Torah This Week
Welcome to Torah This Week, where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on the Torah portion of the week.
Pinchas
(Numbers 25:10 - 30:1)
When Alexander the Great took his sword and cut King Gordius' knot, the question of who was to rule Asia disappeared. One slice of the sword and all doubts were removed. Most issues facing us as Jews in the modern world are knotted with anxieties that call forth a wish for the simple solution.
Parshat Pinchas puts the problem plainly before us: When the future of the nation appears to be at stake, what type of leader shall be admired?
As the people of Israel camp east of the Jordan River in Midianite territory, Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron and son of the incumbent High Priest, upon finding an Israelite and his Midianite paramour in flagrante delicto, executed them with one thrust of the spear. For this deed, Pinchas and his descendants are awarded permanent priesthood in Israel and a covenant of peace with God.
Moses, who had originally called for the death penalty for anyone found "attaching himself" to the local deity, fails to respond directly to the unfortunate Israelite's death, acting afterwards only as a mouthpiece for God's praise of Pinchas. And therein lies the problem: the acknowledged leader of the community has been outshone in a time of crisis by a hothead whom the Lord praises for being "zealous for Me".
Why should Pinchas receive such adulation? A Chasidic commentary reads: "Pinchas' merit lay in his willingness to assume responsibility when Moses, Aaron and the seventy elders were slow to act." But this assumes that Moses and the established leaders were wrong to act slowly. Such wishfulness for the solution of the sword -- whether in international issues or the go-it-alone politics that plague our communities -- contains within itself a fateful flaw.
As the modern Israeli curmudgeon and philosopher Yeshayahu Liebowitz asks:
In every generation and at every time, but especially in our time, there are people who speak in the name of faith in God, and assume for themselves the authority to be zealous on God's behalf. And the question is. . . "Is their personality such, and are their qualities and human and ethical levels such, that they are worthy of being men of the covenant of peace -- except that their zeal for God has forced them to carry out these severe actions? . . . If he is zealous on behalf of God without being suited for doing so, he is nothing but a murderer."
(John Schecter)
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