Righteous Zeal? - Pinchas 5785

-

 Is it good to be a zealot?  From a superficial reading of the story of Pinchas it would seem so.  Let’s recap the story that we read at the end of the Parsha last week.  Many of the Jewish men had succumbed to Bilaam’s vicious and disgusting plot.  “Their G-d hates promiscuity,” Bilaam told Balak.  So, he said, have your women seduce them, and that will bring them the destruction that I could not accomplish by cursing them. The plot succeeded, and many Jewish men, primarily from the tribe of Shimon, went with the Moabite and Midianite women, leading them also to worship the Baal.  A plague started and many died.


When the prince of the tribe of Shimon, Zimri, brazenly and publicly brought a Midianite woman to his tent, Pinchas went after them with a spear and killed them both.  What was Hashem’s reaction?  “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Pinchas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the kohen has turned My anger away from the children of Israel by his zealously avenging Me among them, so that I did not destroy the children of Israel because of My zeal. Therefore, say, ‘I hereby give him My covenant of peace.  It shall be for him and for his descendants after him [as] an eternal covenant of kehunah (priesthood), because he was zealous for his G-d and atoned for the children of Israel."  (Bamidbar 25:10-13.)


But it’s not so simple.  We all know that Pinchas was the son of Elazar and that Elazar was the son of Aharon.  Why the need to list two generations of lineage?  There is a back story here.  Many people felt that Pinchas was motivated by a mean streak.  One of his grandfathers was Aharon, the other was Yitro, who was also Moshe’s father in law.  Yitro renounced idol worship and joined the Jewish people, but before that he had fattened calves to be slaughtered for idol worship.  That is a cruel thing, to fatten animals just to kill them for idol worship!  


So people started murmuring that Pinchas was genetically predisposed to cruelty, and that’s why he killed Zimri and Kazbi.  Hashem Himself therefore testified for him that he was acting as the grandson of Aharon.  Aharon was a man of true love and kindness, known for making peace between people and loving everyone.  He was, as the Torah says, “zealously avenging Me,” protecting the Jewish people from the egregious sins of idol worship and unfaithful intimate behavior.  There was no cruelty, no personal stake, no personal vengeance.  Here was a truly holy man, with no ego and no ax to grind, acting purely out of love of Hashem and love for his people.


The lesson here is a powerful one.  It is easy to criticize others, and easy to feel "righteous indignation” when we see someone committing a serious sin.  Often someone will feel that it is necessary to chastise that person and give them a piece of our mind.  Perhaps to ostracize or shame them, or at least to distance them.  The Torah teaches us that it is very possible that the feelings are not coming from pure holiness, but from a tendency to anger or self-righteousness.  


Only someone with the kind of deep love for every person that Pinchas, the grandson of Aharon, had, can be sure that his emotion is purely holy.  For the rest of us, we need to fight those negative feelings and show love and tolerance.  If we see someone doing the wrong thing, certainly we can try to help them, with love and acceptance, to teach them the right way and help inspire them to improve.  Never to succumb to feelings of zealousness.  Those are almost certainly misplaced.


There is a teaching from the Baal Shem Tov, that if we see something negative in someone else, they are like a mirror reflecting our own faults, and this is certainly the case if it evokes anger in us.  Yes, the Torah teaches that we are responsible for one another and should not stand by when someone is going down the wrong path.  But the correction must come from a place of love and concern, and even then only in a way that will have a positive impact and not shame the other.  


This was the way of Aharon.  He loved every person, and brought them close to the Torah.  With love, anything can be accomplished.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes Silence is the Answer - Chukat 5785

-
  (Dedicated to the memory of Rachel bat Yosef Shmuel. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, teacher and friend. She passed away on Erev Shabbat and was laid to rest surrounded by her family and many, many friends in the Holy Land.) Chukat, the Parsha we read and study this week, talks a lot about death. Miriam and Aharon, two of the three greatest siblings of our people, pass away. And Moshe is informed that he will not live to take the Jewish People into Israel.  The Parsha begins with the laws of the “Red Heifer.” This was the cow that was slaughtered and then burned, and its ashes mixed with “living” spring water. The mixture was sprinkled on a person who had come in contact with a corpse, twice over a period of seven days, and he or she would then immerse in a Mikvah and thus be purified from the Tumah (ritual “impurity”) that came from contact with the corpse.  There is a fascinating Midrash that recounts a discussion between Hashem and Moshe. Hashem taught Moshe t...
Read more

Simchat Torah Forever - ST 5785

-
I grew up listening to stories about Simchat Torah in the most difficult circumstances.  My grandmother, who had been left alone to raise her children after the Soviets had arrested her husband for being Jewish, heard a rumor that there would be a secret Simchat Torah celebration several miles away from where she was living.  She took her children and walked for miles so they could see it.  It took some convincing to get the Chassidim to let her in and not worry that their secret would get out. Through thick and thin, under the most difficult and dangerous circumstances, Jews have gotten together to celebrate Simchat Torah.  In exile in Babylon, under the Romans, during the Inquisition, through the persecution of the pogroms, in Nazi death camps, Jews have observed this day with joy.  In hidden cellars in the Soviet Union, they danced in their socks and whispered the songs in order not to be caught.  I have also heard from Russian Jews that even though it w...
Read more

Yes, There is a Hierarch! - Nasso 5785

-
Is sameness a good thing?  How about hierarchy?  Equality is the word nowadays, but what does true equality mean?  The Jewish nation was created with a hierarchy.  The 12 sons of Jacob, also called Israel, were the original “B’nai Yisrael.”  Jacob gifted Yosef a double portion, as the first-born of his beloved wife Rachel, making his two sons Menashe and Efraim heads of separate tribes.  Of the 13 tribes, one stood out, the tribe of Levi.   The Levites were chosen to carry the portable Sanctuary through the desert, and serve in the Temple as guards, singers, doorkeepers and more.  They lived in special cities and guided the people.  The leader of the Jewish people, Moshe, was from the tribe of Levi.  They stood out in their faithfulness to Hashem in Egypt and throughout the journey in the desert, by circumcising their children and following the traditional lifestyle passed down by Jacob.  They did not participate in the Golden ...
Read more