"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."  (Soren Kierkegaard)

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A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON

The Poisonous Grudge

Act 1- Judge, Jury, and Executioner

At the close of last week's parasha, the Midianite women successfully lured the Israelite into worshipping Ba'al Pe'or, their god. God's wrath exploded into a lethal plague which felled twenty four thousand Israelites. Pinchas, a grandson of Aaron the Chief Koheyn took up the banner of vigilante justice. Pursuing Zimri and Cozbi, an Israelite man and his Midianite lover into their tent, he killed in an act of passionate zeal. The plague abated. God rewarded Pinchas with a covenant of shalom.

Act 2 - "Make Love Not War" is answered with Take No Prisoners.

Moshe musters the Israelites to make war upon the Midianites. This war of annihilation was in response to the Midianite campaign of luring the Israelite men into idol worship. This was a campaign to burn the Midianites down to the ground. When Moshe learns that the virgin females have been spared he is angry: "hecheyitem kol n'keiva - have you indeed let the women live?!"
 

Pause and Let the Words Sink In

This is the same Moshe that brought down the tablets of stone, the same Moshe that witnessed the burning bush, the same Moshe that married a Midianite woman named Tzipporah.

Why must we pause? Because we live in a world that has witnessed repeated genocides, from the monstrous handiwork of the Nazis, the killing fields of Pol Pot, the staggering carnage of Rwanda, the stunning malevolence that scarred Yugoslavia.                          

Too many conversations are embedded with "you know how those people are. You can't change them. They are not people; they're animals. They are children of a lesser god. They have no soul." There are too many Jews have become comfortable with these conversations. The words leave poisonous residue.

Broken Arrow

Texts like parashat pinchas - toxic as they are - are very important for us to regularly revisit. Not because we need - ever -  to excuse genocide or explain it away. Not because the God we worship feasts upon the spilled blood of our foes. Not because we need heroes like Pinchas. Surely we do not. These disturbing texts are a wake-up call, an antidote to the moral callouses which could leave us spiritually homeless, maybe even worse. The Brit Shalom that God gives Pinchas is interesting. If it is calligraphed properly, this one instance of the word Shalom features a broken vav. I believe that is because God breaks the spear of Pinchas the zealot. God is teaching us not to follow the lead of Pinchas.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Aaron

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