We know nothing. Knowledge transcends us. There are no answers to our questions. They will never be answered.
We construct, each of us, a wall of assumptions and axioms to guard ourselves from the ultimate pain our ignorance brings. We call these beliefs and values.
When we encounter beliefs and values contrary to our own, the wall that we have constructed threatens to crumble and throw us back into the pain, the Abyss.
Fear of this existential threat leads people to do horrible things.
Today we are going to look at an example of one man, Pinhas ben Eleazar’s (Etz Hayim, Num. 25.11), existential fight against the Abyss. We will examine his actions. We will also take a moment explore how other important Jewish figures faced similar crises. Finally, we will determine if Pinhas achieved the result he desired.
It was a bad time for B’nai Yisrael at the end of Parshat Balak (ArtScroll Rashi Bamidbar, Num. 25.1-8). They were living in Shittim at the time, and, not surprisingly, they began to fraternize with the local women (25.1). They really started to assimilate, first through their relations to these non-Jews, and next thing you know, the Israelites are worshiping Baal-peor (25.2-3). Well this certainly undermined Mose’s authority through God, and God let him know it.
“Take the leaders of the tribes and hang them all,” (25.4) said God.
Well the Simeonites were not going to go quietly. Rashi says that they ran to Zimri, their leader, and appealed to him, “We are being sentenced to death, yet you sit silently!” (25.6 Rashi) Rashi himself had a source that went further in Sanhedrin 82a that continued the story (25.6 Note 11).
Zimri responded to his people. He raised twenty-four thousand men. His first stop was Cozbi, daughter of a Midianite king. With her along, he went straight to Moses. Sanhedrin says that at this point with his twenty-four thousand behind him and the rest of B’nai Yisrael watching, Zimri had a chat with Moses (25.6 Note 3). Rashi has some ideas about what he said but I have some ideas as well.
Zimri yelled, “Who the hell are you, Moses, to tell me that I can not be with Cozbi if I want to, or that any of my people can not be with the women of their choosing? Who the hell are you to tell us who we can and cannot worship?” (25.6 Rashi).
Zimri doesn’t stop here. He continues. “Moses, know your place. Yah, you are in charge now, but remember, I am descended from Simeon, Jacob’s second son, while you are descended from Levi, his third. Further more, Moses, you are married to a non-Jew! Who are you to tell anybody they can’t choose a non-Jew.” (25.6 Note 11) This is the extent of Sanhedrin 82a.
For once, wise old Moses was stunned (25.6 Rashi). Outright speechless. It was so bad that B’nai Yisrael looking on burst into tears. It was at this moment, at this time, that Pinhas, took a spear in his hand. He followed Zimri and Cozbi fleeing in terror from his onslaught into the Tent of Meeting. Finally cornering them, he let it all out. He stabbed. No hesitation. No thought. One great jab. So hard, with such rage, that Cozbi cowering in Zimri’s arms, was impaled at the same time. (25.7-8) Pinhas was left with his own heavy breathing.
Zimri spit in the face of everything Pinhas had been taught. This onslaught threatened to bring out the very foundation of Pinhas’ world, undermining his support network, the heroes who had inspired him, like Moses, in his life. Most of all Zimri’s openness brought into light the possibility of a complex world with conflicting ideas and acceptable actions and ways of life that made Pinhas dizzy and anxious. Everything he knew was coming apart at the seams because a world in which his values and beliefs, which he thought were the same values and beliefs of his people, in which they were not the pinnacle of moral righteousness meant that maybe life was complicated after all, that his simplistic happy world view was not the end of all knowledge and wisdom, that maybe he had been living what he might confuse for a lie. A lie that Zimri so blatantly called into question when he rejected a Jewish spouse and even their God along with the life that would go with that. Amidst this flood of powerful emotions Pinhas could not allow, could not permit, or think rationally and honestly and risk his world collapsing. In fear, in anxiety, in rage, and uncertainty, he took that spear and he just, stabbed—as hard as he could—to destroy the lie, to destroy the uncertainty, to destroy the complex world that was threatening to devour him in a black void. And amidst a pool of blood forming around him, he smiled, and thought to himself, “I was right”.
