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Reflecting on our behaviour between Rosh Hashanah and Kippur should not stop us Reflecting on our behaviour between Kippur and Rosh Hashanah – the year ahead…

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Ne’ilah Sermon Lev Chadash 2022

l’italiano segue l’inglese

At the very end of the service of Ne’ilah, standing before the open Ark with the shofar in attendance ready to blow the tekiah gedolah that will mark the final moment of Yom Kippur, the community enact one final ritual. We proclaim the first line of the Shema, followed by three renditions of “Baruch shem k’vod” (Blessed be the name of God’s glorious kingdom for ever and ever), and then a final profession of faith “Adonai Hu HaElohim” – Adonai is God – seven times.

This final sevenfold declaration dates back to the thirteenth century. The other two are slightly later. They provide a choreographed bookend to the first words of the Kol HaNedarim service where we brought together an earthly and a heavenly  Beit Din to permit us all to pray with each other who have sinned.

The first two lines of the shema, later additions to the liturgy here, bring to mind the recitation of the shema at the deathbed. Time is running out, we make our last commitment and supplication to our Creator.

But what of the formula “Adonai Hu HaElohim” – which builds to a crescendo that segues into the shofar blast?

And why the sevenfold repetition?

The phrase comes from Deuteronomy 4:35 and is later found in the first Book of Kings (18:37-39) and it is in this latter text that this powerful affirmation is rooted.

It tells the story of the prophet Elijah who comes to King Ahab to bring the Northern Kingdom of Israel away from the idolatrous practises it has chosen. In a series of wicked Kings of Israel, the bible tells us that “Ahab did more to anger the God of Israel, than all the kings of Israel who had preceded him.” married to Queen Jezebel they had persecuted the prophets of God and encouraged the worship of the Canaanite deity Baal and his wife Ashtoreth.  After some tense encounters where Elijah had called for a drought which has now lasted for three years, he has hidden from his enemies amid fears for his life at the hands of this evil couple. Now Elijah comes to ask Ahab to gather the people of Israel, with along the 450 priests of the cult of Baal and the 400 prophets of the cult of Ashtarot on Mount Carmel to prove once and for all who is the true God of Israel, and which a fake and idolatrous cult.

Once everyone is there, he asks the people the famous question – “how long will you  hover between two opinions” (meaning how long will you be undecided whether to worship Baal or Adonai?” The people do not respond. Elijah then offers a contest between the two “divinities”. He suggests both he and the prophets of Baal should each create an altar and offer a sacrifice on it. The god who would send fire down to consume the offering would be accepted as the true God. The prophets of Baal tried all day to get Baal to consume the sacrifice. They prayed loudly and  they danced till exhaustion set in, they whipped themselves into a frenzy – all the while calling out to Baal “Baal answer us”! But nothing happened.

Meanwhile Elijah taunted them – “perhaps he is asleep – shout louder, maybe he is out pursuing enemies – make more noise and movement to attract his attention”.  Still nothing happened, the sacrifice lay on the altar unconsumed.

 Then, in the evening, came Elijah’s turn, he took 12 stones for each of the 12 tribes, he sacrificed his bull, and to make his point that nothing would be too difficult for God, he even poured water over his sacrifice and altar. Then he prayed -and immediately “the fire of Adonai fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench” (v38).

Seeing this miracle, all the people of Israel bow down and declare “Adonai hu HaElohim! Adonai hu HaElohim” – Adonai is the true God, Adonai is the true God. The story ends rather gorily – the priests of Baal are slain by the Brook of Kishon (v40) and Jezebel is determined to wreak her revenge on this troublesome prophet, and once more Elijah has to flee for his life.

Once more in bible, we see that miracles never really change anything….

However the people have unequivocally denied Baal and the worship of idols, they have affirmed the one and only God of Israel, – the moment is one of teshuva, of leaving behind  vain and useless behaviours and attachments and affirming the one-ness and the true-ness of Adonai, the God of Israel. This is the climactic moment of the story – the people call out “Adonai hu HaElohim” – Adonai is the true God. And it is the climactic moment of the neilah service, as seven times (some say this is one for every day of the week, or a way to make a complete and sealed vow – we declare to each other and to ourselves at the end of Kippur – Adonai is the true God. We have returned. We have journeyed to this moment of true teshuvah.

