This evening as Shabbat falls, we turn our attention to the Torah portion named Pinchas. Pinchas is a touchy portion, and as usual, has a lot going on in the entire parshah.
The zealous priest for whom this portion is named, Pinchas, is not where I like to focus my attention in this portion. But if I had to, I would say
that when Pinchas publicly challenged the community of Israel and its
moral code (or lack thereof),
I have difficulty championing Pinchas’s zealotry and murder, and the
resulting blessing of G!d for
the savage murder of two people. Immoral sinners or not, Pinchas’ actions are
extreme, and little different from much of the terrorist acts we see in
the world today.
Here is what I find interesting in this portion: where the story occurs in our text in our Torah scroll, the letter yud
in Pinchas’ name (in verse 11) is written smaller than the other letters.
Does this not teach us that, when we act with violence, the yud
in us (standing for the name of G!d and for the name “Jew”, yehudah) is greatly
diminished? While Pinchas is said to have had G!d’s go ahead and “blessing” on his terrible act in the name of morality, perhaps those
who scribed the story realized that there were other ways to teach
morality, and that Pinchas’ violent act diminished G!d and also diminished the
Jewish community. Perhaps it is our scroll which has the last word about this situation....??
When it comes to this parshah, I instead like to focus on these two stories in Pinchas:
1.
G!d instructs Moses to climb up a mountain where he is to die, but only
after being given the opportunity to look upon the Promised Land for
the last time. The mountain itself has an intriguing name: Har HaAvarim,
which means the Mount of Transitions. That provides a lot of deeply spiritual notions for us to explore!
And
in a rare instance in
our Torah, rather than G!d speaking to Moses, we find Moses speaking to
G!d, and the name which he uses for G!d reveals a great awareness: “And
Moses spoke to the Eternal, saying… “Adonai Elohei haruchot l’chol
basar”. One way this can be translated is to mean: “Transcendent One, Who
manifests as the breathing Soul which animates all of creation, all
material and physical forms and beingness.”
We must ask, Is it that Moses realizes
his mortal body is but one unique expression of the Divine Soul,
Divine Breath that is One? We are not the little “me’s” we identify with, not
our bodies, our thoughts nor even our emotions. They are part of us, but only part. Our soul, that which is purely our Divine Essence, our Divine
Breath, is of our Source, the Ground of our being, the Soul of all souls.
It was never born and, therefore, will never die.
At the edge of the end of Moses’ life, he awakens to that which is Reality, does he not? Yes, he does.
2.
I also love the story here of the daughters of Zelophechad, who come
forward before the whole assembly, and they come forward together. Rashi
explains that their individual names are specified to indicate that
they were of equal importance. No one’s personal ego was greater than
their collective agenda. And they changed Torah in that very moment,
asking Moses to consider their issue. They challenged the Torah ruling,
and Moses agreed. This means Torah is not static and immutable. Our
Talmud does a disservice by making it look so.
What does any of this mean as we end the week and begin anew?
It means that we think about our actions which may seem right and godly and in the name of some religious ideal, but which could ultimately diminish us and our community, as well as G!d.
It means that we become ever more aware of our inner being, leaving behind judgements and issues concerning the containers which house our essence. It is certainly right to take care of ourselves, body, mind and intellect, but we must never forget that our true soul essence is that which lives on. Wayne Dyer used to say that when you squeeze an orange, what you get is the essence of the orange. What happens when we are squeezed? What essence will we show? Grumbling and anger, or gratitude and love? Will we choose to be hateful or grateful? We leave it all behind when we die. All that remains, which we take with us into whatever might happen next, is our soul essence.
As I saw on a t-shirt worn by a person at the NYC hotel when I went o breakfast exactly one week ago:
SIM
PLY
LOVE
When all is said and done, only Love remains. That should be our legacy.
Finally, the great value of equity comes full force with the daughters of Zelophechad. They were in danger of losing their father’s inheritance because there was no son for it to be passed on to. As a united group, each being equal to her sisters, they pleaded their case, and Moses saw that the situation needed equity. What small act will we take today that brings equity to a very unequal situation?
Shabbat shalom!
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