With so much going on, we cannot afford avoiding passionate conversation for fear of being impolite. We can conduct ourselves with mutual respect and compassion if we focus on those fundamental principles and ideals that we share.
What do you care about? What do you really care about? What keeps you up at night? What issues – personal or public – drive you to action? What are the objects of your ultimate concern? What situations in your life or in your world make you passionately angry or sad? What do you want to change? What gives you joy or pride? What do you cherish so much that you are willing to fight to protect? What do you value and what do you believe in? What lies at the root of your passions? What are the fundamental principles that you hold? What do you stand for?
This week’s Torah opens with the story of a man who clearly knew what he stood for and what he believed. At the end of last week’s parsha, we learned that the Israelite men were drawn to the Moabite women and their god. They were committing idolatry and lewd acts in public with the Moabite women. One man, in particular, was so brazen as to commit these sins right in front of Moses and the Priests. One of Aaron’s grandsons, Pinhas, was so incensed and so moved with passion for God that he took a spear and impaled the Israelite man and his Midian companion right on the spot, driving his spear through both of them at once. This week’s Torah portion opens with the continuation of that story. God declares that it was Pinhas’s zeal alone that saved the entire people from destruction. So pleased is God with Pinhas that he rewards him with what the text refers to as a “brit shalom”, a Covenant of Peace or Friendship – God appoints Pinhas to replace his father as High Priest and promises the priesthood to Pinhas’ offspring.
Pinhas is described as having acted with “kin’ah” – this Hebrew words is repeated emphatically through this episode. Kin’ah means jealousy, or passion, or zeal. Pinhas is passionate in his defense of God’s laws and his abhorrence of immorality.
No doubt our tradition has a lot to say about Pinhas and his passion. A lot of ink has been spilled trying to explain this story. The traditional Jewish commentaries usually fall in one of two camps. Those that seek to justify Pinhas speak about the purity of his intentions, or the extraordinary circumstances that justified his violence. Others express ambivalence about Pinhas’s passion and seek to find that ambivalence in the text itself. They point to the scribal oddities in this passage – If you were to look in the Torah scroll you would see that at the beginning of this parsha the name Pinhas is written with a tiny yud. Some of the commentaries say that the diminished yud represents the diminution of Godliness in Pinhas. There’s also the broken vav in the phrase brit shalom. It is the only instance in the Torah were a letter is written with a break. As you know, if any other letter of the Torah is found to be broken, the entire scroll is unusable. So the commentaries say that this Covenant of Peace is a fundamentally flawed one. Others say that God bestowed this blessing of peace on Pinhas because he so badly needed it as an antidote to his fiery passions.
It is true that sometimes we need to temper our passions for the sake of peace. It is certainly evident in our world that passions get out of hand – that people use religious fervor to justify violence. And there is good reason to put limits on those tendencies. But the fact remains that Pinhas was passionate and God rewards him for his passion. Perhaps he went too far. Perhaps it was an extraordinary circumstance that we should be very cautious to emulate, but Pinhas was passionate and willing to stand up for what he believed.
I’m not trying to suggest that we all leave here today and take to the ramparts or become vigilantes, but I would venture to guess that most of us don’t talk often about our passions. I don’t know why. But it is conventional wisdom in American society that it isn’t polite to talk about religion or politics. This idea is so common that in my research I couldn’t even find the origins of this concept or an original quote. Yet I found countless websites and advice columns that warned strongly against speaking of politics or religion… We are cautioned not to speak of these matters in what they used to call “polite company.” I saw articles advising not to speak about politics or religions at your place of work, on dates, at dinner parties, etc.
I think there is some wisdom to these warnings. We certainly don’t want fist fights to break out around the water cooler every day and sometimes you just want to have a nice meal without choking on your bile… but frankly, religion and politics is pretty much what I like to talk about. If it weren’t for religion and politics, I wouldn’t have much to say. I also think that sometimes the things that we care about and feel passionate about are too quickly labeled as “politics.” It seems to me that the label of “political” is too often used to shut down debate and close off conversation. But there’s a difference between partisan politics and having an opinion about a topic or issue that many people care about. There’s a difference between political dogma and a philosophical debate.
I had a very nice conversation with some congregants earlier this week. One of them asked me about how I navigate politics in my rabbinic work. My answer is that I try my best to avoid partisanship, but my philosophy on life and the world, my beliefs and passions, inform everything I do and say as a rabbi. Partisanship is about which team you root for and “who’s right and who’s wrong” and it leads to the kind of vilification that results in the passion that Pinhas expressed. But there’s nothing improper about talking about our passions, our principals, and our ideals. The truth, I believe, is that people of many different political orientations and affiliations share many of the same passions and beliefs. I want to believe… I have to believe... that in some very basic way we care about the same things and desire some of the same outcomes. I want to believe most of us care about human dignity. I have to believe that most people want to live in a world with less conflict, less violence, less suffering, less pollution. I want to believe that most of us want a world with cleaner water and air, less poverty and more prosperity for a greater number of people. I think most us would say we value the good that comes from loving and functional families, we value hard work and honesty; we believe in fairness and justice. We value good health and education; we abhor wanton violence and crime. I want to believe and have to believe that there is a lot we share… that we more-or-less have the same destination in mind and that what divides us are philosophical and practical differences about how we get there.
I might be rambling. I might be putting my foot squarely in my mouth right now. I might even regret giving this sermon as early as kiddush, but the point I want to make is really rather simple, so I want to be absolutely explicit about what I’m trying to say: I think we need to stop being afraid of talking to one another. That’s it… the thesis of my sermon can be summarized in one word – “Conversation.” We can’t afford to be afraid of sincere and passionate conversation. The stakes are too high at this moment. There is too much going on and too many questions to answer for us to avoid talking to one another because it isn’t considered “polite.” I’m not suggesting that we go about it with the zealotry of Pinhas. I believe we can conduct ourselves with mutual respect and compassion if we focus on those fundamental principles and ideals that we share. And I want to believe and have to believe that through vigorous respectful discourse we can start solving some of these problems. I want to believe and have to believe that more debate, more engagement, is good for our democracy and good for our world.
The Protestant theologian Paul Tillich defined religion as a state of "being grasped by an ultimate concern." His contemporary, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “Religion is an answer to man’s ultimate questions. The moment we become oblivious to ultimate questions, religion becomes irrelevant.” So, with Tillich and Heschel in mind, I want us to become more religious. The question I pose to you is: what are your ultimate concerns?… what are the ultimate questions in your life? And then I want you to start talking about them with other people. I sincerely believe that if we speak respectfully and passionately, we too can forge a Brit Shalom – a Covenant of Peace.
Shabbat Shalom.
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