A Look Into the Abyss
I want to take a moment to examine this existential pain I keep talking about. Why am I interrupting my drash thus far to do this? I really want to bring out into the light the power of the Abyss. How its draw can lead the best of us at times to the brink of insanity trying to make sense of things that cannot be known. Many otherwise good people are overcome. Sometimes a person who perseveres through one crisis falters in the next test. One thing that is clear is that Pinhas was not the only important figure in Biblical Judaism to feel this existential pain, the pull of the Abyss. I am going to take a moment to look at three instances in which Moses, Elijah, and Job, all reach a similar crisis.
We learn in Brachot daf Zaen Amud Alef that “R’ Yochanan said in the name of R’ Yose that Moses requested three things from God.” (ArtScroll Berachos, 7a 4)
For the third, “He requested of God that He make known to him the ways of the Holy One, Blessed is He, with regard to dispending judgment… as it is stated… [Moses] said before [God]: Master of the Universe, What is the reason that there are righteous people for whom things are good, and there are righteous people for whom thing are bad? On the other hand, there are wicked people for whom things are good, and there are wicked people for whom things are bad.” (7a 4)
“R’ Meir said… one of the requests (that God should make known to him His ways) was not granted to him, as it is stated: I shall show favor to whom I choose to show favor, which implies even though he may be unfit to be shown favor. The verse continues: and I shall show mercy to whom I choose to show mercy, which implies even though he may be unfit to be shown mercy.” (7a5)
Moses wanted answers to questions God refused to answer. On this occasion Moses persevered. Some may hold that at other times, say the incident where Moses slew a taskmaster beating an Israelite, that Moses was in less control. I tend to think that that instance was more related to a circumstance of self-defense, or defending another in physical peril, where use of even deadly force may have been justified. But the argument is there, that perhaps this instance is more similar to Pinhas’ actions.
This brings the discussion to the Haftorah of Pinhas that we did not read this week because it is three weeks before T’sha Baav (Etz Hayim, Kings I 19.8-14). . Elijah fleeing for his life walks forty days and forty nights into the wilderness and finds himself at the foot of mount Horeb (19.8). There he goes into a cave to spend the night (19.9). The word of God comes to Elijah, and God asks, “Why are you here, Elijah?” Elijah responds, “I am moved by zeal for the Lord, the God of Hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and put Your prophets to the sword. I alone am left, and they are out to take my life.” (19.10)
Elijah’s actions as a prophet perhaps best capture the concept of zealotry. He kills and destroys many times. He seems to find it surprising that his zealotry is not enough. So Elijah goes to Mount Horeb hoping to receive revelation, an answer that will tell him how to make people listen.
God tells Elijah to stand on the mountain before God, for all we know, in the same place Moses asked for revelation (19.11)
“And lo, the Lord passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind—an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake—fire; but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire—“קול דממה דקה“ — “a soft murmuring sound”. (19.11-12)
Elijah undergoes a religious experience that defies words (19.12 Notes). Finally he stands at the entrance of the cave and God once again asks the question, “Why are your here, Elijah?” (19.13)
The prophet did not get the answer he came for. In fact Elijah bares a close resemblance to those he chastises in his answer.
“I am moved by zeal for the Lord, the God of Hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and have put Your prophets to the sword. I alone am left, and they are out to take my life.” (19.14)
Elijah did not listen himself. He is at the same place at the end of the experience that he was at the beginning. He returns to his zealotry, still bothered by the same question he came with.
At last we are left to encounter Job. The Talmud goes so far as to suggest in Baba Batra 15a that Moses himself wrote Job (ArtScroll Berachos, 7a 4-5 Note 40). The Rambam considers the issues discussed in Job to be the very root and foundation upon which the Torah rests. At last as Job rails the enigma of the world at God, God appears before Job in a storm.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation…? Did you ever in your life command the morning, or teach the dawn its place…? Were the gates of death revealed to you…? Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth, or anticipate labor pains of the gazelle…? Is it by your wisdom that the hawk hovers, spreads its wings…?” (The Stone Tanach, Job, 38.4-39.26)
But you Job, I fashioned a human being with the means to think, with a spark of my own essence. Would you rather that I had made you a goat? A gazelle? A hawk? A goat does not think. Is ignorance truly what you seek Job? Or would you rather shout and scream at things you have no authority to challenge and ability to change?