With the sounding of the shofar the moment of perfect teshuvah is sealed. And it will be time to go home, to eat and to drink, to return to life.

But liturgists always have layers of meaning. Choosing this phrase with which to end Kippur is a way of saying – it is truly the end, we are focused only on God and not attached to any idolatrous feelings.  And that is lovely.

But note, Jezebel is about to take her revenge, and the people who have so recently declared for Elijah and for God don’t seem prepared to stop her. They might have proclaimed that only Adonai is the one and true God, but very quickly they revert to their previous behaviours, and they tolerate the machinations of the evil King Ahab and Queen Jezebel – indeed we are soon to learn of the fate of Naboth and his vineyard which the King and Queen wanted for themselves.

So there is an extra lesson the liturgist is asking us to learn. We may have had a deep spiritual experience today. We may feel we have journeyed and we have interrogated ourselves, that we have seen a route to change and decided to commit to it. We may feel exhilarated and cleansed and ready to move on into the world as new-born souls. But we have to remember that old habits are hard to break, that the real world demands real compromises from us, that this feeling of a spiritual high will not and cannot last. We have to face the coming days and we are warned – the miracle at Mount Carmel did not really change anything long term, and the spiritual high we may feel will also not change us long term. What matters now is not what happens in this day for atonement, what matters is what we choose to do differently after we leave the building, after we wake tomorrow morning, after we enter ordinary life.

The shofar blast will alert us not only to the end of Kippur, but to the temptations and bad habits of ordinary life. We need to have it ringing in our ears as they weeks and months take us further from this moment – because change is hard and slow and incremental and requires us to make choices and to actively do things differently.

The sun will soon set. We may reach the moment of catharsis and declare Adonai Hu HaElohim. We may leave this building exhausted but exhilarated. But what really counts is what happens when the sun rises tomorrow, and the day after, and the days after that.

Sermone per Ne’illà – Lev Chadash 2022

Di rav Sylvia Rothschild

          Alla fine del servizio di Ne’illà, in piedi davanti all’Arca aperta e con lo shofar pronto per essere suonato per la tekià gedolà, che segnerà il momento finale dello Yom Kippur, la comunità mette in atto un rituale conclusivo. Proclamiamo la prima riga dello Shemà, seguita da tre interpretazioni di “Baruch shem k’vod” (Sia benedetto il nome del glorioso regno di Dio nei secoli dei secoli), infine per sette volte la professione di fede “Adonai Hu HaElohim” – Adonai è Dio.

          Questa ultima dichiarazione in sette parti risale al XIII secolo, mentre le altre due sono leggermente più tarde. Forniscono una cornice coreografata alle prime parole del servizio Kol HaNedarim in cui abbiamo riunito un Beit Din terrestre e uno celeste per permettere a tutti noi che abbiamo peccato di pregare gli uni con gli altri.

          I primi due versi dello Shemà, che qui sono delle aggiunte successive alla liturgia, ricordano la recita dello Shemà sul letto di morte. Il tempo sta finendo, proclamiamo l’ultimo impegno e l’ultima supplica al nostro Creatore.

          Ma cosa possiamo dire della formula “Adonai Hu HaElohim”, che si sviluppa in un crescendo al suono dello shofar?

          E perché la ripetizione sette volte?

          La frase deriva da Deuteronomio 4,35 e si ritrova anche nel primo Libro dei Re (18,37-39), ed è in quest’ultimo testo che la potente affermazione si radica.

          Vi si racconta la storia del profeta Elia, che giunge dal re Achab per condurre il Regno del Nord d’Israele lontano dalle pratiche idolatriche che quest’ultimo aveva scelto. Nell’ambito di una serie di malvagi re d’Israele, la Bibbia ci dice che “Achab fece più per adirare il Dio d’Israele, di tutti i re d’Israele che lo avevano preceduto”. Sposato con la regina Jezebel, insieme perseguitano i profeti di Dio e incoraggiano il culto della divinità cananea Baal e di sua moglie Astarte. In seguito ad alcuni incontri tesi, dopo che Elia ha invocato una siccità che dura ormai da tre anni, quest’ultimo si nasconde da questa coppia malvagia, temendo per la propria vita. Infine Elia chiede ad Achab di radunare il popolo d’Israele sul monte Carmelo, insieme ai quattrocentocinquanta sacerdoti del culto di Baal e ai quattrocento profeti del culto di Astarte, per provare una volta per tutte chi sia il vero Dio d’Israele, e quale sia invece il culto falso e idolatra.

