This week's portion is named for Pinchas, the man who stopped a plague in the midst of the Israelites by stabbing a Jewish prince and his Moabite lover as they were, ahem, in the middle of their tryst.
This is a tough portion to understand and absorb. The issue isn't so much having sex with someone outside the fold, but rather the brazen way in which it was done, i.e. with maximum publicity.
Then there's the vigilante aspect of it. Pinchas acted without being told to do so, or authorized. He is lavishly rewarded by God, but his act in any other context would simply have been brutal murder.
I think the most important message here is that sometimes boundaries have to be set in ways that we would normally refrain from using. You have to be cruel to be kind, to allow life to flourish.
Parents yell at kids sometimes, and it can be excessive, but it may also be necessary so that kids know where the hard lines are. They can't set boundaries for themselves. You have to strike a balance.
The reward is the richness of life that grows within those boundaries. Pinchas is also the portion that describes all the major Jewish holidays. So within clear moral bounds, there is room for great joy.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
