A Violent Passion for the Good: Pinchas, Reading IV

In the strange and difficult story of Pinchas, there is one action that I would imitate, without need for interpretation. It's not what Pinchas does, however: it's what God does with Pinchas.

"Say, therefore, 'I grant him my pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for his God, thus making expiation for the Israelites.'"

Pinchas is already a member of the tribe of Levi, a tribe which is known for its righteous indignation and its tendency to violence. Way back in the book of Genesis, Levi himself (along with his brother Shimon) killed off a whole town full of people because their chief's son had raped their sister Dinah. The Levites had also been the executioners after the incident of the Golden Calf. They have a tendency to go to extremes.

God curbs this tendency by channeling it. The Levites have the job of meticulously assembling and disassembling the tent of meeting and carrying it all throughout the wilderness. When the Israelites camp for a period of time, the Levites have to prepare the sacrifices. Their passion flows into an attention to detail.

Pinchas is the grandson of Aaron, the high priest. He will inherit the even more careful job of offering sacrifices, even in the area designated as the Holy of Holies. He must know that his uncles Nadav and Abihu did the same job in a way that displeased God, and died for it. His passion will also be channeled--into a tremendous devotion.

As a community and as individuals, we have within us the capacity to go to extremes in the name of what we hold most holy, whether that is the God of the Torah, Jesus, the dar al-Islam, the revolution, or the Stars and Stripes. God does not expel Pinchas for expressing this capacity but gives him his pact of friendship. We need to find ways of honoring the zealot within us--ways that make passion for the good and the right a holy force for community. May we have the strength and the wisdom to find those ways.

Being Human Has Its Advantages: Pinchas, Reading II

The Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Phinehas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in my passion."

The Hebrew word for "turned back," heshiv, comes from the same root as the word for repentance. T'shuvah is not simply feeling sorry, however. To make t'shuvah, one has to confess one's wrongdoing and go on to do everything in one's power to make the situation right again. It seems to me that is exactly what God does at the beginning of parshat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10). God makes t'shuvah.

What does God confess? A few verses earlier, in response to the Jews' idol-worship, the Torah quotes God as saying, "Take all the ringleaders and have them publicly impaled before the Lord, so that the Lord's wrath may turn away from Israel." As harsh as this extremely unusual sentence may be, it is a judicial sentence, a punishment for a crime. Perhaps God could carry it out and go no further--but human beings cannot. As I recounted on July 30, Pinchas takes out his spear and stabs Zimri and Cozbi on the spot. The plague of disease called "the Lord's wrath" threatens to turn into a plague of vigilante justice.

As I interpret it, God is shaken. Throughout the Torah, human beings have the capacity to surprise the divine being. A God of justice cannot conceive that human beings could turn justice into slaughter until Pinchas' action rudely brings that fact to God's attention. "Here," says Pinchas' spear," is what happens when you command human beings to take life and death into their own hands. Is this really what you have in mind?"

Pinchas' action turns God's action back on itself. It reflects the consequences of drastic justice in the mirror of finite and fallible human beings. Finally, it turns back God's command itself. B'kino et kinati, "by being zealous with My zealousness," Pinchas has forced God to repent of God's harsh judgment and to make things right by ending the extermination then and there.

God needed Pinchas to show what untrammeled zealotry can do to human beings. Being human, we should already know that for ourselves. That is the advantage of being human--if we let it.