(Numbers
23:10-30:1)
Phinehas is
a fascinating character in the Torah. In
the previous parasha, Balak, he witnessed an Israelite man and
a Midianite woman having sex out in the open, in the sight of the Tent of
Meeting and the whole community, a culminating act of sexual indecency after
the Israelites have already profaned
themselves by whoring with the Midianite women, who invited the people to the
sacrifices for their god (Nm 25:2).
This defiant sexual act, done in the distressed faces of a
now-plague-beset people, spurred Phinehas to act – and so, without pausing to
think, he speared the couple through their bellies, stopping the plague. That’s where Parashat Balak ended. It’s
sort of a cliff-hanger; in the week between Balak
and this next parasha, Pinhas, a new reader might be wondering
what will happen to Phinehas. On the one
hand, he put an end to the Israelites’ bad behavior, and to their punishment;
on the other, his act of violence is plenty disturbing in its own right. How will he be viewed by the Torah? We get our answer immediately in Parashat Pinhas. It begins, The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Phinehas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron
the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by displaying among
them his passion for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in my
passion. Say, therefore, ‘I grant him my
pact of friendship. It shall be for him
and his descendents after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he
took impassioned action for his God, thus making expiation for the Israelites’”
(Nm 25:10-25:13). In other words, God is
thrilled – thrilled specifically about Phinehas’ passion, and so much so that God names Phinehas as Aaron’s
replacement in the priesthood. It’s
quite a decision, designating this hot blooded guard of the sanctuary to
replace the generally quiet and even-tempered Aaron.
So why? Let me be clear: Phinehas’ action is gruesomely
violent, impulsive and extreme, and I obviously don’t think that an action like
this could be justified in everyday life – but because I see this as a story
rather than a strict report of events that actually took place, I think less about
whether murder is justifiable and more about what the Torah is trying to say allegorically
about impassioned action. In this case,
it does stop a plague – two die
instead of thousands more – and, more to the point, its emotional content could
be seen as fitting. Rabbi Shimon Felix
wrote, “It would seem that the Torah realizes that the crime committed by Zimri
[the Israelite caught having sex publicly] is the ultimate crime of passion…the
passion of Zimri and Kozby [the Midianite woman] can only be matched by the
passion of Pinhas, the zealot. The response to the emotional crime committed
here must itself be emotional.” This is
presumably why God, in praising Phinehas, specifically praised his passion. For me, Parashat
Pinhas suggests that humanity and the world are not entirely sober and
logical, and that we therefore can’t always approach it with the calm poise of
Aaron. The world also needs some zeal.
As painter
Marc Chagall wrote in his autobiography, “The soul that has reached by itself
that level which men call literature, the illogic, is the purest.” He certainly applied this in his work, often
declaring that love was the only real guide in his painting. Many other artists echo this preference for
feeling over reason. Visual artist Judy
Chicago once wrote about her drawings, “The only way they work is if they’re
infused with emotion, & that means I have to be ‘inside’ and not wandering
off thinking about something else.” In
the words of songwriter Bob Dylan, “My feelings come from the gut, and I’m not
too concerned with someone whose feelings come from his head.” Other artists make the point in stronger
terms, saying that this isn’t a matter of personal preference so much as a key
to the understanding of art. “Motion
comes from emotion,” said choreographer Anna Sokolow more than once, and writer
Gertrude Stein said, “There can be no truly great creation without passion.” To these creators, art just doesn’t make
sense without an understanding of that “gut” that Dylan depends on. To wit, poet Robert Pinsky said, “If you live
too much in your head, without any bodily sense of poetry, I don’t think you’ll
truly get poetry.”
All of this
sounds lovely, really, especially when couched in something like the love that
Chagall is talking about. But this is Parashat Pinhas, and one of the things
this parasha is saying is that these
emotions we need are not all sweet ones.
Consider Amedeo Modigliani, a self-destructive person but a magnificent
painter, who said, “I need a flame in order to paint, in order to be consumed
by fire.” In some cases the crucial
harsh emotion may not be directed inward but outward. The point is that zeal is not about pausing
to consider whether one’s emotion is “nice” or not. As painter Mark Rothko said, “I exclude no
emotion from being actual and therefore pertinent.” Neither must we.
As I said
above, Phinehas would without doubt have to be considered a murderer if he did his
hot-headed killing in our world.
Furthermore, I’m not advocating for art that destroys the artist or
others. What I’m saying is that the
creative process is not a logical process, not a sober or nice process. It is fueled by our passions, and those
passions will allow us to reach others.
God granted Phinehas the priesthood, the Israelites’ most holy office,
for his zeal. Surely you can find
something of the sacred in your own emotional life – and surely you can find a
place for that in your art.
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