Cropping a Story
This week's Torah portion picks up at the end of a story, just after the climax, leaving it to readers (and listeners) to look back and understand why Phinehas is being praised.
Transcript:
I've never liked walking into the middle of the movie, or starting to watch a popular series halfway through its run. I'll wait and watch the whole thing in order so I can experience the story the way it's meant to be told.
The way we tell our stories matters, and this week's parsha gives us less than half the story, picking up right after the climax of a particularly troubling tale. At the end of last week's parsha the Israelites intermingle with other nations and turn away from god, who grows angry as the people make sacrifices to Ba'al Peor, the Moabite deity. God sends a plaque among the Israeli people and the commands Moses to punish the men who have consorted with foreign women.
Sefer HaYashar, a Midrashic text of unknown authorship from the medieval period, provides a more detailed account of these events that we find in the Torah.
"When the children of Israel dwelt in the plane of Shi'tim, they began to commit fornication but the daughters of Moab when the children of Israel approached my lap the people of my out pitch their tents opposite the camp of Israel. The Moabites where in great fear of the children of Israel, and they took their daughters and wives were a fine figure and comely appearance and they dressed them in silver and in gold, and costly garments. And the children of lower place these women and the doors of their tents the children of Israel might incline to them and not fight against mo up and the children of Israel turned into the daughters of Moab and they were charged with them and went after them. And when a Hebrew came to the door of a Moabitish tent, and he saw the daughter of Moab, he felt the desire for her in his heart, and the spoken to her as he pleased. And while they were engaged in conversation the men of Moab would come out of the tent and address the Hebrew in words like these, saying, 'are we not brother and all the descendants of Lot and the descendants of Abraham, his brother. Why then do not dwell with us? And why do not you not eat of out bread, and of our sacrifices when the Moabites had thus spoken and enticed him with their smooth words, they seated him in the tent they slaughtered and sacrifice before him. He ate of their bread and sacrifices, and they gave him wine and he drank. And when they had him intoxicated they placed a beautiful maiden before him and he did with her according to his pleasure for he knew not what he was doing after having drunk such an abundance of wine. Thus did the sons of Moab unto Israel in that place in the valley of Shi'tim, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel on that account and he sent a plaque among them, and of Israel twenty four thousand men died. And there was a man of the children of Simeon, Zimri son of Zalu was his name, and he enjoyed the person of the Midianite Kobe daughter of Zur, King of Media before the eyes of all the children of Israel. And when Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest saw this great wickedness of Zimri, Phineas went, and took the spear into his hands they followed them both of them through a slew them. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel."
This week's Torah portion, Parshat Pincas, picks up right after the climax of the story but without providing any real context about what came before. Now if you're a regular reader of the weekly Torah portion, or listener of this podcast, you probably don't need a recap but if you happened to pick up the Torah and only read this week's portion you'd be missing most of the story, and that matters because our Torah portions were created with incredible intentionality.
The Torah continues, "The Lord spoke to Moses saying Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for me so that I did not wipe out the Israeli people in my passion. Say therefore I grant him my pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him, a pact of priesthood for all time because he took impassioned action for his God, thus making expiation for the Israelites. The name of the Israelite was killed the one who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri, son of Zalu, chieftain of a Simeonite ancestral house. The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Kosbi the daughter of Zur. He was the tribal head of an ancestral house in Midian. The lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘assail Midiantes, and defeat them, for they assailed you by the trickery they practiced against you."
The sages interpret this directive as "rise and kill the one who comes to kill you." The rabbinic commentator Or Ha'Chaim says, "the idea was to implant in the Israelites a hatred against the people had caused them to commit the respective sins of entertaining idolatrous thoughts and engaging in illicit sex. There were also to develop a revulsion against anything that appeared good and permissible which these people had to offer to the Israelites such as the fruit of their orchards , etc."
There's a striking amount of cognitive dissonance in this portion, which later recounts an unrelated story of a sinner who died in the wilderness leaving behind three daughters but no sons. They bring their case to Moses who presented it before God, who rules, "if a man dies without leaving the son, you shall transfer his property to his daughter," a step toward social justice in the system the previously ascribed few rights the female descendants.
Our system of weekly Torah portion was created intentionally, and maybe the rabbis chose to break up the story Phineas to create more space between violent acts of zealous xenophobia, and God's praise of the zealot; between the stabbing of a Midianite woman through the belly and the cementing of an Israelite woman's right to inherit her father's wealth.
Phineas, after all, wasn't a regular Israelite. He was the grandson of Aaron, Moses's brother, and a priest himself. He's a leader in the community and that makes acts of violence all the harder to stomach. Phineas sets an example the others might follow, but we if can make enough space, the inconsistencies are easier to ignore we are free to focus on the story we want to hear the one that makes us feel good.
Shabbat Shalom
