Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Last week’s parasha closed with the Israelites, encamped at a place called Shittim. There, they begin to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moab, a pagan people. A plague breaks out among the people, an expression of God’s displeasure (to say the least) with the Israelite’s descent into paganism. An Israelite prince named Zimri brings a Moabite princess named Cozbi directly into Moses’ view and begins to cohabitate with her. Pinchas, Aaron’s grandson, sees this and kills them both. The plague ceases.

From a moral standpoint, Pinchas’ action is deeply troubling. Today we would call this “extra-judicial punishment” or “summary execution”. The tactic of immediately killing someone without a fair trial is used by governments to terrorize their populations and enforce submission and compliance. Pinchas takes it upon himself to execute judgement, assuming the roles of prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.

One would think that Pinchas himself would now be put on trial for murder. But that is not what happens. In the opening of this week’s parasha, God looks with approval on Pinchas’ impulsive deed. As a reward, God bestows upon him a “covenant of eternal priesthood”, which the rabbis understand as a promotion from being a Levite to being a Kohen (a priest).

The Rabbis were deeply discomfited by Pinchas’ actions. “Had he first sought the advice of the rabbis of his time”, says Rabbi bar bar Hanna, “they would not have instructed him to do this.” “Had the couple not been caught in flagrante,” opines another, “Pinchas himself would have been tried and executed for murder.” “Had Zimri turned around and killed Pinchas,” says a third, “he would have been exonerated because he killed in self-defense,” says a third. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Pinchas’ zealotry.

Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, in his The Torah: A Modern Commentary finds a rationale for God’s reward to Pinchas. He writes that the plague was not a consequence of the immorality but rather the context of the immorality. “The Israelites were infected [by the bubonic plague] as a result of their contact with the Moabites and the Midianites. Zimri boldly followed a pagan precedent for dealing with such a mysterious affliction ….. he urged his fellow Israelites to engage in prostitution rites as a means of warding off the plague. The results were that the disease spread more rapidly.

“Pinchas did not act out of superior medical knowledge. He saw in Zimri’s act an open breach of the covenant, a flagrant return to the practices that the compact at Sinai had forsworn. His impulsive act … reflected his apprehension that the demands of God needed human realization and required a memorable and dramatic example against permissiveness in the religious realm.”

Pinchas was not rewarded for killing two people. He was rewarded for taking a courageous and dramatic stand against the backsliding of the People of Israel into paganism and debauchery.

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