“Love implementing the demands of justice”
Parashah Pinchas continues the story of Aaron’s grandson Pinchas. At the end of last week’s story, we read that Pinchas, upon witnessing an egregious act of apostasy between an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, took immediate extrajudicial action, executing them on the spot. This week we hear God’s word in response to Pinchas’ deed, “[Pinchas] 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. Say, therefore, ‘I grant him My pact of Peace.’” Both God and Pinchas are depicted as characters of zealotry and passion. Despite the Torah’s seeming endorsement of Pinchas’ act of zealotry, Jews throughout the centuries, sages and student alike, have questioned Pinchas’ act and whether that endorses zealous behaviour as a Torah principle. Today, it is not just Judaism that struggles with what it means to be willing “to kill for God,” for all religious traditions have a text or tradition that endorses that type of killing.
Those who endorse Pinchas’ action, and zealousness for God, argue as the great 19th century Orthodox rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: “anyone who wages war on the enemies of what is good and true is a champion of the Covenant of Peace on earth even while engaged in war.” Of course, what is good and true is defined within the very scripture that allows one to kill in its pursuit. The commentary in our Etz Chayim Chumash points out that, “The tradition generally considers moral threats to be more dangerous for national survival than physical threats. Although the Egyptians and the Edomites threatened Israel’s physical existence, we are commanded not to hate them. We are told to wipe out the Midianites, however, for they tried to undermine Israel’s moral standing.” For some, upholding one’s moral standing by taking action that is against the law is problematic.
Accordingly, an entire other tradition arose in Judaism, one that over time has become preponderant. Thousands of years ago, the rabbis of the Talmud established so many rules as preconditions before one was permitted to take zealous action had to follow, they essentially classified as a murderer one who claimed to kill in zeal for God. In addition to this restriction in law, they added the following homiletic teachings. The early rabbis noted that Pinchas’ name in the opening of this parashah is spelled in the Torah scroll with a small “yud”, the same letter used in God’s name, and learned from that that one who commits violent acts, even for a “good cause”, has diminished his own Godly nature. Similarly, the “vav” in shalom is written with a broken stem, suggesting that peace achieved through force is not whole or sustainable.
While the minority position endorsing zealotry in Judaism still exists (think of the followers and defenders of Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir), the majority finds such action abhorrent. Pinchas’ actions are considered to be “of that time” and it is noted that he is assigned to the priesthood partly to disarm him. The essence of the message of the Torah and the prophets is that those of us who wish to create real shalom know it is achieved with justice tempered by compassion. As a good friend and teacher recently reminded me, Martin Luther King said decades ago: “…now, we’ve got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realisation that power with love is reckless and abusive and love without power sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.” This evokes our teaching about Aaron, Pinchas’ grandfather and according to the Torah tradition the founder of the priesthood: “Be like the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace and drawing people close to Torah.”