Are We Like Pineḥas?

Devar Torah on Parashat Pineḥas, sometimes spelled “Pinchas” (Numbers 25:10 – 30:1).

At the end of the portion Balak (Numbers 22:2 – 25:9) we meet Pineḥas, a fine young fellow.  Yet we don’t get to the unwinding of his story until the following week, in a whole successive parashah named after him.  Why is that?  Why that teasing introduction with a cliffhanger?

Pineḥas was the grandson of Aaron the priest.  At the end of Balak we read that while the Israelites were staying at Shittim, the people “profaned themselves” canoodling with Moabite women who had invited them to witness the sacrifices they were making to their god.  In addition to the canoodling, apparently, these fellows joined in the worship.

So God wasn’t happy.  God decreed that the ringleaders be publicly impaled.  Relaying that proclamation, Moses issued an order that the Israelites listening head out and slay those of the men who had paid homage to the Moabite god.  People were weeping.

Just then, as if to provide an opportunity, an Israelite man brought a Midianite woman (some say maybe the reporter got the Midianites and the Moabites confused, others say the Israelites got them confused) to his gathered friends.  Pineḥas apparently was very obedient.  He right away took a spear and followed the couple into the chamber and impaled them both, in flagrante delicto.

Then, we are told, the plague against the Israelites was abated.  24,000 had died.

This is where we begin this week.  We have had time to think about this – it almost seems implied that Pineḥas had time to think, too.  Now God decrees that for spearing Zimri, a son of a Simeonite chieftan, and Cozbi, daughter of a tribal head of an ancestral house in Midian, thus checking God’s wrath, Pineḥas will be rewarded:  he will be a priest, and his descendants also will be priests.

Some commentators say – and I rather agree – that God found a way to reward loyalty while also redirecting troublesome behavior.  Serving as a priest would have mandated that Pineḥas behave himself, comport himself in a priestly manner rather than going about spearing people.

Since the plague had ended, they took a census of the various houses.  By Numbers, Chapter 27, God is decreeing how to apportion the land among the various tribes, based upon how many people each had after the plague and spearings were over.

Now, let’s jump ahead 3,000 years, and think about the lands in the Middle East where we Jews live currently.  Many commentators – and many everyday folks – cite this portion, Pineḥas, as justification for expanding the State of Israel, to simply take lands within the boundaries delineated in this parashah, and especially to condone the settlers in the West Bank creating corporations to buy lands in Jordan and build Jewish housing on them, which gets supported by Israeli infrastructure.

They feel that God granted the Jews that land, even though they are stretching international law by taking it.  I want to put forth a thought.  Don’t you think that the expectation of refinement, indicated by God making Pineḥas a priest at the beginning of this portion, also applies to us?  That we should remember that God rewards loyalty but expects some more refined behavior in return?  And maybe that expectation includes putting down the spears, so all the plagues might go away, and we might take stock of what we already have.