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אביו ואמו קלל HE HATH CURSED HIS FATHER OR HIS MOTHER — These apparently redundant words are intended to include as subject to the death penalty one who curses his parents after their death (Sanhedrin 85b).

FOR WHATSOEVER MAN THERE BE THAT CURSETH HIS FATHER OR HIS MOTHER. The meaning thereof is that it refers back to the beginning of the section where He stated, Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father,²³³Above, 19:3. and He now states here, for whatsoever man there be that does not obey [this commandment] and curseth his father, or his mother, he shall surely be put to death, and by way of the Truth, [the mystic teachings of the Cabala], this verse is here stated because He had said [above], Sanctify yourselves therefore, and by ye holy; for I am the Eternal your G-d,²³⁴Verse 7. and I am the Eternal Who sanctify you,²³⁵Verse 8. meaning that it is the Glorious Name²³⁶Deuteronomy 28:58. Who sanctifies us, for He is our Father, and our Redeemer from everlasting,²³⁷Isaiah 63:16. and it is His Name; therefore he who curses those who participated in his formation, is liable to death. This is the reason for the law [of the punishment] of the adulterer and adulteress, [in the following verse], which He placed near here before [the law of] all forbidden relations [mentioned further on in this section].²³⁸Ramban’s meaning, as clearly indicated by his commentary (see following note) is that as a result of committing adultery the children of the union may come to transgress the laws relating to parental honor, as they will not know who their fathers are. It is for this reason that the law of the adulterer and adulteress is identical to that of one who curses his parents [who is liable to death by the hand of the court], as the one leads to the other, and therefore too, it is mentioned in juxtaposition to that law. I have already alluded to this above.²³⁹Exodus 20:13 (Vol. II, p. 320).
Now Scripture mentions here some of the forbidden relations in order to make [one who has intercourse with them] liable to death, these being a man’s wife,²⁴⁰Verse 10. a father’s wife,²⁴¹Verse 11. a daughter-in-law,²⁴²Verse 12. a male,²⁴³Verse 13. a woman and her mother,²⁴⁴Verse 14. and the same law applies to a woman and her daughter and her daughter’s daughter, for He mentioned here only some of the relations of a wife, but the same punishment applies to all those mentioned there²⁴⁵Above, 18:17. in the admonition. And surely this applies all the more so to one’s own relatives, such as his son’s daughter and his daughter’s daughter mentioned there,²⁴⁶Ibid., Verse 10. and needless to say, his [own] daughter. On all these matters there are also Rabbinical interpretations to establish their punishment. Similarly He mentioned here the punishment of death for lying with a beast.²⁴⁷Verse 15. He mentioned excision again in the case of a menstruant²⁴⁸Verse 18. [although this has already been included in a general statement above, 18:29], in order to declare him liable for mere sexual contact without completion of the act, this being the sense of the expression, he hath bared her fountain.²⁴⁸Verse 18. Similarly [He has stated] in the case of a mother’s sister and a father’s sister, for he hath bared his near kin.²⁴⁹Verse 19. He mentioned an uncle’s wife²⁵⁰Verse 20. and also a brother’s wife,²⁵¹Verse 21. in order to declare them liable to [the punishment of] dying childless, whether he had no children at the time when he commits the sin, or he did have [in which case none will survive him]. But the excision mentioned in the case of one’s sister²⁵²Verse 17. is redundant [being included in the general statement above, 18:29], and has therefore been interpreted by our Rabbis:²⁵³Makkoth 13 b. “Why was excision specified in the case of a sister etc.” In line with the plain meaning of Scripture [excision was specified in the case of a sister] in order that Scripture should add [that it will be done] in the sight of the children of their people,²⁵²Verse 17. meaning to state that their soul will perish in youth²⁵⁴Job 36:14. in such a way that people will see, understand and realize that the hand of the Eternal hath done this,²⁵⁵Isaiah 41:20. and that the Holy One of Israel has decreed it.
The meaning of the expression he shall bear his iniquity,²⁵²Verse 17. is that this sin will cleave to him from that time onwards, his deeds will not prosper, and the curse shall lie upon him,²⁵⁶See Deuteronomy 29:19. for G-d will strike him with sore sicknesses until He will destroy him with excision, something similar to what the Rabbis have said:²⁵⁷Shabbath 37 a. “A sign of [this type of] sin is one affected with dropsy.” It was not necessary for Scripture to mention the other people who are liable to excision, such as one’s mother²⁵⁸Above, 18:7. and a wife’s sister,²⁵⁹Ibid., Verse 18. because all that is needed to be stated about them we have already derived from those mentioned [here in this section].

כי איש איש אשר יקלל, proof that I, G’d, am so insistent that your sanctity be manifest by your seed being genealogically pure is that the penalty for non observance is the execution of the person who curses his parents. The normal scenario which leads to a son or daughter cursing their parents has to do with legitimacy or otherwise of their offspring. When a son or daughter are the product of unions forbidden under the laws of incest, children of such unions have little reason to practice the commandment to honour their parents as it was from their parents that they learned to ignore Torah legislation. Solomon’s well known instruction שמע בני מוסר אביך ואל תטוש תורת אמך, “heed the moral instruction of your father, and do not ignore the teachings of your mother” (Proverbs 1,8) are most difficult to honour when they know they have seen the light of day only because their parents chose to ignore this very instruction.

