Have You Ever Heard of Shelomith?
Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them. - Leviticus 21:10-12
There are so many layers to this short passage. Take a moment and think about what it was like to be Shelomith. Sink into these questions. How might the Sprit be speaking to you through this woman’s story?
Shelomith’s sexual history is given before she is named. How often do you think that happened in her life, and what would that have been like for her?
Shelomith’s baby-daddy has no name, is not identified as her husband, and does not show up in the story. What would it have been like to have an absent partner?
Shelomith’s partner was Egyptian. He was of a different ethnicity. He was from the oppressors. So how did she end up engaged with him sexually? Was there violence? How would that affect how you see her? Her child?
Shelomith’s child was biracial. What was it like to grow up biracial? To have an Egyptian as your father? For everyone to know this and speak more of it than your actual, individual name (which is never mentioned)?
Shelomith’s son fought. Was this the first time or was it common? Was he ‘just like his father’ or was this out of the ordinary? What was it like to have a son who was violent? And what if he was standing up for justice, how would that affect how she thought of his fighting?
Shelomith’s son blasphemed. How did she feel about religion in the first place with how her people had treated her? How did he son feel about religion? How much did she teach him and how much did she grieve what she did not teach him?
Shelomith’s son was incarcerated, and put on death row. What was it like for her to have an incarcerated son? Ethnic minorities had far fewer rights in Israel than Israelites, so how did Shelomith handle the sense of injustice based on his ethnicity when so many other documented capital offenses committed by the majority were not prosecuted?
Shelomith is the only individual woman named in the entire book. Why might that be?
*Special thanks to Wilna Gafney for her provocative reading of Shelomith in Womanist Midrash