The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.
Pinchas
Numbers 25:10-30:1
This column has been updated from its original version published in 2018.
In one of the more visceral scenes in the Torah, last week’s parashah ended with the impalement of an Israelite man and a Midianite woman engaged in an act of licentiousness, set against a backdrop of idol worship and debauchery. Pinchas, a grandson of Aaron, took spear in hand and pinned them through with a mortal blow, demonstrating a zealousness that connects him to this day with a kind of vigilantism rare in the Torah and in Jewish life.
We recoil from this scene, reading it with fascination, intrigue, revulsion. Rashi imagined that the Biblical audience was similarly horrified: “Instead of applauding Pinchas, the people accused him of wanton murder,” he asserted 1,000 years ago, voicing the sentiment that despite the earlier, express command to have “each man kill his men who are attached to (the Moabite god) Baal Peor” (Numbers 25:5), there is something very wrong with Pinchas’ choice.
Yet, he was immediately rewarded. The plague afflicting the transgressing people ceased at once (though 24,000 had already died), and God declares in the opening of this week’s eponymous parashah: “Pinchas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore, tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him” (25:11-13).
God quells his temper and spares further deaths among the Israelites. But a “brit shalom”? A “covenant of peace,” translated elsewhere as a “covenant of friendship,” for playing judge, jury and executioner in one swift and terrifying fell swoop? The modern mind, and especially the modern Jewish mind, is confounded at the thought.
Some of us may need a long moment to confront our own profound ambivalence about the Pinchas story. Nearly two unfathomable years since the horror of Oct. 7, the human and national instinct to try to right unspeakable wrongs with swift, decisive action has pursued the Jewish people in every painful waking and fitful sleeping moment since. And there is still no peace.
Did Pinchas act justly? God seems to think so. But later in our portion, when Moses asks God, “the Source of Ruach/Spirit or Breath” (Numbers 27:16), to name a successor for him, it is Joshua who gets the nod. Dubbed poetically as “a man in whom ruach dwells” (Num. 27:18), Joshua will face many battles, but with spirit at his core, rather than kinah, the zealousness that was Pinchas’ primary calling card (Num. 25:11,13). God claims the right to have kinah (also passion or jealousy) at many turns. But the best human leaders, we are taught, possess wisdom, piety, the capacity for deliberation and take a breath before plunging ahead. Those at the very top cannot act with impulsive violence and rashness as the hallmark of their tenure.
If Pinchas’ story ended here, we might imagine that he lived out his days in quiet contentment, sure of God’s favor and reliving his moment of glory again and again with anyone who would listen. But we meet him again, this time on the other side of the Jordan River. As the Jews enter Canaan, the brit shalom proves to be not a reward, but a condition — a directive for how Pinchas is now to live and lead.
In the Book of Joshua, the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Menasseh have been allowed to live on the east side of the Jordan River, apart from the majority of their brethren. But they erect an altar, occasioning a near call-to arms. Did they plan to offer sacrifices there and claim their own holy site? This was not to be done. Joshua dispatches a high-level delegation to ferret out the tribes’ intentions, and at the head of the delegation is none other than Pinchas. Not alone this time, but flanked by 10 tribal chiefs, he now occupies the role of statesman and negotiator, sent to avert a civil war.
Pinchas reminds the tribes (and us) of the incident at Baal Peor “from which even yet we have not cleansed ourselves” (Joshua 22:17), suggesting it has left an indelible mark on his soul, and appealing to the tribes to not stir up internecine conflict. Instead of reacting with emotion and a lethal weapon, this time he listens. He listens to the cogent arguments of the 2½ tribes, who maintain that the altar is symbolic only, a visual link to their kinsmen on the other side of the river. And Pinchas does more than listen; he truly hears. Convinced of the tribes’ loyalty and honor, he speaks on their behalf, “and the report was good in the eyes of the people” (22:32). The promise of the “brit shalom” has borne fruit.
But one final clue in the Torah confirms that this tale of Pinchas is anything but simple. A calligraphic anomaly appears in the words “brit shalom” — the letter “vav” in “shalom” is broken. Normally, this would render a Torah scroll unfit for use and in need of repair, but here it is done deliberately.
Rabbi Berel Wein teaches that the “broken vav” conveys a fundamental truth: “that peace is very fragile, almost always difficult to maintain and it requires great effort to keep it together.” Although there had been a sanctioned “time to kill,” the “broken vav” affirms that Pinchas’ “act of zealotry is not to be a permanent policy of Jewish behavior.” Instead, the fervency and fire of the scene at Baal Peor should be channeled into an equally dedicated path of tikkun, of seeking out opportunities to soothe our broken world.
There may still be times when the sword and spear seem the only answer. Evidence abounds that this is a choice we are still not ready to relegate to the past. In this time of ongoing war and suffering, we pray for our leaders to embody ruach, and that the time of shalom will finally be at hand.