Moses, Elijah, Job—the best of us—have felt the pull of the Abyss, and have appealed to God for answers. Even they were denied what they sought.
According to the sages of old, even God knows the Abyss. It is reported in ברכות as it was recorded in a Baraita that אלישע בן ישמעאל רבי was in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur when he saw— אכתריאל שהוא יושב על כסא רם ונשא...—“God… sitting on a high and lofty throne”. (ArtScroll Berachos, 7a 1) And God said to him, ברכני בני ישמעאל— “Yishmael, my son, Bless me”. And Yishmael with the greatest chutzpa any of us have ever heard of responded:
יהי רצון מלפניך שיכבשו רחמיך את כעסך ויגולו רחמיך על מדותיך ותתנהג עם
בניך במדת הרחמים ותכנס להם לפנים משורת הדין“May it be your will that your mercy conquer your anger, and that your mercy overcome your sterner attributes, and that you behave toward your children with the attribute of mercy, and that for their sake you go beyond the boundary of judgment.”
“ונענע לו בראשו“ —“Upon his concluding this blessing God nodded to him with His head, demonstrating His approval”. Rashi remarks, “As if answering, ‘Amen’.” There appears to be aspects of God’s own self that God seems unable to fully control.
Finally I actually get to an excerpt from Parshat Pinhas!
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Pinhas… has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in My passion. Say, therefore, ‘I grant him My pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for his God, thus making expiation for the Israelites’’”. (Etz Hayim, Num, 25.10-13)
God puts a Pinhas on a leash. I was at Limmud LA in February (2009) and I heard a great example of this at a session I was at with a representative of the Catholic Church, a certain Right Reverend of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. I do not have time to discuss the whole thing, but it was a very good explanation of the incident this year regarding the four excommunicated Bishops who were readmitted into the Catholic Church, one of whom turned out to be a holocaust denier. Please ask me about it afterwards, those of you who are interested. As for God’s pact of friendship, how is it the saying goes: “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” As for the priesthood—ask any pulpit Rabbi today if they find that their job affords them lots of free time. Though the priesthood was a very different creature—Pinhas would get to spend his days slaughtering animals in a highly skilled, technical manner. So are these two rewards Pinhas received honors? Sure. Then again, is Pinhas going to have much time in the future to make a bigger mess? Only if he burns a lamb-chop or two.
Does Pinhas get what he wants? I don’t think even God could cure Pinhas of the pain he tried so hard to cover up. Clearly Zimri hit a nerve. To God Pinhas’ actions must seem like a child having a tantrum. Yelling and screaming and hitting will not make the pain go away. I would guess that killing two people will ultimately only create the seeds for greater pain and self doubt in the future. There is no point rebuilding your house after the earthquake if your foundation is sand.
Why does Pinhas get any reward at all? It isn’t clear that what he did violated the law. Zimri was definitely out of line. His actions could easily be described as treason and for that maybe he would have eventually been sentenced to death. Then again, maybe Moses and Zimri could have worked something out. Maybe they could have laid the foundations to an entry into Eretz Yisrael through marriage, conversion, and alliances, rather than war, death, and destruction. We will never know what would have happened. It should also be noted that at Pinhas’ time vigilante justice was considered perfectly acceptable. We need only look at the Cities of Refuge established in Eretz Yisrael to know the truth of this. If Zimri was guilty of treason, Pinhas would not have been out of line in exacting the punishment. But I think it is important to remember that the letter of the law does not always determine what is in fact just. The Talmud put it beautifully, that ultimately God desires לפנים משורת הדין (ArtScroll Berachos 7a 1)—justice beyond justice—what people call the spirit of the law. Particularly we can look at the other side of the Cities of Refuge, that while they acknowledge that the sentiment existed, that as they moved from the stage of being wondering nomads to trying to maintain a nation, B’nai Yisrael desired a society that respected a functional rule of law. What Pinhas did was destructive and ultimately unhelpful even to himself. Sure he is given a reward for it, of sorts. But his pain persisted, as it does for all of us today. The Abyss still exists.
Thank You. Shabbat Shalom.