in the camp. And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed Hashem’s name ….” (Vayikra, 24:10)A passage in the holy Zohar reads (Vayikra, 106a), “boring a hole in something that was closed, as one would say, ‘and he bore a hole in his door.’” This is because he wanted to open up the depth that is hidden in the future, where God will refine all of Israel to the point that they will be clean of all sin. Then he would be a full member of Israel. This is as the Gemara writes (Yevamot, 23a), “If a goy or a slave who has intercourse with a Jewish woman, the child is fit to enter Israel and he is not a bastard, but he is called ‘a tainted Israelite.’” As he felt incomplete, or “tainted,” he wanted to open a force where in the future the Holy One, blessed be He, would make such birurim (refinements) where there would not even remain a residue of sin among the sinners of Israel. This is as the holy Zohar says (Vayikra, 106a), “He took the final Hei in God’s holy name and cursed him, in order to defend his mother.” This is because the final Hei hints at the world of Asiyah, the world of action. Though God desires that we fulfill His mitzvot with our actions, still He wanted to create an opening whereby He would bring about salvation even without the actions of man.This is as it is said in the Midrash (Tanchuma, Emor, 23; see Rashi on this passage), “This incident was a reaction to the previous section [in Ch. 24, on the twelve loaves in the Tabernacle]. The king usually eats warm bread. Would he eat cold bread?” In this world, all the divine effusion that man receives from the Holy One, blessed be He, is received in time through Shabbat, in place through the Mikdash, and in person through the Patriarchs and the community of Israel. However, he asserted that God could bring about salvation at any time, at any place, and for any individual, by themselves.Also the Gemara writes (quoted in Rashi on this passage), “He was responding to a previous incident (where the court had judged him guilty). He went to pitch his tent in the encampment of Dan.” The passage about the one who cursed is included in the Torah in order to show us just how much one needs to hold back from bearing all kinds of grudges against God. Since the one who cursed distanced himself from the encampment of the Israelites, he left Moshe’s court with a guilty verdict and stood and blasphemed. His intentions were good in that he wanted to live in the encampment of the Israelites, being an Israelite from his mother’s side. But from his Egyptian heritige, he voiced all of his grudges. A man of Israel’s heart cleaves to God and his intentions are for the sake of Heaven even if God denies him some benefit. Even if God denies him something good and pushes him away, in this too he is fulfilling God’s will and is called an eved Hashem, a servant of God, and for this he merits great reward. We find an example with a descendant of Aharon haCohen who is unfit for service in the Holy Temple because of some physical defect. In the very act of being pushed away from the holy service he merits great reward. However, one who is not of the root and branch of Israel, if he is distanced from some benefit, then he cannot contain himself and lashes out in scorn....If one who lashes out in scorn when he is prevented from the mitzvah, then this proves that when he was doing the mitzvah, his intentions were not for the sake of Heaven. This is why God commanded, “go and take out the one who cursed,” for when he wanted to pitch his tent in the camp of the Israelites, his intentions here were also not for the sake of Heaven.This section is juxtaposed with the section that follows immediately, “He that kills a man shall surely be put to death. He that kills an animal shall pay etc.,”...

Leviticus 21,1. “speak to the priests, the sons of ‎Aaron.” The subject here deals with four different (parts) ‎universes named ‎עולם האצילות, עולם הבריאה, עולם היצירה, עולם ‏העשיה‎, respectively. In each of these “worlds” there is “life” and ‎G’d forbid, it’s opposite. We in our world of ‎עשיה‎, a domain ‎representing the physical material world after it had been ‎completed, experience both life and G’d forbid its opposite, death. ‎Similarly, we can visualize “life” and “death” in the ‎עולם היצירה‎, ‎which for want of a better term we will call the world of speech, ‎דבור‎, seeing that according to the Torah G’d had created it with ‎verbal directives. When man abuses the power of speech, uttering ‎vain things or lies, he is perceived of “killing” life in that domain. ‎When man employs the power of speech constructively, he is ‎considered as giving life to that domain. This condition is called ‎חיים‎, “life,” and has been alluded to by Solomon in Proverbs 18,21 ‎where he wrote: ‎חיים ומות ביד לשון‎, “life and death are within the ‎power of one’s tongue.” Abuse of the power of speech is the most ‎important element to guard against when serving the Lord. The ‎same rule applies to the world known as ‎עולם הבריאה‎, “the world ‎of creation,” i.e. a physically undeveloped world. This may be ‎described best as the world of thought, a world in which the ‎products of thought and mouth have not yet produced a finished ‎product. When man is constantly preoccupied in his heart and ‎mind how best to serve the Lord, he is considered alive, whereas ‎if, G’d forbid he is preoccupied with the opposite he is considered ‎as “dead.”‎ There is another world, on a higher plane than the three ‎we have already defined, the world of ‎יראה‎, awe, (referred to above ‎as ‎אצילות‎) this world is completely abstract when compared with ‎the other three worlds. Even in that world, however, the concepts ‎of “life” and “death” exist.‎At any rate, the thing we have to concern ourselves with first ‎and foremost is the use we make of the power of speech G’d has ‎granted to us, the ability to communicate with our peers and to ‎convey our most intimate thoughts. The influence of this gift ‎cannot be overestimated, and that is why the Torah when ‎speaking to the priests, begins with ‎אמור אל הכהנים ואמרת להם ‏לנפש לא יטמא‎, “speak to the priests and say to them that the ‎priest must not defile himself on pain of death;” the meaning is ‎that the priest, through misuse of the power of speech, must not ‎commit a capital offence.‎