Shabbat Pinchas

Written by Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah Thursday, 28 July 2005

Just over two weeks ago, on July 7th, the everyday discomfort of the London ‘rush hour’ became the locus of terror and carnage – in an instant, at 8.50am. How did it happen? How is it possible that four young men, aged between 18 and 35, born and brought-up in this country, got up early that morning, set off for London with their deadly cargo, and became human bombs? We know now that while his comrades were doing their deadly work on the London Underground, things didn’t go to plan for the youngest – and it is only an eye-witness report of his intense agitation on the Number 30 bus diverted away from Kings Cross, that gives us any sense that the perpetrators of those horrifying atrocities were actually people, like you and me. But how is that possible? In what possible sense are those who deliberately turn themselves into human bombs and indiscriminately kill and maim ordinary people of all ages and ethnicities, going about their daily lives, people like you and me?

A lot of questions: and so few answers. It is, of course, possible to try and proffer explanations: No doubt these young men experienced a great deal of racism growing up in this country, making it relatively easy for them to feel disaffected from the society around them; no doubt they were influenced by the rantings of militant Islamists – not only, those occupying clerical posts within some Muslim communities, but those publicising their views on the Internet. But however reasonable these explanations may be, they don’t confront the fundamental issue: How is it that four young men, who, it seems, were loved by their families and friends, and who had never committed any kind of crime before – people little different from most of us – were capable of planning and executing those attacks, and blowing themselves up in the process? Of course, the phenomenon of so called ‘suicide bombing’ is not new – but when it’s not happening ‘over there’ in Iraq – or even, ‘over there’ in Israel – but over here in the heart of London, in the midst of the country we inhabit; and when the perpetrators are not other people, but fellow Britons, we really cannot distance ourselves from the horror – and it is much harder for us to avoid that fundamental issue.

Trying to make sense of the reality of human evil, the sages said that each human being is born with two inclinations, a yetzer tov, a ‘good inclination’ and a yetzer ra – an ‘evil inclination’ – each one of us, in other words, is capable of ‘good and ‘evil’. But it’s more complicated than that: It turns out that the yetzer ra is not strictly speaking an ‘evil inclination.’ According to the sages, without the yetzer ra, a person would not marry or build a house or do anything creative or productive. In other words, what drives us to be creative is very similar to what drives us to be destructive: our yetzer ra represents, not so much our ‘evil’ inclination, as the power within each one of us to create and destroy. I realise that what I’m saying may be very challenging to some people. It is more comfortable to think that only certain individuals – very different from ourselves – those who are mentally ill or have a ‘personality disorder’ – are capable of mass murder. But neither the evidence from the London bombings nor the evidence of suicide bombings elsewhere supports such a conclusion. Given the necessary circumstances and conditions, we all have it in is.

The Psychologist and Shoah survivor, Eugene Heimler, realised this when he found himself in a train carriage with a young German after the war – someone too young to have been involved in the Nazi genocidal project – and he felt overcome with violent hatred towards him (Talk at the Sternberg Centre London, 1994). And the ‘father of Psychoanalysis’, Sigmund Freud, commented: ‘We hate the criminal and deal severely with him because we view in his deed, as in a distorting mirror, our own criminal instincts’ (Days of Awe, RSGB, London, 1985, p. 450).

So, we are all capable of murder, and if we’re honest, we can all feel murderous at times, but only a few of us actually commit murder. What then are the necessary circumstances and conditions that propel some people to kill? That’s much too big a question – there are so many different types of murder for starters, and as many answers as there are individuals who commit murder. We are forced to examine the particularity of the situation concerned – not so much to find explanations as to identify the triggers, the propelling factors.

There has been much talk in the media about incitement. What is involved in incitement? To incite others to commit acts of murder, the person doing the inciting must not only be in a position of power and authority, but must also be in a position to invoke the ultimate power and authority – the power and authority of God. This week’s Torah portion, the parashah, Pinchas, opens at Numbers chapter 25, verse 10 with the Eternal One rewarding ‘Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron the priest’, for ‘turning away’ God’s anger from the Israelites and acting ‘zealously’ on behalf of God (:10-11). What did Pinchas do? At the end of last week’s parashah, Balak, we read (Numbers 25:1-10) that while the Israelites were in Shittim, the people began to consort sexually with ‘the daughters of Moab’ and worship their gods. In response, ‘the anger of the Eternal One was kindled against Israel’ and God told Moses to hang the chieftains of the Israelites and instructed the judges to kill all those who had engaged in pagan rites. Then, while the people are weeping, one Israelite brings a Midianite woman to his brethren in full view of Moses and the congregation of the Israelites. When Pinchas sees this he is so incensed that he follows the man into the bed-chamber with a spear and kills them both. As a result, the text tells us that ‘the plague was halted from the Israelites.’

