This week we meet one of the Torah's most troubling figures. Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron the High Priest, sees the Israelite leader Zimri publicly bringing Cozbi, a Midianite noblewoman, into the camp during a moment of communal and spiritual crisis. Pinchas takes a spear and kills them both. The event seems to cause a plague to end, and God grants Pinchas a brit shalom – a covenant of peace.
For generations, commentators have struggled with this story. Is Pinchas held up as a model of religious courage, or is the Torah preserving a moment that should leave us profoundly uneasy? The rabbis seem to recognize the danger. The Talmud teaches that while kana'im pog'in bo – "zealots may strike him" – if someone comes to ask a rabbinic court whether they should act as Pinchas did, the answer is no (Sanhedrin 82a). Jewish tradition remembers Pinchas, but it refuses to make him a precedent.
That restraint feels especially important this week.
This shabbat marks the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence from England. I find myself less interested in celebrating than in honest recognition.
The American Jewish story has never been simple. This country became home for millions of Jews who escaped poverty, antisemitism, and violence. At the same time, America closed its doors to countless others through restrictive immigration laws, leaving many with nowhere to flee. The choices facing Jews in the early twentieth century were often impossibly constrained: to stay where they were and struggle or die, to seek refuge in a United States with tightening quotas, or to become part of the Zionist enterprise. There were no clean options, only history bearing down on vulnerable people.
Nor is the broader American story simple. This nation tried to hold out extraordinary promises while repeatedly denying them through slavery, the dispossession and genocide of Indigenous peoples, exclusion, incarceration, and systems of terrible inequity that endure today. Remembering 250 years means resisting both triumphalism and cynicism. It means telling the truth about the gifts people have found here and the harms that have made those gifts unevenly available.
Perhaps that is why I find myself drawn less to Pinchas than to the daughters of Zelophechad at the end of the parasha.
Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milcah, and Tirtzah also confront injustice. But instead of picking up a spear, they bring their claim before the community and ask the Israelites – and G-d – to become more equitable – to live closer to their highest values. Adonai responds with a remarkable affirmation: ken b'not Tzelofchad dovrot – "The daughters of Zelophechad speak rightly."
And today ushers in the Three Weeks, beginning with the 17th of Tammuz. The rabbis teach that the Second Temple fell because of sinat chinam – baseless hatred (Yoma 9b). Whether or not that explains the destruction historically, it names a spiritual danger that never goes away. Communities unravel when certainty eclipses humility, when zeal overtakes wisdom, and when we forget that justice is meant to enlarge our humanity rather than diminish it.
May these Three Weeks deepen our capacity to remember honestly, argue courageously, and keep choosing the path of the daughters of Zelophechad: expanding justice not through certainty or force, but through moral imagination that leads to communal change.
Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
P.S. Speaking of three weeks, I will be away from the office for the next three weeks, stepping away from email and congregational responsibilities. I look forward to reconnecting when I return as we begin the ascent toward the New Year together. I wish you all a meaningful, safe, and rejuvenating stretch of summer in the meantime
For generations, commentators have struggled with this story. Is Pinchas held up as a model of religious courage, or is the Torah preserving a moment that should leave us profoundly uneasy? The rabbis seem to recognize the danger. The Talmud teaches that while kana'im pog'in bo – "zealots may strike him" – if someone comes to ask a rabbinic court whether they should act as Pinchas did, the answer is no (Sanhedrin 82a). Jewish tradition remembers Pinchas, but it refuses to make him a precedent.
That restraint feels especially important this week.
This shabbat marks the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence from England. I find myself less interested in celebrating than in honest recognition.
The American Jewish story has never been simple. This country became home for millions of Jews who escaped poverty, antisemitism, and violence. At the same time, America closed its doors to countless others through restrictive immigration laws, leaving many with nowhere to flee. The choices facing Jews in the early twentieth century were often impossibly constrained: to stay where they were and struggle or die, to seek refuge in a United States with tightening quotas, or to become part of the Zionist enterprise. There were no clean options, only history bearing down on vulnerable people.
Nor is the broader American story simple. This nation tried to hold out extraordinary promises while repeatedly denying them through slavery, the dispossession and genocide of Indigenous peoples, exclusion, incarceration, and systems of terrible inequity that endure today. Remembering 250 years means resisting both triumphalism and cynicism. It means telling the truth about the gifts people have found here and the harms that have made those gifts unevenly available.
Perhaps that is why I find myself drawn less to Pinchas than to the daughters of Zelophechad at the end of the parasha.
Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milcah, and Tirtzah also confront injustice. But instead of picking up a spear, they bring their claim before the community and ask the Israelites – and G-d – to become more equitable – to live closer to their highest values. Adonai responds with a remarkable affirmation: ken b'not Tzelofchad dovrot – "The daughters of Zelophechad speak rightly."
And today ushers in the Three Weeks, beginning with the 17th of Tammuz. The rabbis teach that the Second Temple fell because of sinat chinam – baseless hatred (Yoma 9b). Whether or not that explains the destruction historically, it names a spiritual danger that never goes away. Communities unravel when certainty eclipses humility, when zeal overtakes wisdom, and when we forget that justice is meant to enlarge our humanity rather than diminish it.
May these Three Weeks deepen our capacity to remember honestly, argue courageously, and keep choosing the path of the daughters of Zelophechad: expanding justice not through certainty or force, but through moral imagination that leads to communal change.
Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
P.S. Speaking of three weeks, I will be away from the office for the next three weeks, stepping away from email and congregational responsibilities. I look forward to reconnecting when I return as we begin the ascent toward the New Year together. I wish you all a meaningful, safe, and rejuvenating stretch of summer in the meantime
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