Numbers Cycle Four Pinchas 25:10 to 30:1

Pinchas

The first thing we need to know about Pinchas today (July 2011) is this:

On a p’shat level, really disgusting things happen in Torah.

However, as far as I know there isn’t one liberal modern rabbi of any denomination who could back up the action of Pinchas on a literal p’shat level. Or if there is one, I’d like to meet him. To cut to the chase, it’s obvious that if two people are making love outside the temple (one Jewish..the son of a priest and the other…a Muslim or a Christian or a Moabite or a Midianite) that we don’t run a spear through their genitals. We don’t kill them on the spot literally. It’s so absurd to think that we…or anyone…would need to spend time on proving why we can’t. We don’t need to prove this. The hours we spend arguing against it, in my opinion, would best be spent on finding a reason why God rewards Pinchas for his action. Not only does Pinchas become a priest that moment but this status is guaranteed to his offspring l’olam…forever.

Let’s look at the wisdom of our sages. It’s pointed out in Numbers Rabbah that Pinchas, like Elijah, continues to live today. The covenant of peace (25:12) is compared to the one mentioned in Malachi: My covenant was with him of life and peace and I gave them to him and of fear and he feared Me and was afraid of My name. To continue, the sages who wrote down our Torah service emphasize the significance of the action of Pinchas. Right before we open the Torah every Shabbat, before we soul-jump into the amazement, we chant a line from Deuteronomy 4. You who cleave to Hashem, your God, are alive, all of you, today. What we don’t realize in the rush of intimacy is that this line is grammatically and semantically and logically tied to the action of Pinchas . Like it or not (in the scripture) this line immediately follows a direct reminder of what God did at Baal Peor (Deuteronomy 4: 3). To clarify, right before we enter the heart of God on Shabbat (second soul and all) we are to remember the plague created by our own idolatry and the heroic action of yes…Pinchas who (on some level) stopped our self-annihilation by cleaving to God so much that he could spear the exact tiny vulnerable festering cental-core-of-darkness.

But let’s step back a moment. There is a basic tenet of Torah. It’s called love. As my respected teacher Rabbi Marc Sirinsky likes to remind us, the last letter of Torah is a lamed and the first is a bet or vet. When we cycle Torah we attach the end to the beginning and we get lev or heart. Heart is what connects the end to the beginning, puts motion into the spiral of life, of God. Torah is love.

The Baal Shem Tov is best known for his ability to love the common man, to manifest his cleaving into a vision of God in man.

A teacher of mine has told this story: It seems that the Baal Shem Tov smoked a pipe to prepare for meditation. One day, in preparing to pray he started to bring the lit candle to his pipe and realized he was using non-kosher fat …and all to prepare to pray to Hashem. He was horrified. He thought about it, paced around, struggled with it for quite a while. Then finally he screamed out that for then on he would always light his pipe with non-kosher fat. End of story.

Why mention this? I'll get there soon. Meanwhile though, we do need to see that boundaries upon boundaries can be limitless, continuous, choking, so severe they fail to serve their purpose. In other words, the Baal Shem Tov felt and knew the connection of gevurah with the sitra achra…evil…that the former can transform into the latter in the blink of an eye.

This is the way my teacher finished the story though: He stopped it, my teacher exclaimed (in class) in referring to this decision of the Baal Shem Tov. He stopped the continuous growth of the boundaries. He turned it. His exclamation reminded me of one made by another teacher, a kabbalist, in reference to Pinchas. He stopped it, the rabbi exclaimed. With that brilliance, exact aim and depth, he went right in and clinched it.

Of course, deciding to light a pipe with non kosher fat is quite a different action on one level from using a sword like a giant acupuncture needle. But you could say that both actions recognize the unhealthy danger of the extremes of two opposite poles…chesed and gevurah. You could say that the two actions are on the same coin, just on opposite sides.

Of course, I don’t support even smoking a pipe. And ancient swords are fun museum pieces but not mine to use. But how lovely if we do it right, if we clinch the madness caused by intermittent un-balanced growth (a human fallacy) and if we can then count ourselves in and know who we are. How lovely if we can raise our sparks up to Hashem as offerings of debekut, if we can build a fence around Torah (just one thank you) that can allow us to open ourselves completely…in absolute safety…when we dive into the sacred white fire on black fire blinding our eyes and feeding our hearts.

How to apply this to today? See ourselves as holy. See people next to us, on the subway, in the car that just cut you off, as holy. See ourselves as a tapestry of radiance with many textures and shades, sacred. And then, see the people in Torah as sparks that can be within a metaphor to teach us, On the literal level, the world can seem outrageously evil. And when it does, apply teachings of Torah learned through metaphor. The sword is the continued stretching of light from our heart, through our arm. The fusion of good and evil has a center that can be healed…with our heart-light. Reach to your fellow man. Reach to God. Understand that one exact deep reach and touch can bring peace to the world. Know who you are.