          Una volta che tutti sono presenti, Elia pone al popolo la famosa domanda: “per quanto tempo rimarrete sospesi tra due opinioni?” (nel senso di “per quanto tempo sarete indecisi se adorare Baal o Adonai?”). Il popolo non risponde. Elia indice quindi una disputa tra le due “divinità”. Suggerisce che sia lui che i profeti di Baal debbano creare ciascuno un altare e offrire su di esso un sacrificio. Il dio che avrebbe fatto scendere il fuoco per consumare l’offerta sarebbe stato accettato come il vero Dio. I profeti di Baal cercano tutto il giorno di convincere Baal a consumare il sacrificio. Pregano ad alta voce e ballano fino a cadere esausti, si scatenano freneticamente, il tutto mentre gridano a Baal: “Baal rispondici”! Ma non accade nulla.

          Intanto Elia li schernisce: “forse sta dormendo, gridate più forte, forse è fuori a inseguire i nemici: fate più rumore e movimento per attirare la sua attenzione”. Ancora non accade nulla, il sacrificio non consumato giace sull’altare.

          Poi, la sera, viene il turno di Elia: egli prende dodici pietre, una per ciascuna delle dodici tribù, sacrifica il suo toro e, per sottolineare che nulla sarebbe stato troppo difficile per Dio, versa persino dell’acqua sul suo sacrificio e sull’altare. Poi prega, e subito “il fuoco ad Adonai cadde e bruciò il sacrificio, la legna, le pietre e la terra, e prosciugò anche l’acqua dell canale” (v38).

          Vedendo questo miracolo, tutto il popolo d’Israele si inchina e dichiara: “Adonai hu HaElohim! Adonai hu HaElohim” – Adonai è il vero Dio, Adonai è il vero Dio. La storia si conclude in modo piuttosto cruento: i sacerdoti di Baal sono uccisi presso il ruscello di Kishon (v40), Jezebel è determinata a vendicarsi di questo fastidioso profeta, e nuovamente Elia deve fuggire per salvarsi la vita.

          Ancora una volta, nella Bibbia, vediamo che i miracoli non cambiano mai davvero nulla…Tuttavia il popolo ha inequivocabilmente negato Baal e il culto degli idoli, ha affermato l’unico e solo Dio d’Israele: è il momento della teshuvà, di lasciarsi alle spalle comportamenti e attaccamenti vani e inutili e affermare l’unicità e l’autenticità di Adonai, il Dio di Israele. Questo è il momento culminante della storia: le persone gridano “Adonai hu HaElohim” – Adonai è il vero Dio. Ed è il momento culminante del servizio di neillà, poiché sette volte (alcuni dicono che sia una volta per ogni giorno della settimana, oppure un modo per fare un voto completo e sigillato) dichiariamo a vicenda e a noi stessi alla fine del Kippur che Adonai è il vero Dio. Siamo tornati. Abbiamo viaggiato fino a questo momento di autentica teshuvà.

          Con il suono dello shofar il momento della perfetta teshuvà è sigillato. E sarà ora di tornare a casa, di mangiare e di bere, di tornare alla vita.

          Ma i liturgisti trovano sempre altri livelli di significato. Scegliere questa frase con cui concludere Kippur è un modo per dire che è davvero la fine, siamo concentrati solo su Dio e non attaccati a sentimenti idolatrici. E ciò è bello.

          Ma è da notare che Jezebel sta per vendicarsi, e le persone che si sono dichiarate di recente per Elia e per Dio non sembrano disposte a fermarla. Avrebbero potuto proclamare che solo Adonai è l’unico e vero Dio, ma molto rapidamente tornano ai loro comportamenti precedenti e tollerano le macchinazioni del malvagio re Achab e della regina Jezebel. Anzi, presto scopriremo il destino di Nabot e della sua vigna, che il Re e la Regina volevano per sé.

