 |
 |
||||||||||||
 |
Back to Question of the Week Q: It would seem clear in last week's Torah portion that the killing of two lovers by Pinchas is rewarded by G-d with an eternal covenant of peace and the Kahuna (priestly) position! In our day, does such zealotry have an appropriate role for our people in Israel or the diaspora? Was Rabbi Meir Kahane a modern Pinchas in light of his being murdered? Were the Macabees not zealots, etc? B'Shalom-M.E. Staten Island, N.Y. USA Diaspora |
||||||||||||
|
 |
A: M.E. is referring to the incredible story found in Numbers 25:1-15, in which the children of Israel go whoring with the women of Midian and bowing to their idols. A particular Israelite, Zimri, brings a Midianite woman, Kozbi, before the whole community, and, while the two of them are engaged in "the act," Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron, the priest, spears both of them through their private parts. For this, God stops the plague that had been sent to punish the Israelites, and rewards Pinchas with a "covenant of peace" and an assurance that he and his sons would eternally be priests, among them the high priest. So what are we to make of this? And where, if anywhere, do Kahane and the maccabbees fit in? First, in Pinchas' and God's defense, the two that were killed weren't "lovers," as M.E. would have it. Sex does not love make. Zimri and Kozbi were idolaters. Indeed, although sex can be a holy activity, it has also had a long and substantial career as a site of idolatry: it can involve idolatrous worship of self, of power, of money, of sex, etc. (I would argue that the sort of old-fashioned idol-worship that we think of when we read the Torah was also a sophisticated version of the worship of self, power, money, sex, etc. Some things change little.) Having said that, I also must say that Pinchas had a very interesting, maybe even bipolar, career in the readings of the classical rabbis. And well he should have; I mean the guy was a vigilante! First let's look at the relevant Jewish law -- the relevant halakhah. (This can be found, basically, in the Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, page 82a; More concisely, it can be found in Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Issurei Bi'ah, Chapter 12, laws 4 and 5.) It goes like this: In a case such as Zimri's, where a man is having idolatrous sex with a heathen, if they are doing it in public, in the view of at least ten Israelites, a "zealot" is allowed to kill the two of them while in the act. Not only "allowed," but is praised for doing so. However, if the couple leave off their activity even for a moment, and in that moment the zealot kills one or both of them, the zealot is considered a murderer and is liable for the death penalty. If one of the amorous idolaters kills the zealot first, it is considered self-defense, and no punishment is meted out. Most tellingly, if the zealot asks the permission of the sages or of a Bet Din (=a Jewish rabbinic court), they are not to grant permission and they are not supposed to teach people to be zealots. Jewish society was to be a society based in law, not vigilantism. So zealotry, and the zealot, were obviously very special cases which the rabbis understood were outside of the normal way that society functions. The zealot and the court, or the zealot and the sages, --i.e., the zealot and the normal procedures of Jewish life -- have nothing to do with each other. The zealot is a very special kind of individual, engaged in a very particular, and dangerous, action. (One indication of the rabbinic ambivalence towards Pinchas's zealotry can be found in a midrash from the Jerusalem Talmud. The rabbis picture the sages at the time of Pinchas getting ready to excommunicate him, when the divine reward is announced and they decide they shouldn't excommunicate someone for a divinely rewarded activity.) Just how special the zealot is, is made clear from other midrashim about Pinchas. In fact, the Torah text itself makes this clear. Most of the people we might call zealots nowadays start off violent and become more so as they practice their zealotry. But as M.E. points out, in the Torah, God gives Pinchas a "covenant of peace." Pinchas does what he needs to do when he needs to do it, but is not continually filled with hatred or violence. The rabbis embellished on the "covenant of peace," and taught that Pinchas had so much peace, that he never even died. According to a few midrashim, he became a sort of angelic being who showed up again as the prophet Elijah, and will return in the end of days to bring the Messiah! So what would the rabbis have said about Meir Kahane, and how did they feel about the zealotry of the maccabbees? Clearly, for the rabbis, there is no such thing as a movement of zealots. Zealotry is a limited-time engagement of a very pure individual; sages, judges, and rabbis do not get involved. And a zealot has a covenant of peace; being continually hateful and violent is not a sign of a Pinchas-like zealot. Neither is being murdered. So, from the point of view of our classical rabbis, of blessed memory, Meir Kahane was not a Pinchas, and his movement, Kach, is not a movement of true zealots. (As I've emphasized, for the rabbis a "zealous movement" is an oxymoron.) We also see this attitude also in their treatment of the maccabbees. The rabbis didn't actually like them very much. They considered the maccabbees usurpers for taking on the kingship without being descendants of David. They weren't impressed by the fact that the descendants of the maccabbees were Torah-ignorant despots who ended up being Helenizers themselves. And they expressed their displeasure at the zealotry of the maccabbees by emphasizing the story of the miracle of the oil, rather than the military victory over the Greeks. So that's the answer from the stand point of the ancient rabbinic tradition. If you want my modern answer, I'm with the rabbis of old on this one. written by Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz |
|||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
 |
[Home] [Lobby] [Library] [Classroom] [Office] [Lounge] [Gift Shop] Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning
|
 |
|
|
|||
