Zeal—In this day many of us are fired up. It is easy to see the injustice. It shouts at us every time we open our Facebook feeds, its red face looks up at us from the newspapers at our feet. We march, we sing, we chant. We scream out in agony demanding change.
A while back I marched for Black Lives Matter. Walking amongst colleagues and friends, I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach. I wished for silence on those Manhattan streets, the blurred lights of the city mixing with my angst as those around me chanted, “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, these racist cops have got to go!” Standing at the intersection of activists and police officers, I suddenly understood my discomfort. My words rose to the surface as I turned to the person standing next to me. “What are we doing chanting at the men and women tasked with changing in this racist world? Our words of anger will not bring the change we need. Is alienating those that stand in their fear the way to help them see, or are we blinding them further?”
In last week’s parashah we saw the response of the bible’s zealous archetype. Pinchas sees injustice in the world and acts, publicly slaughtering the Israelite man Zimri and the Midianite woman Cosbi as they consort before the Tent of Meeting. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 82b) teaches that the angels ask God to punish Pinchas. The Ishbitzer Rebbe, Mordechai Yosef Lainer, explains that Pinchas, as a good student of Torah, knew that Zimri’s actions were so grave they demanded death. What he didn’t know was that Cosbi and Zimri were, in fact, soulmates. Zimri’s actions were in the name of heaven, and that is why Moshe himself did not stop them. Pinchas’ limited vision only allowed him to see one aspect of the situation. God understood that Pinchas’s actions come from a limited human understanding of justice, a black and white thinking, and God honored this innocence and chose not to punish him.
Our rabbis teach (e.g., Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer ch. 28 & 47) that Pinchas becomes Elijah the Prophet, who was also renowned for his zeal, but we might wonder how one who acted so questionably could bring the Messiah. God recognizes Pinchas’ limitations and his innocent conviction, and rather than punish him, God offers him a Brit Shalom, a covenant of wholeness. Shalom, peace, is also shleimut, wholeness. This gift that God bestows upon him doesn’t applaud his action; rather, God becomes the teacher I always dream of, the teacher that opens us up rather than pushing us down. Instead of reprimanding Pinchas, sending him into a spiral of shame, God offers him the missing piece. God enables Pinchas to move from limited sight to one of wholeness, and in this moment Elijah is born.
This vision that sees the whole, that recognizes the interconnectedness of all actions and sees beyond our limited perspective, this is the messianic vision. And this is the vision I pray for. I pray that when I stand across from someone who is acting out of fear, I can call them out of the darkness, not through shame but rather by enabling them to see beyond their limited perspective. In the current climate we need that ability, the voice that can see all sides and guide us forward. It is a difficult journey, and the power intrinsic to zeal is tempting. Oftentimes it is influenced by our own limited sense and cannot see the other in wholeness. The messianic vision is able to see all perspectives and recognize the relationships that web them together. It is from this understanding that true healing can manifest. In the coming days I pray that we have the ability to see beyond our limited vision and see the pain of those we call “other” so that, together, we too can receive a Brit Shalom and bring deep healing to the world.
Esther Azar is Director of Family Engagement at Congregation Shaare Zedek in Manhattan. She is in her final year of the Aleph rabbinic program, receiving ordination in January 2018.