Israel-Gaza War 5784: Pinchas – What Makes a Good Leader

This week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, is named for Aaron’s grandson. In last week’s Torah portion, Balak, we read of a horrific act committed by Pinchas. The Moabites, unable to defeat the Israelites by having Balak curse them, allied with the Midianites to entice the Israelites into adultery and idolatry. These two sins were combined as an Israelite man had sexual relations with a Midianite woman at the sanctuary entrance. Pinchas promptly murdered them both. There was neither warning nor trial; Pinchas acted as judge, jury, and executioner.

Yet in this week’s Torah portion, G-d appeared to reward Pinchas, granting him and his descendants both briti shalom, “my covenant of peace,” and an eternal covenant of priesthood. (Numbers 25:12-13)

Why did G-d appear to approve of and even reward Pinchas’ action? Being High Priest was a great honor.

Torah portion Balak told us that 24,000 died in the plague Hashem visited upon the Israelites in retribution for this incident. In this week’s Torah portion, we read G-d’s explanation: “Pinchas…turned back my anger from upon the children of Israel in his avenging My vengeance among them, so I did not destroy the children of Israel in my vengeance.” (Numbers 25:10) Pinchas, it seems, saved the Israelites from further punishment for their blasphemous actions.

Why did G-d appear to approve of and even reward Pinchas’ action? Being High Priest was a great honor.

Pinchas, having just killed two people, indeed seemed sorely in need of a brit shalom, not as a reward but to calm him down. As for the priesthood, as Aaron’s grandson, he already would receive this hereditary position; granting it was superfluous. So were these covenants really a reward?

As High Priest, Pinchas would have been solely occupied with priestly duties. He would not have had the power to either pass or execute judgment. Was the reiteration of his having covenantal priesthood a reminder that passing judgment was not his role? After all, vengeance is G-d’s, not man’s.

Was Hashem sidelining Pinchas?

Perhaps we get a hint further on in this portion. In Numbers 27:16-21, we read that Hashem told Moses whom he should appoint to replace him. Tellingly, it was not Pinchas that He chose as a leader, but Joshua son of Nun. To be sure, Joshua had done nothing as dramatic as Pinchas. Rather, he had served quietly, often in the background, as Moses’ helper. He was one of the spies who scouted out Canaan, of which he brought back a good report. Joshua was humble but an insightful observer, seeing clearly the promise of the Land and their ability to conquer it, and not afraid to say so. These qualities, not impulsive, self-righteous zealotry, were required to lead the children of Israel.

In today’s Israel, zealots sit in the government. Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, was arrested in 2005 with 700 liters of gasoline, with which it was suspected he intended to blow up a major highway to protest the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. He has supported segregating Arab and Jewish women in Israeli hospital maternity wards and advocated a shoot-to-kill policy for Palestinian stone-throwers.

Itamar Ben-Gvir is the Minister of National Security. In his youth, he was a member of Kach, designated a terrorist organization by the Israeli government and disqualified from running in Israeli elections. Ben-Gvir was exempted from military service because of his radical stands, including advocating for expelling all Israeli Arabs from the country. In 1995, he threatened then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated several weeks later. Before running for office in 2020, he kept a portrait of mass murderer Baruch Goldstein in his living room. He has brandished a gun at security guards over parking and during a confrontation between Jews and Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

In 2006, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir organized a “Beast Parade” to protest the annual Tel Aviv Pride Parade (both men subsequently apologized).

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich now serve in the government because their current party, Otzma Yehudit, won enough votes to get a seat at the table. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu has sidelined them, excluding them from Israel’s war cabinet.

In choosing a leader, Hashem privileged humility, service, honesty, and courage over zealotry and uncontrolled anger.

One can argue that Joshua bin Nun’s attributes are not often found in modern Israeli leadership. After all, these leaders were selected by man, not G-d.

But Israel’s leaders have been smart enough, so far, to keep the zealots from running the show and pursuing disastrous policies. Wise leaders know how to balance competing goals. Israel is fighting an existential war, in which the imperative to free the hostages coexists with the need to destroy their captors while avoiding confrontation, at least for the time being, with Hezbollah and the Houthis. At the same time, its allies alternate between support and condemnation, while the United Nations and International Court of Justice pursue resolutions and court cases biased against Israel. Finally, Israel’s leaders must hold the country’s differing social sectors, including Israeli Arabs, haredim, and the secular, together, not alienate or persecute them. More than ever, Israeli leaders need intelligence, flexibility, practicality, and cool heads. Zealous passion is not the ticket today, any more than it was as Israel prepared to enter the Land.