Parashat Pinchas

A few days ago I had the pleasure of participating in a Simchat Hachnasat Sefer Torah- a community celebration welcoming a newly completed Sefer Torah, a beautiful Torah scroll. A crowd of people gathered round as the sofer (scribe) finished filling in the last few letters, and I was honored with the filling in of the letter “yud“, the first letter of my Hebrew name, Yosef.

The letter “yud” is part of G-d’s name, is the symbol for the number 10 (and all that number’s considerable mystical implications), and is reminiscent of the word “yid”, a Jew. Every letter in the Torah is sacred, and one damaged or incomplete letter will “pasul” (invalidate) the entire scroll!

Last week’s reading, Parashat Balak concluded with a disturbing story of errant sexuality and weak morals.

As a result of the idolatrous and licentious behavior of the Israelite men with the Moabite women, and the public display of lewdness by an Israelite leader and a Midianite princess in front of the Ohel Moed (the Tent of Meeting) G-d sends a plague upon the Israelites. Pinchas, the son of Elazar the high priest, rises up and kills the offending couple, and the plague stops.

In this week’s sidra, Parasha Pinchas, G-d tells Moshe that Pinchas is a hero:

Pinchas the son of Elazar the son of Aaron the kohen has turned My anger away from the children of Israel by his zealously avenging Me among them, so that I did not destroy the children of Israel because of My zeal. (Num. 25:11)

At first glance, this is a disturbing statement. If G-d found the deviant couple’s behavior so abhorrent, why couldn’t G-d kill them along with the 24,000 people that lose their lives in the plague?

The name Pinchas, spelled “pay,yud, nun,chet.mem“ is written in a torah scroll with a small “yud“, much smaller than other “yuds” used all over.

It is if the “yid“, our inherent Jewishness is diminished by this violent act. So why is he being praised?

And his reward is great:

” Therefore proclaim it: Lo! I give him my covenant of shalom (peace). And to him and his descendants after him will be this covenant of eternal kehuna (priesthood), because he brought to bear the rights of his G-d and effected atonement for the children of Israel” (Num. 25:12).

Pinchas is rewarded with the priesthood!

Is vigilantism the kind of response to evil that the Torah is teaching us?

If we look closely at the word “shalom” as written in the Torah scroll we find that the third letter, a “vav“, is defective!

The top part of the letter is severed from the rest, leaving a “yud” floating above a line. Obviously this peace is defective as well, and the “yud“, representing the “yid“, the Jewish spark in all of us, is recoiling from this violent act.

The Talmud in Sanhedrin teaches that one does not have the right to be a zealot, and this was a one time exception!

We should be upset by this story, the Torah does not condone vigilantism.

If we disregard the broken vav we get the word shalem (whole or complete). This is a hint towards our true goal: a consummate peace, uncompromised, pure. A peace that comes about only through violence is not a lasting peace, not a complete peace.

Ultimately, we will have to lead by our actions and not by our weapons.

May we, through our efforts of striving to live our lives according the mitzvoth of the Torah, be able to mend the broken vav, and bring about our ultimate redemption. Only then can we truly know a complete peace, a shalom shalem.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Greg