Joie de Vivre: not so Pinchas

I have so much on my mind when I think of the parsha named Pinchas.

It starts as a continuation of a horrendous story that ended last week’s reading, and continues with one of the most empowering, beautiful, and random stories of the Torah. I say random, because we don’t hear about Zelophehad or his daughters before or after this.

Zelophehad is supposed to be a good guy, righteous in that he didn’t participate in Korach’s rebellion against Moses. That’s pretty much all we know about him. Pinchas is righteous, too, according to God, but I don’t like him at all.

Pinchas is what we would call a zealot—violent and ready to kill in the name of God. Last week’s parsha, after the talking donkey and Balak and Bilam took up most of the story, ended with a brutal murder by Pinchas, an Israelite who was all too happy to stick his sword through a couple (an Israelite man and a Moabite/Midianite—this detail is not consistent), entering a tent to have sex. He literally follows them into the tent and stabs them through as one. Yuck.

The story of Pinchas is all about the Israelites being lured away, apparently through the use of sex, to worship a different god (the struggle towards monotheism is a very long one), and “our” God orders the ringleaders to be impaled. A plague that God has started (again) is stopped because of this “righteous” behavior on Pinchas’ part. Pinchas is rewarded for his behavior at the beginning of this week’s reading; he and his descendants will all become priests for evermore.

Here’s something that struck me: God seems to live from a place of outrage. He is ready to spring at any moment. And he rewards violence.

Not good.

Another thing that struck me: random women are named in this parsha—the Midianite woman and the daughters of Zelophad—which is a very rare thing in the Torah. And these daughters are special.

Zelophad has five daughters, and when he dies, they’re not due any of his property, leaving them desolate. So they appeal to Moses, and Moses goes to God, and God says okay, the law should be changed so females can inherit property so long as there are no males around (obviously a big deal at that time).

This is a big win, and there’s no big argument, just pure and simple justice. Here God is kind and caring.

Today we might say that God has borderline personality disorder; his behavior is erratic, he’s manipulative, and he swings between being kind and generous and violent, punishing and rageful. This God is a god you’re walking around on eggshells.

All joking aside, what do you do in a world that has all of these things: injustice, violence and outrage; justice and love and caring and open-mindedness and flexibility.

In the middle of this week’s parsha, there’s a repetitive taking of the census, and it ends with a reminder of the holidays and how to observe them, most specifically the sacrifices to be made and how to make them. To me, it’s like saying, there’s a normal, even-keeled part of life, too. It goes on, no matter what you think. Everything continues, the drama passes. Life can be routine as well.

I heard Dr. Ruth on a podcast called The Experiment the other day. I was a young teen when she started talking about sex on the radio, so she has a very special place in my heart. (I wonder what she would say about the “whoring women” in the bible! Ha!)

Anyway, here we are coming to the end of the pandemic, at least in the U.S., with life “going back to normal,” “things opening up,” as everyone is wont to say, and the interviewer wanted to get Dr. Ruth’s perspective; what should we take from the pandemic? What about our trauma and grief? We need to make room for that, right? Keep talking about it?

“Absolutely not!” says Dr. Ruth emphatically. “Move on.”

When all the rest of us were whining, Dr. Ruth knew this would end. She stayed in her apartment, at 92, now 93, all alone, for over a year, never going out. Talk about lonely! She was a therapist to herself, she said, which got her through it.

This is the perspective of a woman who was sent off to travel on her own to safety as a young child during the WWII, lost her entire family to the Holocaust, and made a new life over and over again, in several different countries.

This is the kind of person who only looks forward: "Move on!” she says. “Take the lessons from the past—from the Holocaust, from the pandemic—never forget them!—but move on. Keep planning for the future. “The tulips were so beautiful this year. And they will be even more beautiful next year!” Dr. Ruth loves to repeat the phrase, joie de vivre.

What do we take from the lessons of the Torah and what do we leave behind?

How about we leave behind the violence and misogyny of an ancient society? Isn’t it time? How about the almost constant state of outrage? It’s not good for us individually, and it ripples out in destructive ways socially. It’s time to let that all go, don’t you think?

How about we carry forward the lessons of the power of the collective and the power of women, the ability to work together? How about the ability of these women to lead the way for other women, and to do so peacefully, without fighting, either among themselves (someone who comes to my morning minyan pointed out: how often do sisters get along—and five of them?”), or with Moses or God. They come level-headed, organized, coherent.

How about the possibility of those of us who can to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves?

And how about more joie de vivre?