The Narcissist and Her Forgotten Son

This week’s Torah portion, Emor, is a study in contrasts. It begins with the affectionate and ends with the brutal. Emor is launched in humility and concludes with hubris and tragedy. This is not a bedtime story.

G-d said to Moses: “Say to the priests, the sons of Aaron, you must say to them, ‘No one may ritually defile himself among his people on account of a corpse.'” [Leviticus 21:1]

There are two options utilized by the Torah for the word “speak.” The usual word is daber, which connotates a brisk, even harsh, tone. This is the word used throughout the Torah when G-d speaks to Moses.

Then, there is emor, which marks the opposite. It, too, means “speak,” but it is a far softer term, one that engenders intimacy and trust. The Torah uses the word emor three times in the above verse. G-d spoke to Moses affectionately, tells the prophet-king to do the same to the Jewish people, and repeats emor in the command to the priests. The usage makes sense: After all, the command is difficult. A priest cannot accompany the bier of his deceased best friend. He may not enter the cemetery either. The priest is holy and cannot be defiled for anybody but a first-degree relative or spouse.

The weekly portion then returns to the minutiae of the Temple service, including the offerings brought on the three major holidays. Then, the Torah introduces another service — the baking of 12 loaves, sprinkled every Friday with frankincense and placing them on the racks within the tabernacle on the Sabbath.

Every Sabbath day, a priest must arrange it ‘before G-d,’ where they will remain continuously, an offering from the Israelites as an eternal covenant. [Leviticus 24:8]

And suddenly, things turn ugly.

The son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man left [the court, having argued that he should be] considered an Israelite. The son of the Israelite woman and the Israelite man quarreled regarding the camp. [Leviticus 24:10]

The Torah doesn’t identify the son or the Israelite man. But it names the mother of the son, Shlomit, the daughter of Divri from the tribe of Dan. Years earlier in Egypt, Shlomit had been raped by an Egyptian slave master and became pregnant. Her husband was either killed or persecuted. Moses saw the slave master abuse the Jewish husband and killed the Egyptian with the ineffable name, often called the tetragrammaton. The son of Shlomit grew up without a Jewish father and therefore did not belong to any tribe. When the son, who formally converted to Judaism, tried to put up a tent in the tribe of his mother, he was chased away, an act upheld by the court of Moses.

The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the Name [of G-d,] cursing. [Leviticus 24:11]

The Torah does not say who the son cursed, but most of the commentators agree that the target was G-d. But what did G-d do? He didn’t chase the son away. Man did that. The Almighty didn’t rule that he couldn’t establish a residence in Dan — a court of humans decided that.

What words did the son of Shlomit use is also a subject of debate. Some commentators assert that he used the words of the ineffable name heard by the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. Some say the words were the exact ones that Moses uttered to kill the Egyptian man who had raped Shlomit and persecuted or killed her husband.

Perhaps there is a sense of randomness. After all, Moses became a hero and defender of his people for using G-d’s name to kill the Egyptian; Shlomit’s son, using the same words, was branded a blasphemer and condemned to death. The Torah appears to sense this and therefore names only one person in this story.

Shlomit comes from the shalom, or peace. Shlomo Yitzhaki, or Rashi, based on the Talmud, says Shlomit was actually her nickname. She earned the moniker by walking the streets of Egypt, greeting strangers and inquiring about their welfare. Her father’s name was also a pseudonym. Divri comes from davar, or word. She just couldn’t shut up. Soon, she became a joke and the target of lecherous men who pretended to listen.

Now, imagine Shlomit doing this with her little boy by her side. He is ignored while his mother goes on and on — looking for company at all hours of the day. There is no breakfast, lunch or supper. It is all about her. Today, the psychologists would call this narcissistic personality disorder, or as the Mayo Clinic adds “they need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.”

And that was transferred to the little boy. He, too, grew up extremely needy, self-centered, even mocking others to prop up his frail ego. The Midrash says that the story of Shlomit’s son is placed immediately after the priests were told to prepare the 12 loaves in the tabernacle. After hearing this lecture, the now 60-year-old man derided the divine command: “A mortal king usually eats bread straight out of the oven. Would it be then proper for G-d to be given nine-day-old bread?”

That hubris opened the door to tragedy. His mockery left him isolated and enraged. When rejected by Dan, he went from dismissing the rabbis to cursing G-d.

React with rage or contempt and try to belittle other people to make themselves appear superior. [Mayo Clinic: Narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic]

You can argue that Shlomit’s son was the victim of circumstance. It wasn’t his fault that he was born of an Egyptian rapist and a Jewish narcissist. It wasn’t his fault that he was ostracized by Dan for not having a Jewish father.

But it was his fault that he didn’t learn from his mother that the alternative to humility is humiliation. For all his troubles, he stood accountable for the deadly evil that came out of his mouth.

They took the curser outside the camp and stoned him with one stone. The Israelites did as G-d had commanded Moses. [Leviticus 24:23]