Thoughts for Pinhas

Pinhas opens with a response to a simply shocking event.  At the end of the previous sedra, Pinhas ben Elazar jumped ‘out of the crowd’ and publicly killed a public leader who was publicly sinning with a Midianite woman, promoting a breakdown of public morality and loyalty to Judaism and the Jewish people.  The word ‘public’ appears quite a bit there, doesn’t it?  It should; because so much of the Torah is aimed at, and an expression of, Jews publicly embodying Judaism.

Nonetheless, this was a shocking incident.  The response from God, therefore, is even more curious.  Pinhas kills someone, even if correctly so; and is rewarded with ‘My covenant of peace/wholeness/shalom’ and ‘an eternal covenant of priesthood.’  How strange!  Allow me to amplify the contrasts, almost contradictions here.

When the altar is built, it is forbidden to use metal to cut the stones.  Tradition tells us that one reason for this is that the altar, which brings about atonement and peace between man and Hashem, lengthens and enhances man’s life;  and metal is used to make weapons and shorten life.  So metal tools are excluded from cutting the stones for the altar.

There is a halacha that states that a cohen who kills someone is to be excluded from service in the Mikdash/Temple.  Aharon, the father of the priesthood, is characterized in the mishnah as ‘loving peace and pursuing peace’.

Do we begin to see the apparent incongruity of Hashem’s response to Pinhas’ act?

The Torah is here showing us a message about balance.  There is no clear contradiction between a cohen who may be called upon to employ legitimate violence, and his representation of an ideal of peace among men, and between God and man.  If fact, we are called upon to always measure our actions, and judge if they are appropriate for the situation and the demands of Hashem’s Torah; not according to some rigid ideology.  Indeed, doesn’t the Torah command us concerning a cohen mashuah milhama - a cohen who is to provide spiritual leadership during war?  There are real struggles between good and evil; and no one is exempt.

This is a notion that every yeshiva student could understand during his army service.  Clearly, our immersion in Torah study should sensitize us and refine us.  The exigencies of military life, the very necessity to pursue and kill an enemy, tends to make one rough.  There is a danger of crudity and cruelty.  The challenge, however; the Torah’s demand, is to rise to the occasion and strike the necessary balance.  To wage war as needed, and yet remain in deep respect and awe of the Divine image in every man.  Rav Aharon Lichtenstein briefly touches on this same issue in his essay, The Ideology of Hesder.

This came out years ago, when I was a yeshiva student in Jerusalem.  One of my teachers, a cohen, lived in Beit El, north of Jerusalem.  He would pass by my neighborhood, Ramat Eshkol, on his way home.  I would sometimes catch a ride with him, to have some time alone to speak and learn with him in the car.

I noticed that, despite living near Ramallah and other Arab towns, he didn’t carry a weapon in his car.  When I asked him about this, he replied that he is cohen, and doesn’t want to be in a position where he might kill someone - even in complete self-defense.  He looked at this as aside from the clear obligations of his army service.  I pointed out that he has an obligation like anyone else, to defend himself or others under attack.  We discussed this a number of times, and at some point Rav S. started carrying a firearm again.

The example of Pinhas teaches us to be discerning, and to avoid simplistic single-faceted positions.  Hashem requires that we find the true balance in a complex world.  Only thus can we be rewarded with an eternal covenant of true service to Him.

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