Passionate action need not lead to zealotry

On this Fourth of July, we Americans remember our imperfect founders. The majority of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, including its primary author, Thomas Jefferson who wrote the opening assertion that “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” were slave owners.

In our Torah portion this morning we read about two of our Biblical ancestors who were also imperfect leaders. Moses and Pinchas:

In the story we encountered in the first Aliyah this morning regarding Pinchas, we found in verse 25:11 two forms of the Hebrew Verb KUF NUN ALEPH which JPS translates as passion, but which can also be understood as Zeal or Jealousy.

While the Torah text praises Pinchas, for his Zealous actions, granting him and his descendants the High Priesthood, I find Pinchas as described for us at the end of last week’s Parsha and the opening of this morning’s Torah reading to be a very problematic figure. So too did Samson Raphael Hirsch, the great 19th century German rabbi who is seen as the father of Modern Orthodox Judaism who wrote of Pinchas:

“He acted meritoriously, (in executing Zimri and Cozbi), ONLY because he caught the offenders in the act. If he had done so later it would have been murder.”
The questions which Pinchas’ action raises for me today is:
Is it possible to act with passion to make our world a better place for all, while avoiding the zealotry that has too often led zealots to justify acts of vengeance?

Pinchas is not the only imperfect Biblical leader discussed in our Parsha. In the section of our Parsha we will read next year we will read the climax of not only the Book of Numbers but of the entire wilderness epic of Israel.

In Numbers 27:12 we read the first of seven accounts, the first found here and then six more times in Deuteronomy of Moses, being informed by God that, like his siblings Miriam and Aaron, Moses too, will die in the Wilderness before the Israelites reach The Promised Land.

Moses’ response which follows in verses 27:15-19 is very different from the ones we will hear at both the beginning and end of Deuteronomy. Rather than, blaming the community’s faithlessness, or pleading with God as he does multiple times later in Deuteronomy, Moses, here in Parshat Pinchas acquiesces to the news that he too will die in the Wilderness.

The text of Numbers 27 recounts the following dialogue:

Moses says to God: “Adonai Source of the breath of all flesh , appoint someone over the community who shall go out before them and come in before them and who shall take them out and bring them in so that Adonai’s community may not be sheep that have no shepherd.”

Adonai answered Moses: Single out Joshua ben Nun, an inspired man and lay your hand upon him. Have him stand before Elazar the priest and before the whole house of Israel and commission him in their sight.”

Moses’ acceptance of his term limitation as communal leader, here in this Numbers narrative is an additional proof text to the point with which Len Sharzer ended his Dvar Torah last Shabbat ; namely that Moses’ death in the Wilderness was not a punishment from God, but an acknowledgement that it was time for new leadership.

Here is where I find a connection to the American Founders who signed the Declaration of Independence and then led the Revolutionary War. Moses, Aaron and his sons Nadav and Abihu and Elazar and his grandson Pinchas and every Biblical Prophet Priest and King who follow them are all depicted as inspired community leaders who were nonetheless imperfect and that the continuity of a society requires that leadership changes. So too, for the last 250 years have all the successors of our American founders been imperfect and by the example set by George Washington, voluntarily limited their terms of Office. In response to Franklin Roosevelt’s breaking the Precedent, Presidential terms were limited in 1947 by a constitutional amendment.

The Torah and our American Constitution both established a legal system that affirms Liberty and Justice above human leaders.

The Presidential Historian Jon Meacham in his book, The Soul of America, published a decade ago, points out that America has lived through a number of periods of darkness where political leaders and large numbers of the electorate have been consumed by fear, greed and ignorance and have turned away from the ideals of our nation only to see a correction that has put our nation back on track toward the on- going creation of a society based upon the ideals of our founding documents.

I see a similar phenomena reflected in the Biblical narrative of both the Torah and the historical books of Joshua Judges Samuel and Kings.

As we began on Thursday the three weeks of mourning that precedes Tisha B’Av, I am reminded again this year, that while there are certainly times that tragedy is beyond our ability to control, there are other times when our actions and our inactions do have consequences.

On this 4th of July as I use Parshat Pinchas as a lens through which to look at the Signatories of The American Declaration of Independence, I am in fact grateful for the zeal of both our American Founders and our Biblical ancestors, while simultaneously cautious of the responsibility to guard ourselves from letting our zeal devolve into zealotry. I am grateful for the example of both our Biblical ancestors and our American Founders whose combination of talent, commitment, passion and compassion, along with their human imperfections, make them achievable models of people, whom we can and should all strive to emulate.

In these challenging moments when Democracy is under siege across the globe May both the righteous actions and human failings, of our Jewish Ancestors and and our American Founders guide us and inspire us all to be better human beings. On this 250th anniversary of the Birth of American Independence may we all take to heart the paraphrase of the call of the Prophet Amos by Martin Luther King Jr in his I have A Dream speech and repeat his vow:

No, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied, until Justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.