Does the exception really prove the rule, as the old adage tells us? Either way, we need both rules and exceptions, both to survive and to thrive — individually and communally, psychologically and politically, culturally and spiritually. People in pretty much all spheres agree, even when they don’t agree about what should be the rules and what should be the exceptions.
Rules are vitally important, but so are exceptions. And even when the exceptions to what we thought were the rules become the norm, it does not devalue the importance of the original rule. In other words, exceptions are not the opposite of rules; they are interdependent parts of what constitute a healthy culture.
That can be hard to embrace: Some of us identify as “rule people,” typically more suspicious of exceptions. Some of us identify as “free spirits,” more often uncomfortable with rules and the constraints they impose. And yet, a careful look at this week’s parsha — Emor — reveals that it appreciates how rules and exceptions are most needed precisely when we are most inclined to think of one as more important than the other.
The reading opens with what appears to be a clear prohibition: Members of the Priestly caste, as servants on the side of life, must be kept away from death.
“The Lord said to Moses: Speak to the Priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: None shall defile himself for any (dead) person among his kin.” (Exodus 21:1-4)
Yet the next verse begins with the word “except”!
There are exceptions to this strongly stated rule, and they include the Priest’s mother, father, son, daughter, brother, and unmarried sister. Wife is not on this list, seemingly because while (hopefully) much-loved, she is not related to the Priest by blood, and the priesthood is very much about blood. But whatever the reasons, the Torah teaches the exceptions to the rule immediately following the rule itself, which is not something it often does. We might leave it at that, except that this Torah reading concludes in a similar fashion, inviting our special attention to the relationship between rules and exceptions.
After a reading that lists nothing but laws, the parsha ends with a brief story (Exodus 24:10-23). The story describes a man who “blasphemes the Name,” and Moses and the people not knowing what to do in such a case. They want to know the rule, and that is what God gives them: Anyone who blasphemes should be put to death. That is what the people do, taking the blasphemer out of the camp and stoning him.
Most striking to me is that despite the Torah teaching dozens and dozens of laws for which the listed punishment is death, this is one of only two stories in the entire Five Books of Moses in which it is actually done. We are given a book with a laundry list of rules, including the response to their violation, but only twice does anyone do it!
As we were at the beginning of this reading, we are drawn to the ongoing relationship between rules and exceptions. And in each case, there is neither apology for fiercely stated rules, nor fear about exceptions to carrying them out. In fact, in the case of the death penalty rule and the violations for which it is prescribed, implementing the rule is the exception! The penalty is often invoked, but almost never carried out, which invites us to consider which is the rule and which is the exception to it. We typically think of “the rule” as that which is commonly done, and “the exceptions” as those less commonly done, but here it is the opposite. And they may be the whole point.
This entire reading seems to ask us to reconsider what we often think of as the dichotomy between rules and exceptions — between commitment to one of them and suspicion regarding the other, depending on your personality. Parashat Emor suggests that however much each of us may lean in one direction or the other, we need them both. Perhaps the most powerful takeaway this week is that whichever way we may incline in the ongoing debate about rules versus exceptions, it is the view to which we do not normally subscribe that we need most of all, as we are meant to live by both the rules and the exceptions.