כי איש איש אשר יקלל, "for any man whatsoever who curses, etc." Why did the Torah commence this verse with the word כי, a word which indicates that the reason for something is to be found in what had been discussed previously? How is the fact that someone might curse his father or his mother related to what the Torah described in the previous verses? Moreover, why did the Torah have to repeat the word איש? Torat Kohanim claims that if the Torah had written the word איש only once I would have assumed that the prohibition applies only to males and not to females. As a result the Torah was forced to repeat the word איש איש to include everybody in this prohibition. This is most perplexing. Why would anyone have doubted that this commandment applies also to females? We have learned repeatedly that negative commandments apply equally to males and females and that the penalties are the same for both males and females (compare Baba Kama 15). If the Torah did not feel comfortable with the choice of the word איש, it could simply have written the word אדם and I would have known that both males and females were being addressed. Furthermore, why did the Torah repeat the words: "for he has cursed his father or his mother?"

דמיו בו, his blood is on his own head. He made himself guilty of the death penalty.

כי איש אשר יקלל את אביו, “for any man who curses his father, etc.” According to Nachmanides this line is a continuation from the commandment in 19,2 to revere one’s parents. There the commandment had been expressed as a positive commandment, whereas here it is reinforced as a negative commandment, telling us what is in store for people who not only ignore 19,2, but who engage in doing the opposite. Alternately, the Torah draws our attention to the harshness of the penalty by reminding us that G’d commanded us to sanctify ourselves. Anyone who curses G’d’s “partners,” i.e. our parents who helped bring us into this world, has thereby frustrated the Creator’s design and deserves a suitable punishment. This, after all, is also the penalty for marital infidelity, etc.; the underlying concept is similar in all such cases. Abstention from incestuous and promiscuous behaviour furthers G’d’s plan to sanctify our world, whereas violating His laws concerning chastity does the opposite. The positioning of our verse here immediately after the imperative to become holy is quite natural then. Some commentators understand this sequence in a somewhat narrower frame, i.e. verses 9 and 10 respectively as being justified by the simple fact that the mamzer, bastard, product of incestuous relationship does not recognize his father and mother as such, and therefore is liable to curse them. The Torah now lists some of the laws of incest already detailed in chapter 18, in order to spell out the penalties for them, especially those that constitute a capital sin. These include sleeping with one’s father wife, any woman married to another man, one’s daughter-in-law, and indulging in homo-sexual relations, sleeping with a woman and her daughter, including her granddaughter. This was not spelled out, as only some of the woman’s relatives have been spelled out. Clearly, if sleeping with one’s granddaughter is a capital offence so is sleeping with one’s daughter. Naturally one’s own relatives are also included in the list of incestuous relationships subject to the death penalty. One’s aunt and the wife of one’s brother are singled out to remind us that this is forbidden on pain of death even if it is clear that no issue could result from their unions, i.e. that they would die childless, (verse 20). Some more relatives need not be listed specifically as culpability for illicit relations with them has already become clear when more distantly related relatives have been for bidden on pain of death either by tribunal or at the hands of G’d. The reason why, when mentioning the penalty of karet, the Torah adds the enigmatic words לעיני בני עמה, “in the sight of members of her people,” (verse 17) is because this is the Torah’s way of saying that the guilty party will die in her youth, thus enabling the survivors to reflect on the cause of her early death, and for this to act as a deterrent. The meaning of the words עונם ישאו, commonly translated as: “they will have to carry the burden of their sin,” is that the sin will stick to both of the guilty parties like glue from that moment on, and will result in their various endeavours and enterprises in life all failing to be successful. The reason why the Torah repeats the prohibition of a man to sleep with his own wife when the latter is in a state of niddah, menstrual bleeding, is to inform us that the karet penalty applies on such union even if the coitus has not been completed.

To include [cursing them] after death. You should not compare it to hitting one’s father where one is liable only when he is alive. Because if not so, the Torah already said “Any man that curses his father or his mother,” therefore it must be coming here to include after death.

כי איש אשר יקלל את אביו, “for the man who curses his father, etc.” this refers to the warning issued previously. The Torah is saying that if I had warned you not to curse father or mother or belittle them, how much more so does this warning apply to Me, Who have been a partner in creating your father and mother.

דמיו בו HIS BLOOD IS UPON HIM — This implies execution by stoning; similarly wherever the expressions דמיו בו or דמיהם בם occur. We learn this Halachic rule from the case of אוב and ידעוני of whom Scripture expressly states, (v. 27) [“they shall surely be put to death], they shall overwhelm them with stones, their blood is upon them (דמיהם בם)” (Sifra, Kedoshim, Chapter 10 7; cf. Sanhedrin 54a; Keritot 5a). But according to the literal sense of the passage it means the same as the expression דמו בראשו (Joshua 2:19): “[whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street his blood shall be upon his own head] (דמו בראשו)” where the meaning is: No one deserves punishment on account of his death except himself, for he brought it upon himself that he should be killed (i. e. it was his own fault).

