Emor
Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23
Toward the end of this week’s Torah portion, we find the verses that have fueled centuries of anti-Semitism and often have been used as a pretext for abandoning one’s Jewish faith.
If anyone kills any human being, he shall be put to death. One who kills a beast shall make restitution for it: life for life. If anyone maims his fellow, as he has done so shall it be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The injury inflicted on another shall be inflicted on him. (Lev. 24:17-20)
Rarely have verses of Torah been more misconstrued than these. In anti-Jewish lore they have been seen as the source of the heartless vengeance and abject blood-thirstiness embodied by the wicked Jew. This debasing characterization of “the Jew” was spread throughout Christendom early on, as it contrasted perfectly with the propagandistic image of Christianity as the religion of love, compassion, and forgiveness. A prime example is Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” in which the benevolent, warm-hearted likes of Portia and Bassanio are in conflict with the evil Jew Shylock, who demands his “pound of flesh” (an echo of “eye for an eye”) as repayment of a debt. This play—a favorite in Nazi Germany—is still studied in schools and produced in theaters today, and one wonders how often it’s accompanied by any kind of meaningful attempt to address and acknowledge the damage its horrific stereotypes have done to our people.
Our sages have expounded on these verses for thousands of years, from the early rabbis of the Talmud in the 1st Century CE, to Saadia Gaon and his polemic with Karaite leaders in the 10th Century, and the Maharal of Prague in the 16th Century. One of the early pieces of Talmudic exegesis is by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, whose death we mark every year on Lag BaOmer (the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer). Bar Yochai, as did all Talmudists, took the injunction “an eye for an eye” seriously and tried to understand it by testing its validity in its most extreme expressions. To our sages, a law in Torah properly understood would apply in every life circumstance. Bar Yochai found that a literal interpretation of the text cannot be applicable in all situations, and therefore can’t be what the Torah meant.
“Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai stated: Eye for eye—money. You say money, but perhaps it means literally an eye? In this case if a blind man blinded another, a cripple maimed another, how would I be able to give an eye for an eye literally? Yet the Torah states (Lev. 24:22): One law there shall be for you—a law that is equitable for all of you.” (Bava Kamma 83b-84a)
Bar Yochai’s conclusion was that the law must be speaking about evaluating the value of an eye, a tooth, a limb to each individual, and compensating the victim financially with a payment commensurate with his loss.
The Talmud brings up a second argument:
“It was taught in the school of Hezekiah: Eye for Eye, life for life, and not a life and an eye for an eye, for should you imagine it is literally meant, it would sometimes happen that an eye and a life would be taken for an eye, for in the process of blinding him he might die.”
Hezekia’s disciples pointed to the physical impossibility of exacting the identical wound on the perpetrator as punishment. Saadia Gaon explained what they meant:
“For if a man deprived his fellow of a third of this normal eyesight by his blow, how can the retaliatory blow be so calculated as to have the same result, neither more nor less, nor blinding him completely? Such an exact reproduction of the effects is even more difficult in the case of a wound or bruise which, if in a dangerous spot, might result in death. The very idea cannot be tolerated.” (In N. Leibowitz, New Studies in Vayikra, p. 497).
(I can’t resist pointing out the irony that Portia used exactly this Talmudic reasoning to deny Shylock his pound of flesh from the indebted merchant. He was owed a pound of flesh, but not the merchant’s life-blood, which would surely be lost in the process.)
Lex Talionis, the law of retaliation that has been connected mistakenly with these verses, is the foundation of what we know as retributive justice. But the biblical principle is not about retribution. Its intent is to promote appropriate reparation, restoration, and wholeness. Restorative, not punitive justice was the intent behind this injunction. In the words of the Maharal of Prague, “Though [one] has compensated the victim for the injury, he has still not discharged his obligation until he asked his forgiveness” (N. Leibowitz, op. cit., p. 506). Rather than revenge, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” calls for rehabilitation, reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing of offenders, victims, and community. Far from heartless vengeance, it enshrines the very values of empathy, compassion, and clemency in the Biblical Jewish Constitution.