Thought of the Week: 21 July 2016 (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 20 July 2016

The last few weeks has seen an incredible symmetry between our Torah readings and political life in this country.  Leadership has been the major topic with leaders in danger of being toppled, lots of wannabees, and challenges against the establishment.  However, whatever the qualities and quirkinesses of those who have put their names forward over the past weeks, Labour, Conservative, UKIP and Greens, none of them has compared to the title character of this week’s sidrah, Pinchas.  He is the ultimate zealot – jealous for God, is how the text puts it.  He has far more in common with the jihadists, fighting in the Middle East and North Africa – and ever more polluting the streets of Europe.

Pinchas’ story began in last week’s sidrah and continues across into this week’s.  It’s almost as if the Talmudic scholars who split the Torah into sections found it too difficult or painful to read it all at one time.  Certainly, there are years when the two preceding sidrot and the two following sidrot are read together, but never is the sidrah of Pinchas joined to another.  Similarly, the Masoretes, whose work culminated in the scribal edition of the Torah clearly had a problem.  The text tells us that God granted Pinchas a covenant of peace in response to his actions on God’s behalf, but the word shalom is written with a broken letter vav.  However, it is very difficult to be completely antithetical to Pinchas, as the author of Torah obviously regarded him with favour and the scholars who allocated the haftarot, probably in the 2nd century BCE, chose a passage from the Book of Kings, that showed the prophet Elijah’s loyalty to God as the parallel to that of Pinchas.  Indeed, later Rabbinic thought suggested that Elijah was Pinchas, whose death is not mentioned in the Torah.  For modernists, despite – or perhaps because of – his zealotry, Pinchas is not an acceptable role model and his main claim to fame is regarded with disapproval.

Yet, we are told that Moses and Elazar are both at a loss at what is seen as a terrible flaunting of the laws that have only recently been given by God.  Standing there helpless, not knowing what to do, they are in danger of losing any sort of control over the Israelite people, their leadership is in grave jeopardy.  In those terms, Pinchas could well be seen as having saved the day and ensured the continuity of Judaism.  In our middle-class desire for an integrated multi-cultural society, the zealot may well be completely out of place, but threatened by external jihadists, with values that differ exponentially from ours, maybe – just maybe – a few leaders with the Pinchas attitude might not be a bad thing?