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This weeks Parshah, Emor, describes several famous themes within Judaism. Although the laws of the Kohen, festivals, and menorah are all uniquely Jewish ideas found in this weeks parshah, it is important to also draw emphasis to the interesting story retold in the last chapter: the man who cursed Hashem.

In Perek 24, Pasuk 10 an individual, described initially as the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man, begins a fight with an Israelite man. Amidst the fight the half-Israelite/half-Egyptian man curses Hashem's name, and is brought by witnesses to Moshe for judgment. In response, Hashem declares that this particular crime warrants death. Here the story pauses with an interlude describing other instances where capital punishment is required. After this tangent, the parshah concludes with the entire Jewish people carrying out Hashem's commandment.

Our sages pinpoint a few peculiar elements within this story. Despite the most notable distinction of an interrupted story structure, Rav Hirsch argues that this particular sin of cursing Hashem's name is a repetition of the commandment already expounded in Exodus 22:27 "Thou shalt not revile Elohim, nor curse the ruler of thy people" (as the Gemera Sanhedrin interprets the ruler to refer to Hashem as well as the leader of the Jewish people). In addition, Rashi, directs special attention to the detail that "the entire assembly shall surely pelt him with stones", an extra element of public, even national, humiliation not required in other cases of capital punishment.

Yet, possibly the most telling element to the story is the correlation between the sin of cursing Hashem, a verbal sin, with the subsequent sins of killing and injuring fellow humans and other living creatures, a physical sin. Throughout the Tanach there are famous references to verbal transgressions immediately followed by severe punishments: The sin of the spies (where the spies bring back a false derogatory account of the land of Israel) resulting in forty-years of wandering in the desert, to the case of Miriam and Aaron's Lashon Hara about Moshe punished through Tzaras. Although each sin is derived from a verbal mistake, the punishment results in physical retribution- portraying an inherent connection between speech and physical consequences.

After the enumeration of 24 positive mitzvoth and 39 prohibitions, Parshah Emor, literally meaning "speak", chooses to end with this disturbing case of the man who curses Hashem, to portray the power of speech. In its worst form, speech can corrupt an entire nation. As the Gemara articulates, "The tongue is an instrument so dangerous that it must be kept hidden from view, behind two protective walls (the mouth and the teeth) to prevent its misuse." But if used in its intended manner, speech can be used to bring praise, harmony, and love throughout a nation, and throughout the world.