          Quindi c’è una lezione in più che il liturgista ci chiede di imparare. Potremmo aver avuto una profonda esperienza spirituale oggi, potremmo sentire di aver viaggiato e di esserci interrogati, di aver trovato un percorso di cambiamento e di aver deciso di impegnarci in esso. Potremmo sentirci euforici, purificati e pronti ad andare avanti nel mondo come anime appena nate. Ma dobbiamo ricordare che le vecchie abitudini sono difficili da rompere, che il mondo reale richiede da noi veri compromessi, che questa sensazione di euforia spirituale non può durare e non durerà. Dobbiamo affrontare i prossimi giorni e siamo avvertiti: il miracolo del Monte Carmelo non ha davvero cambiato nulla a lungo termine, e anche l’acme spirituale che potremmo sentire non ci cambierà a lungo termine. Ciò che conta ora non è ciò che accade in questo giorno per l’espiazione, ciò che conta è ciò che scegliamo di compiere in modo diverso dopo aver lasciato l’edificio, dopo che ci saremo svegliati domani mattina, dopo essere rientrati nella vita ordinaria.

          Il suono dello shofar ci avviserà non solo della fine di Kippur, ma anche delle tentazioni e delle cattive abitudini della vita quotidiana. Abbiamo bisogno di sentirlo risuonare nelle nostre orecchie poiché le settimane e i mesi a venire ci allontaneranno da questo momento, perché il cambiamento è duro, lento e graduale e ci richiede di fare delle scelte e di fare attivamente le cose in modo diverso.

          Il sole tramonterà presto. Possiamo raggiungere il momento della catarsi e dichiarare “Adonai Hu HaElohim”. Possiamo lasciare questo edificio esausti ma euforici. Ma ciò che conta davvero è cosa succede quando il sole sorgerà domani, e il giorno dopo, e i giorni successivi.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

Shabbat HaGadol:the day to remind ourselves (as we frantically focus down on Pesach preparations) that our world is larger and more complex than we might be tempted to think.

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The shabbat before Pesach goes under the name of “Shabbat Hagadol”, the Great Sabbath. It follows a number of special shabbatot, each with its own name and purpose –Shekalim and Zachor, Parah and HaChodesh, each of which is designed liturgically to remind us of something particular, each of which has its own extra torah reading and Haftarah.

Shabbat Hagadol, the Great Sabbath, doesn’t quite fit into the pattern.  While it has its own Haftarah from which some say its name is derived  (it ends “hiney anochi sholeyach lachem et eliyah ha’navee, lifnei bo yom Adonai, hagadol v’ha’norah”  Behold I am sending to you Elijah the prophet before the arrival of the Day of the Eternal God, the great and the awesome day (Malachi 3:4-24,23”)  there is no way of knowing whether the name or the reading came first, and truthfully the connection is quite tenuous – to derive the name of the day from the penultimate word of the Haftarah seems unlikely.  So, it doesn’t have an extra Torah reading, and the Haftarah which contains both terrible warning of destruction as well as a prophecy of the redemption at the end of days, is an unlikely contender for the designation of the date.

So what makes this Shabbat Great? Shabbat Hagadol, the great Sabbath?

I’ve heard a number of explanations – always a sign that there can be no certainty – and they range from the quasi historical to the frankly unbelievable.

Traditional commentators explain that the 10th Nissan, the date when the Israelites were to take the lambs into their homes prior to slaughtering them on the 14th of that month, was a shabbat – hence we are remembering the anniversary of that brave act of identification made by the Hebrew slaves after the ninth plague had not yet effected their liberation.  It is a neat suggestion, backed up by some ingenious workings of biblical chronology, but I think at least partially, it misses the point of the naming of this shabbat.  To get a sense of the specialness of this day we need to look not at the particular events of the Exodus, but at the fuller picture of the Jewish year.

There are two shabbatot in the year when it was traditional for the rabbis or scholars of the community to give a sermon.   One was the shabbat before Pesach – Shabbat Hagadol,  and the other was the Shabbat before Yom Kippur – Shabbat Shuvah.  Each of these are the pivotal shabbatot of the Jewish calendar, for they appear exactly half a year apart at a boundary point of the year.  The spring month of Nisan is designated in the bible as the first month of the year, and the autumn month of Tishrei begins the counting of the new solar year.  Both therefore are counted as real new years in our calendar, and so both hold out the possibility of new beginnings.

