Parashat Pinhas
A Time For Zeal
People who
translate zeal for God into violence must normally possess the qualities and
ethics worthy of a covenant of peace.
By John Schecter
The following article is reprinted with permission from CLAL: The
National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.
When Alexander the Great took his sword and cut King
Gordius' knot, the question of who was to rule Asia disappeared. One slice of
the sword and all doubts were removed. Most issues facing us as Jews in the
modern world are knotted with anxieties that call forth a wish for the simple
solution.
Parashat Pinhas puts the problem plainly before us: When the
future of the nation appears to be at stake, what type of leader shall be
admired?
As the people of Israel camp east of the Jordan River in Midianite
territory, Pinhas, the grandson of Aaron and son of the incumbent High Priest,
upon finding an Israelite and his Midianite paramour in flagrante delicto,
executed them with one thrust of the spear. For this deed, Pinhas and his
descendants are awarded permanent priesthood in Israel and a covenant of peace
with God.
Moses, who had originally called for the death penalty for
anyone found "attaching himself" to the local deity, fails to respond
directly to the unfortunate Israelite's death, acting afterwards only as a
mouthpiece for God's praise of Pinhas. And therein lies the problem: the
acknowledged leader of the community has been outshone in a time of crisis by a
hothead whom the Lord praises for being "zealous for Me."
Why should Pinhas receive such adulation? A Chasidic
commentary reads: "Pinhas' merit lay in his willingness to assume
responsibility when Moses, Aaron and the seventy elders were slow to act."
But this assumes that Moses and the established leaders were wrong to act slowly.
Such wishfulness for the solution of the sword--whether in international issues
or the go-it-alone politics that plague our communities--contains within itself
a fateful flaw.
As the modern Israeli curmudgeon and philosopher Yeshayahu
Liebowitz asks:
In every generation and at every time, but especially in
our time, there are people who speak in the name of faith in God, and assume
for themselves the authority to be zealous on God's behalf. And the question
is. . . "Is their personality such, and are their qualities and human and
ethical levels such, that they are worthy of being men of the covenant of
peace--except that their zeal for God has forced them to carry out these severe
actions? . . . If he is zealous on behalf of God without being suited for doing
so, he is nothing but a murderer.”
