Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Levitico 24:10

No man was there . . . that would convert. [Rashi offers this Midrashic interpretation] because the verse says “he saw that no איש (man) was there,” rather than “no אדם (person) was there.” Whereas according to the verse’s plain meaning that Moshe was afraid of being seen, there is no difference whether it was a man or a woman. Therefore Rashi explains, “No man. . . that would convert,” since איש implies a tzaddik. Similarly Rashi explains in Parshas Shelach (Bamidbar 13:3) and in Parshas Devarim (Devarim 1:13) that איש implies a tzaddik but it does not exclude women (Maharamash). You might ask that in Parshas Emor (Vayikra 24:10), Rashi says that בתוך בני ישראל (among the B’nei Yisrael) means that the son whom the Egyptian begat from Shlomis had converted. [Thus, he did have a righteous descendant.] The answer is that when Moshe killed the Egyptian, Shlomis had already conceived him. However, Moshe saw that no additional converts were destined to descend from him.

ויניחהו במשמר, “they placed him in custody;” according to Rashi, they did not place the man who had collected kindling on the Sabbath in the same cell with him, although both incidents occurred at about the same time. If you were to ask that Rashi had interpreted the word ויצא, “he went out,” in Leviticus 24,10 by quoting Rabbi Levi who said that “he left his world,” whereas Rabbi Berechyah is quoted as saying that the word means that this blasphemer first ridiculed the legislation about the showbreads (as we already explained), something that could not have occurred until the second year when the Tabernacle was functioning, whereas the person collecting the kindling had done so on the second Sabbath, i.e. at Marah, or at the latest immediately after the giving of the Torah only 49 days after the Exodus in the first year, even before the Torah had given, so how could they possibly have been placed in the same cell as that person had long since been executed? (see Rashi on Parshat S’hlach lecha) We are therefore forced to answer that the tribes had taken up positions in the desert in accordance with the sequence in which Yaakov had blessed them, already before there had been any mention of the erecting of a Tabernacle, so that the incident with the blasphemer could have occurred much earlier than the impression given in our portion. We have explained repeatedly that the author of the Torah did not feel restrained to report events in their chronological sequence. The blasphemer ridiculed the legislation of the showbreads as soon as it was taught, though the Tabernacle had not even been built yet. [he was not driven to do so because he had been refused to put up his tent with the Danites. Ed]

ושם איש ישראל המוכה, Pinchas had endangered his own life by what he did in view of the high rank of his victim, one of the 12 princes of the people, as well as a princess from a neighbouring country. [if not for this, the Torah might not have bothered to name the individuals concerned just as it did not name such sinners as the man gathering wood (Numbers 15,33, or the blasphemer Leviticus 24,10. Ed.]