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Harry PotterPinchas 5765 Sermon, July 22, 2005Rabbi Ben Sharff This past Shabbas was a very exciting time for me. Yes I got to give another sermon, though nobody told me I would have to write one every week. Yes I got to pray and play with the little ones before coming to chant Torah. And yes I got to hang out with the Torah study group. All very exciting things indeed. But I must admit like the countless hordes, I was most excited to go out and buy the latest addition to the Harry Potter series.
For those of you not familiar with this series, the books, seven in all, follow the adventures of a boy wizard by the name of Harry Potter. The books are incredibly engaging and addictive, as my late nights can attest to, and are at their core about the struggle between good and evil.
The main setting for Harry Potter's escapades is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is kind of like rabbinic school, but with a little bit less Hebrew.
Picking up this book was both exciting and a little bit sad as well because with each new book, we are getting closer to the end of the Harry Potter saga. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince marks the second to last book, and though I want to find out what happens, like many others, I don't want the adventure to end.
Similarly we are getting closer to the end of our saga in the Torah. I say this because Deuteronomy is in many ways a recapitulation of what happened before but from a slightly different perspective. The Book of Numbers in many ways is the end of the narrative that began with the Exodus, and ends with the people about to enter the land of Canaan.
But there is still much work to do. First Moses needs to establish a system of inheritance. The nagging question for him is: which tribes will get which land, and how much land will they get? In order to do this, Moses takes a census. Once the census was complete he was then able to apportion the new land based on need.
Then Moses has to tackle the issue of succession. Who will lead the Israelites into Canaan? Moses asks God who this person is to be, and God responds by saying, "Single out Joshua son of Nun, an inspired individual, and lay your hand upon him."
… just a brief aside … this laying of hands is where we find the origins of S'micha, or ordination… something which is done to this very day where one rabbi lays his/her hands on their pupils to pass on the inherited tradition.
But why Joshua? What was so special about Yehoshua ben Nun above all the others that made him the one to inherit the mantel of leadership?
In this matter, the Torah is surprisingly silent. As we learned in Parashat Shelach Lecha, Joshua was one of the two scouts, Caleb being the other who came back to Moses and the Israelites and gave a positive report about the land of Canaan. This of course was contrary to what the other ten spies had said. But because the Israelites accepted the version of the ten spies and not from Joshua and Caleb, they were forced to wander in the wilderness for 38 more years.
Yet we learn little about why God chose Joshua, and not Caleb other than the curious phrase, "single out Joshua son of Nun, an inspired man … or a man in whom there is spirit".
One interpretation of this phrase is that Joshua had tremendous courage, and therefore was an excellent military leader. This meant that he had the rare flair for leading the Israelites to victory over those who held the land of Canaan. To learn more about these victories just read the book of Joshua, which in many ways is the logical successor to the book of Numbers.
This concept sounds great except that Joshua was intended to be primarily an administrator once the land was conquered. So there must have been something more to his character than just the ability to lead men into battle.
To uncover this mystery we will turn back to the text. At the end of last week's portion Balak we have a curious episode where Pinchas son of Elieazar son of Aaron saw an Israelite man bringing a Midianite woman into the Israelite camp. Pinchas took up a spear and killed the two of them thus ending a plague that had been upon the Israelites.
In this week's portion, Pinchas was rewarded for his actions by being promised to the leadership of the Levitical clan. Pinchas, after his father Eliazar's death will become the High Priest. Yet Pinchas was not the one rewarded with the mantel of leadership of the Israelite community.
In this week's haftarah, we read about Elijah just after he battled with the priests of Baal and slaughtered them. His actions greatly angered King Ahab and Queen Jezreel who warned Elijah that they would do the same to him that he had done to the priests of Baal.
So Elijah fled out of fear into the wilderness, and there in the wilderness he encountered God. God asked Elijah plainly, "What are you doing here?" Elijah responded by speaking of his zeal for God, how he had only been devoted only to God, and because of his zeal others were out to kill him.
Here we find one of the most famous passages in our heritage, "A furious wind split mountains and shattered rocks in the presence of the Eternal, but the Eternal was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake – but the Eternal was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire – but the Eternal was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice."