In both new years there is a tradition of self examination, of clearing out the old disruptive and restraining elements in our lives, and of starting afresh.  Be it the emptying our of the crumbs in our pockets into running water during tashlich as we symbolically get rid of our sins at Rosh Hashanah, or the bedikat chametz – searching for the strategically placed bits of bread around the house with a candle and a feather on the night before seder night so as to be able to burn them the next day, we use the same symbolism to the same effect – we want to be able to start again unencumbered by our past worldly misdemeanours, we want to have a new chance, and the beginning of a year has the right sort of resonance for it.

In the month of Tishrei, along with the festivals of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the eight days of Sukkot our calendar has created  a special shabbat with its own haftarah, where God speaks to us asking us to return – Shabbat Shuvah.   It seems only proper that the month of Nisan should have a special shabbat too, echoing the relationship between God and Israel that will also be so prominent in the commemoration of the exodus from Egypt, but weighted slightly differently from the Autumn celebration.

Pesach is a festival that is dedicated to the particular experience of the Jews.  It records our liberation from slavery, the beginning of our journey towards peoplehood, the moment when we embarked on a course that would lead to our encountering God, accepting Covenant, recognising the unity of the Divine.  The Autumn Festivals celebrate not our particularity but our part in a universality – Rosh Hashanah is not the birthday of the Jewish people but of the World, Sukkot is the festival of recognition of the universality of God over all peoples.  Our Jewish tradition values both aspects – the particularity of the special covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God, and the universality of God being God over all the world – divine creator of all people.

Just as we have two new years co-existing with each other in our calendar, so does our theology allow for two quite different identities – the particular one of the Jewish world and the universal one of the whole world.  The skill is in keeping the balance at all times between what may sometimes be conflicting priorities.  If we become too universalist then we lose our special identity, integrating and assimilating into our context until we become unrecognisable even to ourselves.  If we become too particularist then we block out the world around us, turn our backs on the real and important issues of our context, and deny the greatness and universality of our God by denying parts of God’s creation.  The prophets railed against this; the rabbis planned and manoeuvred to keep seemingly mutually incompatible ideas and circumstances alive and within the tradition.  It is a major triumph of Judaism that it is able to keep conflicting truths within the canon of our teachings and one we must never take for granted.

So both Nisan and Tishrei are new beginnings, yet each has different characteristic alongside the similarity.  Nisan is about the particular redemption of the Jewish people, Tishrei about the universal redemption of the world.  Yet each has a balancing component within it.  In Tishrei we mix into the liturgy a great deal of contemplative and reflective material, and we add a shabbat of particularity – shabbat Shuvah.  In Pesach we act out the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt as though we ourselves were there, but we mix into it an awareness of the pain and suffering of the wider world. We lessen our wine of joy by dropping some out as we recall the sufferings of the Egyptians for example, we shorten some of the Hallel psalms to temper our happiness at the crossing of the Red Sea because we remember the Egyptian pursuers who drowned there.  And we add to our commemoration of our redemption from slavery the oppression of others who are not yet released from their subjugation.  There is a tradition to add to both the symbols of Pesach and the liturgy of its services a wider remembrance of suffering and tyranny.  When I was growing up it was common to have a matzah of hope for Jews in Syria and the Soviet Union, to leave an extra chair and place setting for those who were unable to partake in a seder.  As time passed other things have been added to some sedarim – the orange placed on the seder place for example, to symbolise inclusion; and now the olive being added as a hope for peace for all peoples in the Middle East.

Balancing the universal and the particular, the creation of the whole world and the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, is a Jewish life skill.  We are a separate people who are part of the one humanity created by God.  We have a particular covenant which designates particular obligations – mitzvot, with that God and we also know that while our convenant is binding on both parties, God also has other particular covenants with other peoples.  We care about our special identity and need to keep it active, and yet we also care about God’s wider world.  We balance the two parts of ourselves continually, the particularist and the universalist elements are both  legitimate expressions of Jewish thinking, and neither perspective can enable us without the other being somewhere in the equation.

