The Pinchas Within

Righteous indignation is everywhere these days. In our news feeds, we constantly see people asserting their own views with zealous certainty, regardless of the cost to others or to society as a whole. Thoughtful deliberation, nuance, and humility are seen as signs of weakness. It seems that one can only be heard by shouting.

Many people seem to think that righteous indignation is a positive trait. The logic is that indignation on behalf of others is far more virtuous than uncontrolled anger as an expression of our personal needs alone. According to this view, if one acts out of rage in the course of fighting for people in need of care and empowerment, one is acting for justice, not out of mere reactivity.

I am not entirely convinced. While surely, righteous indignation can be an impetus for justice work and a source of energy to fight for others’ rights, it all too readily engages some of our worst qualities. Telling ourselves we are standing up for what is right, we often become unaware of how driven we are by our own ego needs, how much damage we can cause in relationships and how intolerant we are of people who understand an issue differently than we do.

In my view, the central exemplar of this kind of behavior is Pinchas, though the tradition differs on how we are to regard his behavior.

At the end of last week’s parasha, the Torah told us that Israelite men seduced Midianite women, who in turn persuaded the Israelites to worship the Midianite god Baal-peor. The text tells us that God was incensed and insisted that the offending Israelite men be publicly impaled, and a massive plague consumed 24,000 Israelites. Members of the community were weeping and mourning, but one Israelite man publicly engaged in sexual relations with his Midianite mistress. Seeing this outrageous action, Pinchas (the grandson of Aaron, the high priest), impaled the two at once. Somehow his explosion of violent rage assuaged God’s anger, and the plague was ended.

Finally, and most puzzlingly, God declares that Pinchas:

“… has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in My passion. Say, therefore, ‘I grant him My pact of peace. 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.’” (Numbers 25:11-13)

The story of waves of violent rage in this story is dizzying. God exploded in a fit of ferocious jealousy. A community leader arose in a rage and butchered a man and a woman for their sexual offense in the presence of the entire community. And God granted Pinchas a “brit shalom,” a covenant of peace or friendship.

The plain meaning of the text seems to be that the covenant is a reward for Pinchas’s act of violence. However, many commentators, troubled by this reading, note that the “vav” in the word “shalom” is oddly cut in half[1], which some take to be a hint that no peace can come from such acts of ferocity, and that the covenant is meant not as a reward but as an antidote for Pinchas’s uncontrollable anger.

While many traditional sources see in this story a suggestion that zealotry or extreme passion on behalf of God’s honor may be a virtue, I have long seen Pinchas as a cautionary tale, an expression of the opposite of Jewish teachings about virtue. Jewish wisdom values humility, forbearance, thoughtfulness, gentleness, respect for all people, and the pursuit of peace (in proper balance, as much as possible). And then we have Pinchas. What are we to learn from Pinchas, especially this year, in such a violent and vehement time?

I am drawn to several classical Jewish teachings about the dangers of anger and zealotry.

In the famous Mishnah in Avot, Rabbi Elazar Ha-kappar said: “Envy, lust, and [the desire for] honor put a person out of the world” (Avot, Ch. 4). The word for envy (kin’ah) also means “zealotry,” the word that God uses to describe Pinchas’s violent act. I understand this Mishnah to mean that zealotry/envy, lust, and the craving for honor make us lose our minds. These energies are so powerful and overwhelming that they make us forget who we are and what we believe in. We see examples of this in the public square every day. And, as students of Mussar, we can also think of times when envy, craving for honor, and righteous zealotry make us lose our own minds and go far from our best selves.

The Talmud in Shabbat 105b goes so far as to equate anger with idol-worship:

“If one tears one’s garment in anger, breaks one’s utensils in anger or scatters one’s money in anger, this person should be seen as an idol-worshipper. For thus is the craft of the evil inclination: today it tells you ‘do this,’ and the next day it tells you ‘do this’ until it tells you, ‘Perform idolatry!’ and one goes and performs it.”

That is, burning anger can move a person to deeper and deeper sinful acts.

Or, to put it another way, in Talmud Nedarim 22b, Rabba bar Rav Huna suggests astutely: “Anyone who gets angry, at that moment even the Divine Presence is not important to them.” Anger asserts that the only thing that matters is my own perceptions, my own values, my own convictions. So full of my own thoughts and feelings, there is no space for God. I am worshipping myself rather than the Holy One.

Surely, there are times when anger is called for. It may be necessary to stop one person from hurting another or when a serious injustice must be stopped. But, I would suggest, the yetzer hara often lives within anger. What begins as a limited need to do what is right easily hooks our own ego needs, our desire for attention and renown, and our temptation to belittle others. Anger, like the anger expressed in the Pinchas story, becomes a raging fire that is all too difficult to extinguish.

I think that Pinchas calls out to us from the Torah to be vigilant when our own righteous anger appears. Even when it may seem that God approves, even when our initial motivation was to serve a higher good, our baser instincts may become engaged and we may do more harm than good to ourselves and to others. Rage, violence, and dehumanization of others is not the path to justice. Peace – among individuals or among nations – can never come by bloodshed. May we heed the cautionary tale of Pinchas. 

[1] See Talmud Kiddushin 66b.

(This column appeared in The Mussar Institute's weekly series, Torah from a Mussar Perspective. https://mailchi.mp/mussarinstitute/mussar-torah-commentary-parashat-pinchas?e=407411abbf)