Pinchas:
Loving God, too much of a good thing?
I
can remember clearly, one Friday afternoon a few years ago, as I was in
the sanctuary of the synagogue practicing my sermon for the upcoming shabbos, a man walked in
looking for the rabbi. It’s not so
uncommon for people from all different backgrounds and faiths to walk into
Sherith Israel looking for help. This
was one of the more interesting parts of being the assistant Rabbi there for 2
years. The man seemed excited or
agitated, and since I was the only Rabbi around at the time, I sat and talked
to him. The beginning of our
conversation jumped all over the place, at first I didn’t know where he was
going; he spoke to me about how wonderful he thinks the Jewish people are, and
how much respect he has for the children of God, but eventually it became clear
that he was working his way up to telling me about certain passages in, what he
refers to as the old testament, which maybe I wasn’t aware of, that proved that
his candidate for the Messiah was the real one.
He didn’t work for any missionary organizations or anything like that,
It was very clear that what motivated him to walk into the local synagogue was
an extreme love for his religious beliefs.
He was truly concerned that I was missing out, he couldn’t help himself. He was overcome with an absolute feeling of
certainty and love, he needed to share it, but he was oblivious to the
disrespect he was showing my beliefs and way of thinking.
In
Judaism, nothing is black and white.
Zealotry has its place as we see in the namesake of this week’s Parsha,
Pinchas.. But throughout the corpus of
Jewish literature and ideas, the topic of Zealotry is broached with great
caution. Extreme zeal is not something
to emulate.
There
is a midrash that says Pinchas is Eliyahu.
The man in last week’s Parsha who took the law into his own hands and
slew a prince of Israel and Midianite princess for their immorality and idol
worship is the prophet who defeated and slew the prophets of Ba’al after the
famous showdown on Mt. Carmel. This is
quite shocking because these two biblical characters lived hundreds of years
apart. What causes our sages to make
such a startling claim? The early 16th
century Italian scholar known as the Seforno quotes an earlier translation and
commentary which explains how Pinchas and Eliyahu are literally the same
person. Seforno puts forth the idea that
the Torah brit shalom, covenant of peace, Given to Pinchas by God as reward for
his act of zealotry is a gift of immortality.
But others are uncomfortable with the literal interpretation of the
Midrash. They understand the Midrash as
teaching us about a symbolic parallel between the personalities of Pinchas and
Eliyahu. Both Pinchas and Eliyahu were
zealots, and they both committed egregious sins in the service of God. In their defense of God and Judaism, both
Pinchas and Eliyahu violated commandments which would normally make them liable
to receive the death penalty according to Jewish law.
Killing
Zimri was not a clear cut case of right and wrong. Our sages are clearly uncomfortable with
Pinchas’ actions as they teach us in Masechet Sanhedrin that had Zimri, the
victim, turned around and killed Pinchas first in self defense, he would be
innocent of any crime; that had Pinchas killed him at any moment other than the
exact moment that he was involved in the sin, Pinchas would be a murderer; and
that if Pinchas had asked permission from a beit din, he would have been
denied. In the end, God tells us that Pinchas was right in doing what he did,
but we needed God to tell us that, it wasn’t obvious. Eliyahu, in his showdown with the prophets of
Ba’al on the mountaintop, built his own altar and brought a sacrifice on
it. During this period of time, it was
categorically forbidden for a Jewish person to build a private altar and bring
a sacrifice on it.Despite the fact that both Eliyahu and Pinchas are considered
religious heroes, they were heroes in times of need, but not role models.
The
evidence for this is although Pinchas was given a brit shalom, he would never
be a normal cohen. As a result of his violence,
he would never be permitted to participate in the usual Priestly duties of the
tabernacle. To be valid for the Priestly
service, a person must never have shed blood, regardless of whether the
circumstances were accidental or if the violence was justified.
Pinchas acted on God’s behalf,
ending a plague of idolatry amongst the Jewish people in the desert, but the
manner in which he did it led him to lose his Job. Similarly, Eliyahu’s theatrical showdown with
the priests of Ba’al may have been successful in stamping out the rampant
idolatry of the time, but in doing so he violated a commandment not to bring
sacrifices on an altar outside of the Temple.
