Not in an Earthquake You Will Find Me but in a Soft, Murmuring Sound

Thoughts on Parashat Pinchas

  Menachem Mirski Is there a general rule of how we should deal with evil? Should we fight back, respond with poker face or with doing good to an evildoer, hoping that he will become aware of the wickedness of his behavior and will return to the right path? The answers to these questions are dependent on what we believe about the nature of evil: does evil exist objectively? Or maybe certain human actions are only evil ‘in our eyes’ – we only perceive them as evil and call them so. It also depends on what we believe about bad people: can someone be evil simply by nature or are the so-called bad people merely misguided? Generally speaking, this is an endless debate, with lots of arguments for and against this and that position. It is good, however, to have an elaborated opinion on that topic because we never know when we find ourselves interacting with, God forbid, real, genuine evil. Thus, let us, religious Jews, look into the Torah for hints, especially because our Torah portion for this week also deals with this problem. Our parasha starts with the story of Pinchas’ divine reward. Pinchas, grandson of Aaron, was rewarded with the eternal priesthood for killing another Israelite – the Simeonite prince Zimri – as well as the Midianite princess who was his paramour. It all happened after “the Israelite people profaned themselves by whoring with the Moabite women, who invited the people to the sacrifices for their god” (Numbers 25:1-2). Although that may sound at least controversial to our modern ears, both our Sages and biblical commentators believe that the slaying of Zimri was correct. Not recommended, but correct. Halachically speaking it was the case of halacha ve’ein morin ken – a halacha we do not teach. Although our sages in tractate Sanhedrin consider excommunicating Pinchas for his deed, commentators like Rashi, Ramban, Kli Yakar portray Pinchas as a hero, who actually deserves praise because he did the right thing risking his own life for the sake the Torah. Therefore, what Pinchas did was correct, but the act of execution itself was beyond the norms of Jewish ethics and Jewish law. The story of Pinchas is often compared to the one of prophet Elijah, who killed 450 prophets of Baal, as we find in I Kings 18:40: Right after that Elijah runs away from king Ahab, because his wife, Jezebel, swears to avenge the murdered prophets and kill him. But Elijah’s behavior goes beyond fearing for his life. He is indeed very sorrowful in the aftermath of what he did. Being hungry and parched he wishes to die on the desert: Elijah is on his way to mount Horeb (Sinai). He goes there for 40 days and 40 nights because he wishes to relive the Sinai experience and return to what is the proper, Divine path. God saves Elijah’s life and shows him His ways: The passage above tells us what are the ways of the Holy One and how should people who follow His ways conduct. Even though all these phenomena were caused by the Divine power, God was not in them; God was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. God was in this what happened at the end – He was in a soft, murmuring sound. This is to teach us that in God’s eyes the appropriate action involves calmness and forethought. In that kind of considerate, calm and patient manner we should approach evil, which exists objectively. Generally speaking, it means that we should never allow evil to dominate our minds and our behavior. The rest depends on the situation. Sometimes we need to fight back, sometimes we need to remain indifferent and sometimes we need to respond to evil with good. Everything depends on the magnitude of evil and the power dynamic between the parties involved: if power is on our side and our life and well being is not endangered, then we definitely have a luxury to respond to evil with good. If the situation is equal, it’s usually better to retain poker face and negotiate, to try to take someone away from the wrong path, to stave off bad intentions and plans. If power is on the side of evil doers, we don’t have much of a choice, and that was basically the case of Pinchas. The kind of killing that Pinchas or Elijah did was not justified already in rabbinic times, let alone today – it would be considered a murder. But both stories contain one more message: every social conflict that escalates can reach its tipping point after which there is no return. After reaching that point there is only violence and this violence becomes justified in the eyes of each party that decides it is the last resort. We have no a priori knowledge about when this tipping point will be reached. Therefore, in our turbulent times, we need to at least hear the arguments of ‘the other side’ and treat them seriously, for the sake of peace. The more we do in this matter, the better. Even though peace can be sometimes sacrificed for the sake of truth, it is still in the interest of each party – peace is in the interest of all humanity and above all the “tribal” interests. Shabbat shalom!