The Torah story I’ve always avoided — and why I’m rethinking it

I didn’t want to write a d’var Torah this week.

When my husband asked why I was procrastinating, I hadn’t yet put my finger on it. But the real reason, I realized, is that I don’t like the story of Pinchas.

Some of that distaste is probably rooted in how the story was first taught to me. My middle school teachers seemed to relish the gruesome details of Pinchas’s zealous act. I remember them describing how he “shish-kebabed” the Israelite man and the Moabite woman engaged in an illicit affair. And I remember, just as vividly, my disgust.

Let me be vulnerable.

I’ve always had a gut aversion to using force to resolve conflict. At twelve, I was already arguing passionately against Israel’s policy of demolishing the homes of convicted terrorists. I’m not sure where this opinion came from; it certainly wasn’t something I learned at home or school. Around the same time, my journal entries were filled with earnest declarations that I would need to forgive bullies because hurting them back would only continue a cycle of harm.

My instincts toward pacifism led me to a lifelong interest in nonviolent activism and protest through art, writing, and photography. But fifteen years later, those instincts have been tempered — tested, exhausted, sometimes proven wrong or at least not-entirely right.

The past two years have humbled me. As an American, my ideas about violence or nonviolence are, in many ways, a privilege — because they are theoretical. My beliefs feel hollow when I compare them to my sister’s experience as an olah in Israel. I still instinctively shudder when I hear President Trump or Prime Minister Netanyahu describe military operations in Iran as “peace through strength.” But I also recognize the terrifying threat of a nuclear Iran, and the impossibility of diplomacy with its current regime. In this case, “peace through strength” was the only real option, and one supported by the vast majority of Israelis and American Jews.

I’ve always believed the ideal Jewish path towards becoming a holy people was like Hillel said, to “be of the disciples of Aaron,” the grandfather of Pinchas, who “loved peace and pursued peace.” But I also know that, as for Aaron when the Israelites worshipped the Golden Calf, this approach can fail and amount to silently watching the moral wrongdoings of the people around him, such as when the Israelites erected and worshipped a golden calf.

Still, I hesitate to believe the Jewish path is to fully emulate Pinchas. Should we read this story as a call to violence, or merely a recognition of its validity under dire circumstances? The Torah praises him and his zealousness is rewarded, but he needed God’s covenant of peace to move forward. “Even a person who throughout his life follows the path of peace and truth, if he should take up a spear — even for just one moment — and kill someone, then there is a danger that something within him has changed,” Rav Aaron Lichtenstein explains. “Therefore there is a need for the covenant of peace — an assurance that he will return to the natural and desired path, where he belongs.” We risk losing something of ourselves when we resort to violence, but does that mean it lacks validity? 

I’m uncomfortable with my uncertainty around this question, but there’s comfort in the fact that these two men, Aharon and Pinchas, both paragons of the priesthood, are related by blood while opposed in approach. There is wisdom in each way of relating to conflict, but neither can go unchecked.

So where does that leave me?

Maybe not with a d’var Torah, but a wish:

That the Aharons and the Pinchases of the world might sit at the same Shabbat table, sharing challah and hummus and a medley of fragrant dishes. Finding common ground. And somehow, through that gathering, making the world a little more whole.