Rabbi Daniel Siegel

Standing alone

In this week’s parashah, we read of the reward of the zealot, Pinchas, who, in his zealotry, kills an Israelite and Midianite who were consorting.

“Pinchas has turned back My wrath from the Israelites when he zealously acted for My zeal..and I did not wipe out the people in My zeal. Therefore, I grant him my covenant of shalom.”

Our Rabbinic tradition takes exception with this Biblical commendation of zealotry. Indeed, one might say God did not wipe out the people in His zeal for seeing, in the action of Pinchas, the destructive influence of such zealousness, He curbs His own zealotry and presents a covenant of shalom not as a reward for such action but as an antidote to the same.

Significantly, the reading from the Prophets selected by the Rabbis to accompany this parashah of Pinchas is the story of Eliyahu (Elijah). The Rabbis declare: “Pinchas and Eliyahu are one and the same”.

In his zealotry for God, Eliyahu kills 450 idolators from among his people. Fleeing for his life, he is confronted by God, in the wilderness, with the words “Why are you here, Eliyahu”? He responds: “I have been most zealous for the Lord, for the Israelites have abandoned Your covenant, Your altars they have destroyed, and I alone am left”.

The interlinear reading offered by the Rabbis is remarkable:

Eliyahu: “I have been most zealous for the Lord, for the Israelites have abandoned Your covenan.”

God:    “My covenant? Perhaps your covenant!”

Eliyahu: “Your altars they have destroyed.”

God:     “My altars? Perhaps your altars!”

The zealot’s self-serving agenda should never be mistaken for, though it is invariably presented as the cause of God. In claiming to be alone for God: “I alone am left”, one, in truth, is simply alone.

This Eliyahu episode which takes place upon 40 days in the wilderness and at the “mountain of God” intentionally draws our attention to Moshe’s encounter with God at this very same mountain as the people are about to enter into a covenant with the Divine. Unlike Eliyahu, Moshe stands alone with God. He steps into the breach to elicit God’s compassion for the wayward people and turns back God’s zealous anger.

As the zealous Eliyahu has put himself in the place of God, he is instructed by the Lord to “anoint Elisha…as My prophet in your stead”.

Returning to parashat Pinchas, we find that it is in this story, of one who “zealously acted for God’s zeal”, that Moshe is instructed to appoint his own successor. God here reminds Moshe that it is the recent episode of striking the rock that necessitates his now being replaced. Rather than, once again, entering the breach on behalf of the Israelites, his zealousness for God, or rather for himself, made  him see them as “rebels”, with himself sanding alone, renouncing his people and displacing God.