So why Shabbat HaGadol?  It is, I think, the balance to Shabbat Shuvah, the day to remind ourselves as we frantically focus down on Pesach preparations that our world is larger and more complex than we might currently be tempted to think.  If our minds are full only of cleaning, cooking and shopping, we should allow space to consider the purpose of commemorating the festival at all. If we are preparing ourselves for the seder service, we should be looking outside the texts of Egyptian or Roman or Crusader persecution of the Jews and look for more modern examples of oppression and subjugation – both within the Jewish world and outside of it.  Shabbat Hagadol is a day to remember the rest of the world before we immerse ourselves in the particular Jewish experience of an exodus and a liberation that led to our formation as a people.

We are once again, at a new beginning.  It is 6 months since we stopped and really thought about the world and about our part within it, our sins of commission and our sins of omission.  This shabbat before Pesach, Shabbat HaGadol, calls to us now to ask – Have we changed in that time? Have  we responded to injustice or pain around us? Have we followed up the resolutions and vows we made during the Yamim Noraim?  Are we playing a part in Tikkun Olam, repairing the world so as to make it a more godly place?  Do we really care what is happening in our name in the world right now as Jews or middle-class professionals or citizens of Western countries?  Or will we just settle down in our homes to commemorate a historical event in a ritual way, opening the door to the outside only towards the end of our service, for a brief moment of recognition that we are not alone in the world, yearning for Elijah to come and signal the end?

Shabbat Hagadol – taking place in a new month which itself begins a new year refocuses us for a day away from our own historical reality to look at the surroundings in which our present reality takes place. It is truly a Great Sabbath.

הִנְנִ֨י נֹתֵ֥ן ל֛וֹ אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֖י שָׁלֽוֹם: Pinchas. The Zealot and the Covenant of Broken Peace

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No biblical figure is so identified with zealotry as is Pinchas.  He steps out in the closing verses of last week’s sidra, so completely outraged by the sight of a prince of Israel and a Midianite woman cavorting together that he acts immediately, not waiting for Moses or for any process of law – he thrusts his spear into the couple as they lie together, and kills them both.

It is a horrible spectacle for us to read, but more horrible still is God’s response.  God says that for his actions Pinchas is to receive a special reward – “Pinchas is the only one who zealously took up My cause among the Israelites and turned my anger away from them so that I did not consume the children of Israel in my jealousy.  Therefore tell him that I have given him My covenant of peace” (Num. 25:11-12)

Pinchas’ action had ended an Israelite orgy of idolatry and promiscuity that was endangering the integrity of the people far more than any of the curses of the prophet Balak could have done.  But while the outcome was important, the method was terrible. And this rage which led him to act without any inhibition or process is not unique  in bible. Remember the young Moses who murdered the Egyptian taskmaster in a moment of rage?  Or Elijah who slaughtered the priests of Baal? 

These are events in our history which we cannot ignore, but neither can we celebrate. We have in our ancestry the reality of jealous rage and zealotry – and we can be ambivalent about this quality and how it is used.

            I have always been interested in the response to these acts of biblical jealousy and zealotry for God. 

Elijah, having killed hundreds of idolatrous priests and having demonstrated to his own satisfaction the falseness of their faith, finds that being zealous for God does not guarantee safety. Queen Jezebel is angered and Elijah had to run for his life to the wilderness.  There he encounters many strange phenomena, but ultimately he hears God not in the storms but in the voice of slender silence. 

Moses’ act of killing was a little different – a young man who had only recently taken on board his connection to an enslaved people he found their treatment unbearable, and when he found an Egyptian beating one of his own kin –( ish ivri may’echav )– he looked around, saw no one and (using the same verb as the Egyptian taskmaster had done) beat him and hid the body in the sands.  Only on the next day when he realised he had been seen, did he flee into the wilderness, there to meet God at the bush which burned but which was not consumed. 

And Pinchas, whose act of violence was completely unpremeditated and grew from his anger against those who were mingling with the Midianite women and taking up the Midianite gods was rewarded by God with a ‘brit shalom’, a covenant of peace and the covenant of the everlasting priesthood. 

Each of these men killed in anger – anger that God was not being given the proper respect, anger that God’s people were being abused.  None of the men seemed to repent of what they had done, although Elijah and Moses were certainly depressed and anxious after the event and in fear for their lives.  And God’s response seems too mild for our modern tastes. 