I believe that the key to all this is in the previous commandment concerning someone who subjected a son or daughter to the cult of the fire-god Molech. In that instance the Torah was careful to make the culprit culpable only if he sacrificed "some of his own seed." Nothing was said about someone inducting someone else's offspring to the cult of that fire-god. According to that verse if someone sacrificed his brother, sister, or other relative to the fire-god he would not be punishable. In fact we have the following Baraitha in Sanhedrin 64 which states: "he is not guilty (of punishment) unless he committed this abomination with a direct descendant of his." Thus far the Baraitha. We have to explain why there should be a penalty for inducting one's offspring whereas doing the same thing with one's other relatives is not punishable. The reason may be that one's children are considered as if they were part of a person's assets. This is why there is a direct relationship between someone who sacrifices his possessions to an idol such as passing his child through the fires of the Molech cult. When one does a similar thing with people who are not considered as his possessions the idol to whom one presents such a sacrifice remains unimpressed When the idol remains unimpressed so does G'd; seeing one did not"sacrifice" his dearly beloved possessions to an alien deity. We know from Baba Metzia 7 that even when one sanctifies one's property for G'd one cannot do so unless one owns what one has sanctified. In view of all this a person may say that a father does not own his child outright seeing that the mother is an equal party. The Talmud in Niddah 31 tells us that father and mother are partners in the child they produce, the father having contributed the white (bloodcells) whereas the mother contributed the red (bloodcells). Seeing that this is so the father cannot be held totally responsible for the actions of his son because the son represents the mother's input also. After telling us of the punishment for a father who uses his son or daughter as an offering to the fire-god Molech, the Torah continues with איש איש אשר יקלל, saying מות יומת, such a son or daughter shall be executed. The Torah is careful to speak about cursing את אביו ואת אמו, i.e. either the father by himself or the mother by herself. Torat Kohanim explains that it suffices to curse either father or mother to incur the penalty prescribed. In other words, we do not apply the principle that seeing son and daughter are both composites of the input of both father and mother, that the mother's part (of the sinner) cannot be executed on account of a sin committed by the father's part of the sinner. The reason the son has to die is because he insulted either the father's or the mother's honour.

את אביו, “his father,” but not his grandfather.

דמיו בו, ”his blood is upon himself.” The meaning of this expression is similar to דמו בראשו, “his blood is on his own head.” The same applies to someone who lies in an adulterous manner with someone else’s wife. He is no less guilty than someone who has cursed father or mother.

The Torah repeats אביו ואמו קלל, "he cursed his father or his mother," to tell us that anyone cursing father or mother automatically also cursed his other parent. This is so because each individual contains elements of both his father and his mother. This is a practical consequence of the statement of our sages in Berachot 24 אשתו כגופו, that one's wife is considered part of one's body.

את אמו,, “his mother,” but not his grandmother.

Accordingly, it does not matter whether the sin is committed by either son or daughter or is committed against either one's son or one's daughter, the act is totally culpable, i.e. it is considered as if it had been committed by both the female and the male part of the human being who executed it. The words איש איש remind us of the fact that every individual is a composite of male and female input but that the Torah does not separate between them once they are part of one body. We are taught in Niddah 31 "when a woman experiences orgasm first she will give birth to a male child." This means that the female input determines the sex of the male child and that the male input determines the sex of the female child. As a result of this statement the Torah differentiates in the ritual impurity legislation applying to the mother depending on whether she gave birth to a male child or to a female child. This also demonstrates that the two partners who respectively beget or give birth to the child are not equal in all respects. This fact gave rise to the thought that fathers should not be executed when they use a son for the Molech cult, nor mothers when they use a daughter for that cult seeing a person is considered the product of his father or mother respectively rather than an independent entity. The Torah therefore had to repeat איש איש to ensure that we appreciate that the individual committing the sin is evaluated as an entity by itself, is not part of either mother or father when it comes to his culpability. Either a father or a mother using either son or daughter for the abomination described in our paragraph is fully liable for his or her respective sin.

אביו ואמו קלל, “he had cursed his father;” the reason this has been repeated (apparently) is because the Torah wants you to know that seeing the son is the product of both father and mother, i.e. of two strains of blood, he is treated even if he only cursed one of them as if he had cursed both of them. This is reflected in the plural mode of the words דמיו בו, “he is guilty of having cursed their blood,” at the end of our verse.

Yalkut Shimoni item 619 on our verse interprets the word אביו, "his father," as excluding the grandfather from the death penalty if he uses his grandson as an offering for the Molech cult, and the word אמו as excluding the grandmother from that penalty if she does likewise. The Torah was very conscious that careless wording would lead to faulty conclusions on the part of the sages. Therefore the Torah wrote איש איש in the legislation about cursing father or mother so no one should interpret that the culpability extends only to אביו, "his father," and not to אביה, "her father," i.e. that if a daughter cursed her father she would not be culpable for her deed.