
In the video and sound recordings of the rally in
Greenville, North Carolina, it was hard not to hear echoes of “sieg heil” in
the frenzied chant of the crowd. It was hard not to imagine raised arms in Nazi
salute; not to feel the psychic fear carried within us as Jews when venomous
hatred is directed at one who is deemed different, regarded as other, and
therefore unwelcome. I do not know the legal definition of what constitutes an
impeachable offense. I do know when a moral line has been crossed in a leader’s
cynically conscious effort to divide people from each other.
In the way of the Torah’s search for wholeness amidst its
own narratives of brokenness, a poignant affirmation of diversity follows the
violence of zealotry in whose grip the weekly Torah portion Pinchas (Numb. 25:10-30:1) opens.

At the end of the preceding portion,
Balak,
Pinchas has slain two human beings, an Israelite prince and a Midianite
princess. Now given names, Zimri and Cozbi are made real and become known to us
as people. All victims of violence have names. However fraught the context of
their killing, as though polemics and politics can justify, the dead are real
people who loved and were beloved.

Tasting the bitter residue of violence throughout the
portion, violence is challenged in ways both subtle and direct. At the outset
of
Pinchas, just after the zealot has
done his murderous deed, in what seems to be an absurd act, God says,
Lo! I shall give to him My covenant:
Peace/hi’n’ni noten lo et b’riti shalom (Numb. 25:12). When translated
correctly, we hear God’s prayerful hope that Pinchas shall rise to the
challenge of peace. God has not given him a “covenant of peace,” as commonly
translated, but simply “My covenant,” adding the word
shalom, as though to say, “so may it be, peace…!” It is a covenant
that is meant, in the view of one commentator, the Ha’emek Davar, to redirect
the residue of violence that remains within Pinchas. In the word
shalom that carries God’s hope, the
vertical letter
vav is traditionally
written in two halves, upper and lower with a space or a line in between, the
only place in the Torah of such orthographic teaching, a broken letter that
becomes its own prayer for wholeness.

Not with weapons, but with words, it is women in the portion
who offer the most direct challenge to injustice. The daughters of Tzelophchad
challenge Moses for the right to inherit following the death of their father,
who had no sons. Engaging with God, Moses accedes to the rightness of their
claim. This “squad” of women bravely stood forward and spoke truth to power.
Perhaps moved more deeply than he realized, just after the claim of the
daughters is made, Moses appeals to God with a name that is used only twice in
the Torah.

Told of his impending death, Moses is reminded that he had
struck the rock to bring forth water, rather than having used words as
instructed. In a moment of selfless nobility, Moses does not argue for himself,
as he does at other times, but pleads with God only that the people be given a
leader who will, in effect, do justice to the holy calling of the people:
yifkod ha’shem elokei ha’ruchot l’chol
basar…/Let God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint one over the
community who will go out before them and who will come in before them, and who
will lead them out and who will lead them in, so that the community of God
shall not be like sheep that have no shepherd… (Numb. 27:17).

The poignant power of Moses’ plea is in the way he addresses
God,
ha’shem elokei ha’ruchot l’chol
basar…/God, the God of the spirits of all flesh…. It is a name that melts
the heart in the fullness of its embrace of all, in its universal import, in its
affirmation of diversity. It sings of the importance of each one, uttering a
sacred call for leadership that recognizes both collective and individual needs
as two parts of one whole. In the appearance in one verse of
ru’ach/spirit and
basar/flesh, expression is given to the essence of what it means to
be human, each of us a physical vessel containing God’s spirit as refracted
through the uniqueness of who we each are. A link is made between each person
and the breath of God that hovered over the face of the waters in the very
beginning,
ru’ach elokim m’rachefet al
p’nei ha’mayyim (Gen. 1:2). Moses reminds God of the gentle essence that is
God’s own breath that is breathed into each one at the beginning, our own
beginning and that of the world.
God as the God of the spirits
of all flesh is the name by which Moses addresses God only twice in the Torah.
The other place is in the
portion called Korach, (Numb. 16:22). Each of these contexts is a moment of
transition, even of danger, concern for what will be going forward. In Korach,
Moses and Aaron fall on their faces when God threatens to destroy the whole
people. Pleading for God's mercy, they appeal to God with this most inclusive
name, reminding God, as it were, of God's connection to all the people, to all
people.
Seen through the lens of Midrash, Moses’
way of addressing God at a point of transition following the violence of
Pinchas becomes an affirmation of diversity, an urgent call to see all the
people as part of one whole. None are to be sent away, home is right there, and
all belong. A classical Midrashic work called Tanchumah draws from the diversity in God’s name as God of the
spirits of all flesh an opportunity to reflect on a blessing for diversity,
considering when we should say a powerfully beautiful blessing, Blessed are you God, our God, Sovereign of
the Universe/m’shaneh ha’bri’yot/who makes all creatures differently.
In that spirit, the midrash goes on to
suggest the nature of the leader Moses seeks to succeed him, the rabbis
speaking then for Moses: appoint for them
one who will bear each and every one according to who they are…. Continuing
in that way, the Ba’al Shem Tov teaches that the leader of a generation is one who is able to raise up all the words and
the stories of the people of the generation/l’ha’a lot kol ha’dibburim
v’ha’sippurim shel anshei doro…. Reflecting the tensions in the portion
between the way of weapons and of words, of Moses’ call for a leader who will go out before them and who will
come in before them, Rashi imagines a military leader going into battle at
the head of the troops. Many centuries later, in the way of the Torah’s seeking
its own corrective to violence, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch nearly screams out,
going out and coming in by no means
designates only the leading of armies in war…, [but] is accordingly the term for the general activity of one set at the head
of a nation…, who is at the forefront going about as an example for public and
private life…, as the activity of a shepherd is devoted to the thriving and
welfare of the flock.
In the face of the violence from which
this portion flows, so in the face of all the violence of those who would shout
“send her back,” may new leadership emerge that begins with each of us. Calling
on God as the God of the spirits of all flesh, may we bless our diversity,
enriched in our hearing and holding the stories of each one. As a great chorus
of inclusion that would sing away zealotry, violence, and hate, may we yet
witness the gathered crowd calling out to the leader and the leader to the
people, Blessed is the One who makes all
creatures differently.
Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein
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