We'll now list the next aveirah (transgression) that we mentioned in the previous Mishnah, for which a person receives sekilah (stoning): somebody who curses Hashem. The Mishnah says, “Somebody who blesses Hashem.” We’re going to use the lashon nekiyah, that type of language, because you don’t want to talk about cursing Hashem.
That person would not be obligated to be executed until he actually says the name of Hashem. In other words, he can’t hear somebody else say the name of Hashem and then curse. Rather, he’d have to say the name and he’d have to say a curse. Those two things have to be together as one.
A Beit Din (court) is not allowed to punish somebody unless they have clear testimony about what that person did. But when it comes to the witnesses repeating the story about how a person cursed Hashem, it gets very sensitive because you don’t want the witnesses to come and repeat the name of Hashem with the curse. So how would they solve this problem? Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha says that every day of the trial, when the judges were talking with the witnesses, they would not use the name of Hashem. Rather, they would use a substitute name. For example, they would ask, “Did he say that Yossi should strike Yossi?” They would use the word Yossi instead of the name of Hashem. Yossi is four letters, like the holy name of Hashem: the Shem HaMeforash (explicit name), or Yod-Kei-Vav-Kei. Also, the gematria (numerical value) of Yossi equals 86, which is the same gematria as Elohim.
So they would ask him. They would not use Hashem’s name, but they would talk negatively. They would use a substitute name instead. But when the discussion was over and they were ready to give a bottom-line verdict that the person was guilty, they couldn’t kill the person based on a substitute name in the testimony. They had to actually hear the witnesses clearly repeat what he heard. What they would do is remove everybody who was unnecessary in the room. They would remove them from the court. They would ask the senior witness and tell him, “Tell us clearly and explicitly what you heard from the person who committed the crime.” He tells them clearly the curse word and the name of Hashem. When the judges hear the curse with Hashem’s name, they would stand up on their feet and tear their clothes. They would tear keriah (tear their clothes). When they tore their clothing, they would never be allowed to sew it up because of the tragedy that occurred. It’s considered something so bad that you can’t even sew it up afterwards. You have to have those clothes with a rip in them.
Then the second witness who was there wouldn’t repeat everything, but he would say, “I heard the same thing.” The third witness as well would say, “I heard the same thing.” At that point in time, they could accept the testimony and they would have this person killed.