Shortly following this incident Eliyahu is instructed by God to command
his disciple to continue his work after him and he is whisked away to heaven in
a fiery chariot. Eliyahu did a great
service for God, but shortly after he also lost his job.
What
motivated Pinchas and Eliyahu, what led them to violate commandments in the
name of Heaven? It was their love of and
devotion to God. In our Parsha, God
describes the actions and motivation of Pinchas using the words בקנאו את קנאתי בתוכם,
while he was zealous for my sake. The
same language is used by Eliyahu in the way he describes his own
motivations. Eliyahu says, קנא קנאתי לה,
I am very zealous for God. Their love
was of a clear and absolute truth; to them it was so black and white that when
they saw something wrong, they acted.
Their actions were the extreme manifestation of this certainty. We can see a similar experience to a lesser
extent in aspects of our own lives.
We
all have moments when we feel something powerful; something we know to be
right. It’s hard to control ourselves
when we are overcome with this feeling.
We are so excited that we want to scream from the rooftops and let
everyone know! To a much lesser extent,
but still the same drive, when we discover an amazing tv show, movie, or book,
most of us can’t help but at least recommend them to all of our friends and
family or even try to force them to enjoy the same thing we did. We want to share the beauty that we find. Though these things are trivial matters, we
often have a hard time listening to someone talk negatively about one of these
things that we have enjoyed.
If
this is true with our favorite pastimes, think about how much more true it is
with regard to decisions about our lifestyles and our religious practices. When it comes to the matters of deep seated
belief, this need to share can sometimes be at best, offensive, and at worst,
rather dangerous. There are
manifestations of other religions who happily adopt this need to share, to spread
the good word. But many times in history
it has led to great crimes and violence against the Jewish people as well as
many others. With our own religion,
although Pinchas and Eliyahu are the rare examples of when this type of
behavior was justified, there are some dark, little known, periods in Jewish
history when Jewish armies were converting people by the sword. It is human nature to feel the certainty of
our convictions and act upon them, but doing so in a way that causes harm to
other people or violates the Torah is not the Jewish way.
Judaism
treads very lightly with regard to the way in which we influence others and
show them truth. A Mishna in Masechet
Eduyoth records certain arguments of Hillel and Shamai. We often hear about the schools of Hillel and
Shamai having famous disputes. But the
arguments listed in this Mishna are different, they are the ones where they
initially disagreed on the interpretation of a law, but in the end one of the
great sages changed his mind and adopted the law according to the other. The Mishna asks, if in the end they agreed on
the interpretation of the law, why bother recording that they once
disagreed. The Mishna responds it is to
teach us that even our greatest fathers were never so confident and certain in
their own words that they were unable to see the truth of another approach.
The
real lesson here is to be humble. No one
is always right, our greatest sages were willing and able to face the
possibility that they might be wrong, and it led them to be able to respect and
see truth in opposing perspectives. To
go through life allowing for the possibility of being wrong requires great
humility, but it is the model that our tradition wants us to learn from and
emulate. Zeal, on the other hand, is the
negation of this humility. It leads us to
act, or more often than not, react with absolute confidence in ourselves and
devalue the perspective of other people.
It is hard to really make a positive impact on another person when
everything we do shows a lack of respect of who they are and where they are
coming from.
It is difficult shame someone into
truly agreeing with you, it is rare to successfully convince someone of
anything by beating them up.
How
do we make a lasting positive impression on another human being? Our tradition uses Aaron as the archetype of
this character trait. The Mishna in
Pirkei Avot teaches, “Hillel would say, be of the disciples of Aaron - a lover of peace, a pursuer of
peace, one who loves all creations and draws them close to Torah.” First you
have to love and respect people before you can bring them close to your way of
thinking. In the midrashic work, Avot
d’Rebbe Natan, we are shown more clearly how Aaron would achieve his lasting
impact on others. It says, “If
Aaron would see someone acting improperly, he would not go over and rebuke or
criticize the fellow directly. He would rather *befriend* him, pretending not
to be aware of his faults. The person would eventually grow ashamed and think
to themselves: "Aaron is such an amazing person and role model and he
wants to be my friend. What would
my friend Aaron think if he knew I acted this way? How can I act in a way that
is more deserving of his friendship?" Sooner or later the person would
repent his or her ways.
