Turn It Again: Torah Wisdom for Today
In Pirkei Avot, a book of maxims in the Mishnah, an ancient rabbi, Ben Bag-Bag said about Torah study, “Hafokh bah, va’Hafokh vah, d’khola bah.” Turn it over and over, for everything is in it. For two thousand years, that’s what Jews have done. Here is another turning.
Parshat Pinchas 2024
This week’s discussion contains adult material.
The Zealotry of Assassination
In this week’s Torah portion, we discover how God bestows upon Pinchas a brit shalom, or covenant of peace. This reward is granted shortly after Pinchas assassinated Zimri, an Israelite man, and an unnamed Moabite woman who apparently were engaged in sexual congress by the Tent of Meeting.
Their act broke numerous social conventions. Firstly, the space itself was a cordoned area of holiness, making any act of physical intimacy a terrible trespass.
Secondly, from ancient Israelite sensibilities, the act itself was idolatrous as the Torah explicitly mentions in Numbers 25:1-3, at the conclusion of last week’s parashah. “While Israel was dwelling in Shittim, the men profaned themselves by engaging in prostitution with the Moabite women, who invited them to sacrifice to the (Moabite) god. The men ate (the idolatrously-sanctified sacrifice) and worshiped that god. In this way, Israel attached itself to (the Moabite deity) Baal-peor, and YHVH was furious with the Israelites.” As background, it is useful to know that sexual rites were a regular part of Moabite religion. They engaged in orgiastic acts of sympathetic magic, hoping to convince their god Baal to increase crop yields through demonstrations of human fertility.
Thirdly, in response to this act of betrayal, God spread a plague among the Israelite idolaters, so Zimri’s act was poorly timed; it not only ignored the social devastation of the plague, but seemed to directly flout God’s will.
Finally, Zimri was a tribal chieftain from the house of Shimon. In addition to all of the other conventions that he broke, his behavior was an abuse of power and a dereliction of his responsibility to set a standard of behavior for his entire tribe.
Additionally, Moses had invoked God’s name to incite the nation to attack and kill all the Israelites who were involved in this act of divine and national betrayal, so we can imagine how heated the rhetoric and state of discourse was.
When the full context of this period is brought forward, it becomes easier to understand why Pinchas picked up his spear. It had to feel like everything was falling apart so that only a desperate act could restore balance or save the national project. Although familiarity with this cultural milieu helps us understand conditions on the ground, it doesn’t imply that we need to condone acts of vigilante justice; the rich range of responses from our classical meforshim or Biblical interpreters emphasizes this.
The 16th-century Italian exegete, Rabbi Obadiah Sforno, believed the brit shalom was a covenant with the angel of death, implying Pinchas’s life might be cut short due to his violent act, since violence often begets violence. However, the Torah indicates that Pinchas lived a long life. The 13th-century Chizkuni, as well as Abarbanel, highlights this notion of karmic repercussion by stating that Pinchas worried that he would lose his status as a priest, since they, in particular, are not permitted to shed human blood. Yet again, this special brit prevents the normal set of consequences from befalling Pinchas. The 19th-century Polish author, Malbim, seems to believe that the brit shalom allowed Pinchas to achieve an inner state of tranquility which normally would have been impossible because of the violent nature of his act.
What all of these comments hint at is that we must understand the brit shalom as the exception that proves the rule. In the Talmud, our sages were equally disturbed by Pinchas’s act of zealotry, even as they had to acknowledge God’s beneficence to Pinchas; as a result, they highly restricted when zealotry might be permitted so that it is now nearly impossible to justify. No premeditated act can ever be considered zealotry.
While Pinchas’s zealotry might seem like a relic of a primitive past, the Torah’s messages are timeless. During periods of social instability, zealotry often rises, and justification for such acts increases. Torah study is a powerful bulwark against our darkest impulses, reinforcing the civilizing values that allow us to live together.
