A Taste of Torah - Parashat Emor

This week’s Torah portion, Emor, contains one of the most misunderstood concepts, by Jews and Christians alike, in Biblical text, the notion of eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life (Leviticus 24:17-21). It can be difficult to figure out what our tradition, the rabbis of old, and God want from us concerning revenge. At their core, these verses speak about how we live in community with one another.

Nehama Leibowitz teaches that the misconception of what ‘eye for eye’ means has made the idea into the embodiment of vengeance at its cruelest level. Think even of the scene from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock wants exactly a pound of flesh from Antonio. In that case, Shakespeare has reversed the rabbis understanding of monetary compensation and implies that bodies can pay for monetary debts.

The rabbis worked hard from the beginning to teach that ‘eye for eye’ was never intended as anything except monetary compensation, that that reading is not a new interpretation, but rather the purpose of the text all along. One example: If a blind man blinded another person, how could we apply the verse literally? The law cannot be inequitable. It must apply equally to everyone. In another example the rabbis give to justify an understanding of monetary compensation, the school of Hezekia teaches that in seeking retribution, the revenge could go further than the initial offense. In an effort to blind an offender, taking his eye could inadvertently result in the taking of his life, too, based upon injuries he would sustain. This, like the first example, would not be evenhanded. (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kama 83b-84a)

While the Biblical text seems to imply that revenge is to be taken literally, Jewish understanding of Biblical law begins with the Torah. It does not end with it. We have to take into account the position of the rabbis in order to fully understand what the text means for us. And we must add to that opinion our own interpretation, because Jewish law continues to develop over time.

Another way our tradition understands ‘eye for eye’ as metaphorical is nuanced in the Hebrew. The Hebrew text says, “nefesh tachat nefesh, life for life … shever tachat shever, bruise for bruise; ayin tachat ayin, eye for eye; shein tachat shein, tooth for tooth” (Lev. 24: 18, 20). As Nehama Leibowitz teaches, the word we translate as ‘for,’ tachat, does not really mean for. It means, ‘in place of.’ In the binding of Isaac, Abraham sacrifices a ram tachat his son Isaac, in place of his son Isaac. In the story of Joseph in Pharaoh’s court, Judah says to Joseph, let me be your servant tachat Benjamin, in place of Benjamin. And perhaps most notably, when the spies speak with Rahab in Jericho, they tell her that if she keeps their presence a secret in the Israelite conquest of the city, they will pledge their lives tachat the lives of her family, in place of their lives. All of this teaches us that someone who blinds another person must give the other person something tachat the lost eye, something in place of the lost eye. That something, our tradition tells us, is monetary compensation. If we were to live in a society where we sought revenge based on actual loss, not the value of our losses, where would that leave us? To paraphrase Gandhi, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth would leave the whole world blind and toothless.

Our relationship with our community is of a higher value in Judaism that our individual needs. Whether or not we are wrapped up on the offense, Judaism teaches us "Kol Yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh, All of Israel is responsible for one another" (BT Shavuot 39a). At sundown on Saturday, May 1 the holiday of Lag b’Omer begins. It is the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, the transition from Passover to Shavuot, symbolically building towards the barley harvest commemorated on Shavuot. The 33rd day of this cycle is unique among those days. Lag b’Omer is known as the holiday of Aish ha-Torah, the fire of Torah. It is a holiday of scholars, teachers, and students because of the celebration of learning and teaching associated with it.

As my friend and colleague, Amy Gavel, teaches, “The name, Lag B’Omer, simply refers to the 33rd day of Counting the Omer, which refers to the seven weeks from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavuot. Just as simply, that means the counting is a reminder for us of the link between Passover, commemorating our Exodus from Egypt, with Shavuot, commemorating the giving of the Torah at Sinai. What complicates everything is that between the time when we left Egypt together and arrived at Sinai together, we weren’t exactly together. We fought, we bickered, we saw each other’s faults. We didn’t work together. We didn’t study together. We didn’t even always eat together. Instead, we worked hard to find reason, after reason, after reason to have conflict – and there are always reasons for conflict if we look for them.”

One of the reasons that Lag b’Omer is an important holiday in our tradition ties to the story of Rabbi Akiva. There was a terrible plague that affected the students of Rabbi Akiba, killing 1200 pairs of students. Our tradition tells us that the plague struck because the students were fighting among one another. As Amy Gavel teaches, “Conflict was a problem in Rabbi Akiva’s time, too. Today, counting the Omer is not only a time of rejoicing and remembering freedom, it’s also a time to mourn the 2,400 students of Akiva’s who mysteriously died from their own plague. The Talmud says they died because they ‘did not show proper respect for one another.’” Our understanding of ‘eye for eye’ and how we choose to apply it may be understood as whether or not we respect one another.

Aish ha-Torah, “the fire of Torah is like the fire of the soul, not like the fire of conflict. The fire of Torah is like the moment the soul reunites with its source, or the moment two people understand each other, or the moment two people accept each other for who they are – even if they can’t understand” (Amy Gavel). Parashat Emor and its text of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth,’ along with the holiday of Lag b’Omer seek to teach us not to take ‘eye for eye,’ but rather to see eye to eye. May we learn not to destroy our relationships with revenge and distrust; but rather, to build community based on fairness, equality and mutual understanding.