by Rabbi Ron Stern

Every Torah portion is given its name by the first important word in the first one or two lines of the parasha.  The same goes for the Hebrew names of the books of the Torah. Bereishit, Shemot, Vayikra…all are named by the first meaningful word in the first line of the book.  Most times, the name is either benign or resonant with the content of the portion.  With apologies to all those who carry the Hebrew name, unfortunately, this week’s parasha is called Pinchas.  Surely there was a time when that name and the actions associated with it were less disturbing to students of Torah, but these days it’s a bit more problematic.  You see, Pinchas was a zealot, not just any zealot, but one who, inflamed by Moses’ words, took matters into his own hands and summarily killed those whose actions offended him.  For details of the event, click here.  (Numbers 25:6-13)

The Torah doesn’t pass negative judgement on Pinchas, in fact, it praises him saying that he was given a pact of eternal peace (בְּרִיתִ֖י שָׁלֽוֹם).  Were we telling his story today, would we extend such praise? While we certainly embrace those who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to act on those ideals, there is a line, that when crossed moves beyond integrity to outright fanaticism.  When the result of one’s ideology is harmful to another, displays inhumanity, or the unleashes other destructive impulses, we rightly draw the line.  Pinchas’ problem is not that he found the behavior of the two individuals disturbing, it’s that his visceral reaction resulted in an impulsive, hostile, deadly act.

This story becomes a parable for us.  We are regularly accosted by images, ideas, events, words that evoke a visceral response in us.  It is possible to be driven by our impulses, rush to judgement, and bang out an email, slam a noxious post on Facebook, punch out our reaction in the few characters that Twitter allows us, or simply “like” another’s screed.  So doing, we send our unguarded reaction into the cloud of public opinion and succeed in exacerbating an already vicious arena of social discourse.  The story of Pinchas invites us to contemplate the effects of our urge to verbal zealotry.  It is a reminder to hit the pause before we speak, write, tweet, click, or like.  To ask ourselves, “does the world need what I am about to do?”  What if I were to be a voice of moderation? How might I turn the noise and animosity down just a notch and move the tone of civility and mutual respect closer to where it needs to be? There’s no more pointing fingers, the responsibility rests with each of us.