On Leviticus 13 and Biblical Interpretation Beyond Any Likely Original Meaning (4/25/26)

This morning in my Torah Study (via Zoom with Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel, we covered the Holiness Code in Leviticus 19. In Torah Study, we read the text and interpret the text to make the text meaningful in our lives. I am a lawyer with interests in constitutional and statutory interpretation to make the text meaningful to the community served by the Constitution and statutes; the process is the same, but our Torah Study community is curious about the “original meaning” of the Torah text, but we are far from wedded to whatever we believe the or an original interpretation might be. As Jim Kugel, probably my favorite Hebrew Bible Scholar, says: The text we honor is the interpreted text, including interpretation by the tradition of rabbis and by ourselves in our current community. I could write a lot on whether interpretation of the Hebrew Bible should be different from interpretation of Constitution or statutes, and do on my Federal Tax Procedure Blog, here.

In this post, I want to focus on Leviticus 19:13. Since all translation is interpretation, we find it helpful to use two principal texts: Plaut’s The Torah: A Modern Commentary (Revised Edition 2006) in hardcopy (although I also have it in Kindle) and Sefaria’s online resource, here, which is really quite good. Often someone will bring in Robert Alter’s magnificent translation/interpretation in his book on the Torah, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (2004). Just for fun, I offer the three translations with commentary.

Plaut translation:

13] You shall not  defraud your fellow [Israelite]. You shall not commit robbery.

The Plaut translation offers no commentary other than supplying the bracketed word.

Sefaria Translation 

13 You shall not defraud your fellow.^a You shall not commit robbery.

The only “commentary” in Sefaria is in the subscripted text adding: fellow I.e., fellow Israelite—whether male or female. In contrast to others “neighbor.”

 Alter translation

13 You shall not defraud your fellow man and shall not rob.

 Alter has no comment on this text.

In this morning's session, we read from the Plaut edition, the reading included the bracketed [Israelite] that, if a proper interpretation, is a commandment not to defraud fellow Israelites.

Being a lawyer, I asked the question whether this “translation/interpretation” is a commandment applicable only to defrauding fellow Israelites. The specific question I asked is whether the implication is that it is OK to defraud non-Israelites. That flushed out a good discussion, with (I think) the consensus of the group that, regardless of what the text may read literally, the prohibition should apply to all and not just to fellow Israelites. That is consistent with the tradition of rabbinic interpretation as I understand it, that identifies the broader ethical issue and interprets the text accordingly.

After the Torah Study, I asked the question to Google’s AI tool, Gemini and got the following answer:

Prompt: Does Leviticus 13 commandment not to defraud apply defrauding fellow Israelites or does it apply to defrauding non-Israelites as well

The prohibition against defrauding in Leviticus 19:13 ("You shall not defraud your neighbor, nor rob him...") technically uses terms that refer to fellow Israelites, but biblical law broadly prohibits theft and dishonesty toward anyone, including non-Israelites (foreigners or strangers). 

·         Context of "Neighbor" or "Fellow": In Leviticus 19:13-18, words like "neighbor" (rei'echa) or "brother" (ach) are often interpreted in a legal sense as referring to fellow members of the covenant (Israelites).

·         Application to Non-Israelites (Gentiles/Strangers): Despite the technical term, broader biblical ethics and later codified Jewish law (Talmudic) prohibit cheating or robbing non-Jews (Gentiles). Specific laws in Leviticus 19:33-34 also explicitly command that a stranger/foreigner residing with the Israelites must be treated as a native-born.

·         The Specific Prohibition: The law forbids withholding wages overnight (Leviticus 19:13), which is a specific form of fraud or oppression.

·         Ethical Standard: While some Talmudic discussions differentiate between obligations to fellow Jews and non-Jews regarding lost items, stealing or intentional fraud is prohibited regardless of the victim's religion. 

Therefore, while the specific commandment in Leviticus 19:13 is formulated with "fellow Israelite" in mind, the prohibition against intentional fraud, theft, and exploitation is generally understood in biblical and Jewish tradition to apply to interactions with non-Israelites as well. 

 As I understand this tradition of interpretation, it is not what we lawyers call textualism or its cousin, originalism. Indeed, the traditions of the Jewish community and Christian community have long since abandoned the notion the we as a community should not interpret the text as guided by our experience and tradition. Because I think that is what makes the Bible work for us in a broad since without being tied to a single interpretation, I am skeptical of textualists (rather than faux-textualists) and originalists.

A theme in the foregoing is the textual Torah and the Oral Torah which is traditional interpretation and meaning that has been carried down over the years and informs Jews as to who they are.

One note on this. I practiced and wrote substantially in the criminal tax area. Criminal tax is a subset of white-collar crime. One of the major crimes charged in criminal tax and white collar crime is the “defraud” conspiracy in 18 U.S.C. § 371 which is the conspiracy statute criminalizing both the “offense” conspiracy and the “defraud” conspiracy (2 different conspiracies). When a statute criminalizes “fraud” (or its related word, “defraud”), the normal interpretation is that fraud must include the intent to illegally acquire money or property. The exception is the defraud conspiracy in § 371. The Supreme Court in a line of cases interpreted the defraud conspiracy to include fraud in its traditional use and interpretation (money or property) but also conduct that intentionally impairs or impedes the lawful functioning of a federal agency (the IRS when applied in a tax context). Significant challenges have been made to that broader interpretation, including requests that the Supreme Court retract/overrule its broader interpretation. But, in any event, I thought of this context of statutory interpretation where the statute text is interpreted beyond its original meaning.

And of course there is the Constitutional context: For example, “We the people” meaning something now that the founders did not interpret it to mean. (Similarly with the Declaration of Independence’s unconditional claim that all men are created equal; that claim now means something the “founders” or drafters did not originally intend.)