Emor

 

The word emor, translated as “speak”, is used three times in the first sentence of this week's parsha. Emor is not the usual word used in the Torah for the transmission of instructions.  Daber, also translated as speak, is how communications, whether they are between humans, or between Gd and human, is the expected word. Often, when Gd delivers instructions via Moses, the phrase

וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יְ

אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר׃

 

And the Lrd spoke to Moshe, saying,

 

Is used. This mixture of daber and emor appears at least 89 times in Torah.

 

What is the difference between these words that are translated as if they are synonymous?

 

Emor appears first. When Gd makes the pronouncements that evoke creation, the word is emor. Throughout the first chapter of Genesis, emor is used, not daber.  It is only when Gd instructs Noah  to leave the ark that daber appears.

 

Emor is a word of creation, daber is a word of instruction. Daber implies that the listener has power over the object ( davar) discussed. For daber there is no question of existence; it is an issue of how the assumed power will be exercised. Emor, which contains the two letter aym, mother, makes something new.

 

The new thing for the priests was that they were to be separated from the tuma, the impurity, (the horror, the shame, the confusion, the inevitability) of the corpse.  This specialness was a new thing, said in the mother’s voice.

 

Most of the paragraphs in Emor, as in much of the Torah, are introduced by the  cliché:

 

 

וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יְ

אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר׃

 

And the Lrd spoke to Moshe, saying,

 

This  combination of daber and emor  implies that Gd instructs Moshe. Moshe has control over his speech. Moshe is to use the emor mode with  his audience. Moshe should convey the commandment, understanding that it is novel to the listener.

 

I need emor for this parsha. It has many things that I do not understand, uncomfortable things that are most easily considered unfortunate relics of the proto Bronze age society from which they arose. The hereditary, male priestly aristocracy, the disqualification of the disabled from service, the animal sacrificial rite, blasphemy as a capital offence are in this parsha.  These things are always new to me. These are introduced with Emor and detailed with daber.

 

Now, with the loss of faith in reportage ( some of it is justified) it is hard to allow myself to evaluate the conflict between the  values that I learned as a modern American and the ancient instructions.  They are both primarily honored in the breach. That partially excuses the Torah instructions.  By the time recognizable ( Rabbinic) Judaism evolved, the priests had lost almost all their power, a  more fluid and open meritocracy  of scholarship had been established (which is constantly trying to establish its own hereditary royalty [minimal success, so far]); the temple had been destroyed ( eliminating animal sacrifices [by virtue of Rabbinic edicts]; the legal system had become so hypercritical that capital punishment virtually disappeared.

 

"A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called a murderous one. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah said, 'Or even once in 70 years.' Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiba said, 'If we had been in the Sanhedrin, no death sentence would ever have been passed'; Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel said, 'If so, they would have multiplied murderers in Israel.'"^[45]

1.       Mishna, Makkoth 1:10

 

That Enlightenment values are more words than action detracts from their appeal. Probably neither the ancient nor the modern ideals can actually exist outside the fantasy world of ideas. There the battle rages.

 

The parsha ends with the story of the blasphemer. Some kind of damaging, piercing (nekev) speech, uttered in the passion of conflict,  outrages the listeners. This is not emor or daber, it is   וַ֠יִּקֹּ֠ב , vayikov, a puncturing speech and the people do not know what to do with this person. He is the son of an Egyptian, Perhaps the ordinances that apply to Israelites do not apply to him. The offence is mere speech, perhaps he should be spoken to. The sentence comes from Gd: death by stoning. The punishment pronouncement for this individual is embedded in penalties for murder, killing another person’s animal, battery, a piece of Hamurabi code, and the edict of equal justice for the stranger.  These are וְאֶל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל תְּדַבֵּ֣ר לֵאמֹ֑ר

  daber leymors: commands to be introduced gently,  as novelties.

 

I am not happy not understanding. But it is better to know the truth.