This
lesson goes further back; in fact God teaches us something very similar in
something he says to Eliyahu. Following
the showdown on Mt. Carmel where Eliyahu successfully defeats the prophets of
Ba’al, he runs from the evil Queen Jezebel.
While on the run he is led by an angel of God to a cave in the
wilderness. While he’s in the cave, God
comes to him and says, “What are you doing here Eliyahu?” This question isn’t just, what are you doing
in the cave? God knows what he’s doing
in the cave, he led him there. God is
asking Elijah an existential question; what are you doing here on Earth? What is your purpose? What drives you? It is at this point that Eliyahu says, “I
have been very Zealous, קנא קנאתי for you God. The
children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, killed your prophets, I’m the
only one left who sees the truth and they are after me.”
God
tells Eliyahu to go out and stand on the mountain, and God will pass by
him. Immediately a strong wind which
tore the mountians and broke apart rocks passed by Eliyahu, This was followed
by an earthquake, then a great fire.
After each of these cataclysmic events, the text reminds us that God is
not in these awe inspiring displays of force.
In the end God was in a קול דממה דקה, a small still voice which followed all
the noise.
It
is human nature to beat our chest and to try to get our way by use of
force. Godliness is more subtle. Aaron got it, he embodied this behavior,
which is why he is the partriarch of the Priest caste in Judaism. The role of the priests, is to enrich and
deepen the people’s relationship with God.
It has to be done in a Godly way.
This is symbolized in the law that a priest who has shed blood is
disqualified from being able to serve in the temple. Violence, even when it happens by accident or
with perfect justification, still has an impact on the person who did it. In
our lives, violence, whether it is the physical kind or the emotional kind - as
an attempt to force our will on others - is rarely effective, it harms us in
the process and it should only be used as a last resort in times of great need.
Pinchas
did not act priestly, what he did may have been necessary, but as a result he
would never participate in the Priestly rituals. God protected him from the people in Israel
who wanted to harm him for his actions by telling us in our Parsha that he is
protected by a brit shalom, covenant of peace.
The covenant of peace is very fitting; the following verse tells us that
it was for him and for his offspring after him.
Meaning, for the future Pinchas life should be about peace, his
offspring shouldn’t learn from and emulate his violent behavior. Pinchas, we are told, often accompanied the
Israelites into battle. Because in the
macho lead up to war and in the heat of battle men often lose some of their
humanity, Pinchas was a safeguard to remind them that our ways are of peace and
pleasantness, we don’t put violence on a pedestal, in war sometimes violence is
necesary, but it is only a necessary evil.
Pinchas learnt his lesson.
After
hearing the small still voice which is symbolic of God, Eliyahu was again asked
the same question that he was asked before, what are you doing here
Eliyahu? Word for word, Eliyahu says the
same thing he answered before, קנא קנאתי, I am zealous for you. Immediately following this, he is commanded
to anoint his successor and that is almost the last we hear about Eliyahu for
the rest of the book of kings until he is taken away on a fiery chariot. It doesn’t seem like Eliyahu got the
point. His way of doing things, fire and
brimstone has a very limiting effect and it is usually not God’s ways.
The
Torah describes the Jewish people as a Mamlechet Kohanim, a kingdom of priests.
To deserve this title, we need to act
like the model priest, Aaron. Who, first
and foremost loved humanity and peace. So often we are tested in this
regard. We are faced with people close
to us and just in passing who live vastly different lives than us and make
extemely different choices than we would make or approve of. Or world events challenge our sense of right
and wrong, there are extremely divided opinions out there, and I’m sure in
here, on issues varying from Peace in the Middle East, abortion, or the ethics
of same sex civil marriage. To be
students of Aaron we need to disagree on all matters in a way that is not
disagreeable.
During
this time period between the fasts of שבעה עשר בתמוז and תשע באב, we are called upon to fix the sins which
led to the spiritual decay and subsequent destruction of the Temple, the sin of
hatred of one another. We learn to hate
when we demonize the things we are uncomfortable with and disagree with. May we all be blessed to live like Aaron to
love and pursue peace by being lovers of humanity.