At which time God conversed more with Elijah, but only in a still small voice. In this small voice God tells Elijah to pass on his teachings to Elisha, his new disciple. And from this time on, Elijah would no longer carry the power or influence that he once did. Instead he would pass on the throne of succession and fade quietly into the night. So in many ways our parasha and the haftarah are tied together by instances of zealotry.
Bible
commentator Rabbi Stephen Passamaneck asks the following question, "What is zealotry? Our translations often use the word jealous instead of
zealous. In our modern idiom, the word zealous implies eagerness and ardor,
yet the biblical figures exhibited more than that. The word jealous implies
elements of suspicion and intolerance, but biblical jealousy goes deeper.
Clearly, there is something else involved. Behind jealousy or zealotry, we
discover anger. The anger is fierce, uncompromising, and all-consuming.
Anger--an emotion as old as humanity--must have animated both Pinchas and
Elijah." And because of this uncontrolled anger, neither Pinchas nor Elijah received the scepter of leadership. And as we recall, it was also uncontrolled anger that cost Moses the right to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land.
So perhaps we are beginning to learn a little bit about why Joshua and not Pinchas or someone else was destined to become the leader of the Israelite nation.
Anger is an emotion that each and everyone of us knows all too well. We read about it in the aforementioned Harry Potter series whenever Harry loses his temper with Professor Severous Snape. Inevitably losing his cool always results in Harry getting into more trouble if not down right detention. We saw it last year when Ron Artest, a basketball player on the Indiana Pacers absolutely lost it and went into the stands to assault fans of the game, leading to a full year suspension. And we encounter it in our homes. When I was just a wee little rabbi many years ago, I either lost my clarinet, or someone else borrowed it without returning it. When I got home that day I was so upset, I actually kicked a hole in the wall. To this day I am still haunted by the memory of my temper getting the best of me.
Yet anger is a complex emotion because we need anger in our lives. As our tradition teaches anger is an emotion that creates a passion to do good. The sight of injustice in the world can make one very angry and want to do something about it. But even this righteous anger needs to be controlled. It needs to be funneled through a system of ethics first. Wanting to do right is not the same as doing what is right.
Yet where would we be if we had leaders who did not ever get angry? This question is the key to Joshua’s succession of Moses. What our tradition is trying to tell us is there is a significant difference between righteous ethical anger and losing one's temper. There is a significant difference in getting angry for the sake of others versus getting angry for the sake of one's own glory. There is a significant difference between seeking to do justice and seeking retribution.
And as an exploration of our tradition teaches, this was why Joshua was handed the reigns. Joshua was entrusted the fate of the Israelite people in part because he knew how to use his anger effectively and when to keep his temper in check.
And if this was so for Joshua, how much the more so it is with us as well. Human beings are creatures of passion. Contrary to what we would like to believe, we do not always act rationally. Rather our responses are often ruled by our emotions. We have a tendency to act rashly and to passionately in response to the anger welling up inside of us. And this as with Ron Artest, or Harry Potter, or the much younger me, can lead us into trouble.
But anger is a necessary part of who we are as well. It is not something to be ashamed of, as our tradition teaches, but instead is something that needs to be controlled and focused in ways to help improve our world rather than to destroy it.
But as we know, it is no easy task. Yet God has implanted within each and every one of us the ability to discern, to think. So as our tradition teaches us, it is incumbent upon us not to let our tempers get the better of us, but rather to use our tempers only when absolutely necessary. We should always be seeking to do that which is good, and be leery of the impulses within us that would lead us astray.
There are of course many different ways to do this. Personally I like counting to ten. But for others, maybe the best thing to do is think about what would happen as a result of us losing our temper before we do. Because words once said, can never be taken back.
On this Shabbas, may we be inspired to let cooler heads prevail even at the time when we most seriously wish to lash out. May we also be inspired to continue to seek to right the wrongs that lay before us. And most importantly May God help us to see the difference between the two. And may you all have a Shabbat of peace.
Cayn Yehi Ratzon, May this be God’s Will
Shabbat Shalom. |