            Yet look at God’s responses a little more closely.  Elijah is rewarded not by a triumphalist God but by the recognition of God in the voice of slender silence – what the more poetic translation calls the ‘still small voice’. And that voice doesn’t praise him but challenges him – What are you doing here, Elijah?  After the high drama and the great energy expended at the sacrifices of the priests of Ba’al, Elijah has to come down from his high point and his conviction-fuelled orgy of violence and recognise in the cold light of day the reality of what he has done.  Only when he leaves behind the histrionics does God become known to him – in that gentle sound of slender silence, and with a question that must throw him back to examine the more profound realities about himself and his own journey.

Moses too is not rewarded with great honour and dramatic encounter – his fleeing from the inevitable punishment for his killing has something of the self-centred need for survival rather than his being able to defend a glorious act, and there is a tradition that Moses did not enter the promised land, not only because of what had happened at the waters of Meribah when he struck the rock rather than speaking to it, but because that action brought to mind the striking of the Egyptian – Moses hadn’t learned to control his temper and his actions even after forty years of wandering in the wilderness.

Moses’ first encounter with God too was so gentle as to be almost missable.  In the far edges of the wilderness alone with his father in law’s sheep this miserable young man saw a bush which burned but which wasn’t burned out.  It is a dramatic story we are all used to from childhood, but what is implicit in it –though not something we generally recognise, is that to notice such a phenomenon in the wilderness where bushes must have burned regularly, took a great deal of time – Moses must have stood and watched patiently and carefully before realising there was something different about this fire. There is gentleness and an awareness of something on the edges of our senses, the very antithesis of drama and spectacle, of the immediacy and energy of the zealot.

The reward for Pinchas is also not as it first seems.  God says of him “hineni notein lo et breetee, shalom”.  “Behold, I give him my covenant, peace”.  The Hebrew is not in the construct form, this is not a covenant of peace but a requirement for Pinchas to relate to God with peace, and his method for so doing is to be the priesthood.

The words are written in the torah scroll with an interesting addition – the vav in the word ‘shalom’ has a break in it.  The scribe is drawing our attention to the phrase – the violent man has not been given a covenant of peace but a covenant to be used towards peace – that peace is not yet complete or whole- hence the broken vav – it needs to be completed.

Pinchas is given the eternal priesthood. One of the main functions of the priesthood is to recite the blessing of peace over the people, the blessing with which we end every service but which in bible is recited by the priests who form a conduit for the blessing from God. 

Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta tells us “there is no vessel that holds a blessing save peace, as it says ‘the Eternal will bless the people with peace’”  in other words, the eternal priesthood given to Pinchas forces him to speak peace, to be a vessel of peace so as to be able to fulfil his function and recite the blessing.  In effect, by giving Pinchas “breetee, shalom” God is constraining him and limiting his violence, replacing it with the obligation to promote peace. It is for Pinchas and his descendants to complete the peace of God’s covenant, and they cannot do so if they allow their innate violence to speak.

 

Each of the three angry men – Moses, Pinchas, Elijah – are recognised as using their anger for the sake of God and the Jewish people, but at the same time each is gently shepherded into a more peaceful place.  And this methodology is continued into the texts of the rabbinic tradition. 

When one first reads the text it seems on the surface that Pinchas was rewarded for his act, but the weight of Jewish traditional reading – and writing – militates against this.  Clearly by Talmudic times the sages are clear that self-righteous zeal is dangerous and damaging and must never take root in our people or be allowed to influence our thinking.

Times change, but people do not – there are still many who would act like Pinchas if they could: every group and every people has them.  Their behaviours arise out of passionate belief and huge certainty in the rightness of those beliefs.  Rational argument will never prevail against them, but gentle patient and persistent focusing on the goal of peace, our never forgetting the need for peace, must temper our zealots.

Every tradition has its zealots and its texts of zealotry, but every tradition also has those who moderate and mitigate, who look for the longer game and the larger goal. Especially in the light of recent events in Israel, when the zealots of both sides acted unchecked and with terrible violence, it is important that we who look for peaceful resolution rise to the occasion and with patient and persistent focus rein in those who would act otherwise.shalom broken vav