So, this is how Pinchas, the grandson of the High Priest, demonstrated his religious zeal: not only by doing God’s work – but by taking the zealous initiative. But his reward is curious: We read in this week’s parashah at Numbers chapter 25, verses 12-13: ‘Therefore say: Behold, I give to him My Covenant of Peace; / and it shall be to him and his descendants, the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood; because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.’ God’s ‘Covenant of Peace’? The ‘Covenant of an everlasting perpetual Priesthood’? Is that a fitting reward for Pinchas’s zealous act of slaughter?

Alternatively, perhaps that was God’s way of curbing and containing his faithful servant’s zealotry? After all, when there’s a zealot on the loose, who knows where he might strike next… Or, perhaps, the object was self-restraint: God’s way of curbing and containing the ‘wrath of God’? May be the whole point of the elaborate system of worship presided over by the priests was to channel religious zeal and keep it under control? If we read the text from this perspective, God’s reward of Pinchas marks a new departure: Having seen how God’s rage acts as an incitement to Pinchas, after a series of Divine outbursts related in tale after tale in the Book of Numbers, God now decides that enough is enough: My Divine anger is dangerous and must be contained before other zealots follow Pinchas’s example – and so: the Covenant of Peace; the Covenant of a perpetual Priesthood.

If we follow this reading of the text, the story of Pinchas becomes a ‘Cautionary Tale’ and a lesson in the need to control religious zeal – which brings me back to the problem of incitement today: If people in positions of authority preach hatred and fulminate with righteous indignation in the name of God, it is not surprising that some people catch their anger and resolve to act – convinced in their zeal that they are doing God’s work.

Significantly, after the tale of Pinchas and the establishment of a perpetual priesthood as an antidote to religious zealotry, this week’s parashah shows us other models of religious leadership. In chapter 27, we find Moses the lawyer, bringing the case of the daughters of Tzelophchad, whose father has died without a male heir, before God – in the role of sombre Judge and law-maker. No room for anger and zealous rage here: What Tzelophchad’s daughters need and receive is a reasoned ruling that will allow them to inherit their father’s estate. And then, towards the end of Numbers 27, we find another model of religious leadership: When, reminded that he will die in the wilderness like his brother Aaron, Moses asks God to appoint a new leader, ‘who may go out before them, and who may go in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in; in order that the congregation of the Eternal be not as sheep who have no shepherd’ (27:17). Acceding to his request, God tells Moses to ordain Joshua as his successor, making it clear how Joshua’s role will differ from that of Aaron’s successor, his son, Elazar, the priest, at whose word, following consultation with God, the people shall go out and come in (:18-21).

The Torah teaches us that religious leadership is a tricky business and has to be handled very carefully. And just, it seems, to underline the message that, far from being a religious zealot, the role of the priest is to administer the complex system of sacrificial worship, the parashah closes with a detailed description of all the different offerings to be brought to celebrate Shabbat, the New Moon and the festivals – in that order (Numbers 28:1-29:39).

So, the priests had their work cut out – quite literally, as they carved into carcasses and prepared them for the altar. But while the leadership roles of priest and shepherd are clearly delineated in the Torah, elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures we find yet another kind of religious leadership: that of the prophets. At first sight, the prophets, who railed against social injustice and corrupt government, seem like ideal candidates for religious zealotry – religious demagogues par excellence. But unlike those religious leaders who take advantage of their positions of authority to incite their followers, the prophets did not occupy positions of authority, enabling them to exert power over others. On the contrary, outsiders to any system of power, they challenged the powerful to mend their ways and to put right what was wrong.

And here we have the real tragedy at the heart of recent events: not only the appalling carnage and physical and mental suffering, but also the risk that if we allow the threat of terror to dominate us – and we saw, again on Thursday, in the failed bomb attacks, how difficult it is to stop those intent on causing havoc – the task of challenging oppression and creating just societies in Iraq and elsewhere will be neglected. As we face the continuing threat of terror day after day, may we remain focussed on the real task before us: Tikkun Olam – Repair of the World. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah
Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut
23rd July 2005 – 16th Tammuz 5765