I do think Judaism is just OCD. Just repackaged a little bit. For example: why are we counting everything? The pomegranate seeds, the omer, the mitzvot… what are we doing?

There’s laws and prayers. You say a prayer, and then there’s another prayer in case you said it wrong. On Yom Kippur, we’re praying for like everything we did wrong, but then we’re also praying for everything everybody else did wrong. And also, everything we did wrong, but maybe we didn’t know we did it wrong. That’s an OCD spiral. For sure.

I feel like what happened was a long time ago, one rabbi was like, I think these are the laws in the Torah, and we should do them this way. And then another rabbi was like, well, I think these are the laws, and I think we should do them this way. And then another rabbi who had like the biggest OCD out of all of them was like, what if we do all of the rules, all of the ways, just in case, so we don’t die?

And that’s why we have 15 kosher certifications. Why are there so many? The problem is that it keeps working. We’ve been doing these ritual behaviors, and then we keep not dying as a people.

So, in every generation, everywhere, people have tried to kill us and then we keep lighting the candles and then we keep not dying. So it’s: how did we survive? Because we fled that country in time or was it because once a year we cover our house in tinfoil?      

(comedy routine by Lily Lester)

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On Yom Kippur we count out our sins by alphabetical acrostic; in the story of the Yom Kippur sacrifice in the Temple, we count the drops of blood shaken on the altar; we count the number of Amidahs, and the hours until sunset.

Counting turns time into minutes, hours, days, years. It gives us a past, present, and please G*d a future. But time isn’t really countable, because it isn’t actually stable. A Jew named Einstein discovered that. Counting days isn’t any more foundational to existence; the seven day week is not echoed in nature. Neither is the twenty four hour day, really.

On Shabbat HaAzinu (Shabbat Shuvah) we read of the tohu in which we met HaShem, lifting us up out of the wilderness swirling around us. In which we meet HaShem.  Azazel also dwells in that wilderness. HaShem is the source of order. Azazel, the deity of the wilderness, is a symbol of the opposite – of chaos. And on Yom Kippur morning, the most solemn day of our Jewish year, we are yanked all the way backward to the wilderness mishkan, the unknown terrors of the uncharted territory surrounding us, the uncertain beginnings of the relationship between us and Hashem, and between us and each other. By arbitrary lot we send part of us to HaShem and part to Azazel.

What can it possibly mean that we are to feed both of them? What if it means that even to order and control and counting there must be a limit? What if it is  necessary to experience some chaos in order to meet Hashem? This is what the medieval scholar Albo said: “…it requires upheaval. The [rational] workings of the mind – פעולת השכל – do not admit regret.”

Regret is an emotion; if emotions must be controlled for order to be maintained, it’s going to be a disappointing Yom Kippur, because nothing will actually get done.

In ancient Near Eastern mythology, the deity which is the ocean also is associated with the primordial chaos of the universe. In our oldest myths, that deity, Tiamat, is feminine. It is interesting that the ordering of the world is established through restricting Tiamat’s boundaries. 

This first act of ordering, of beating back chaos, is an act of restriction. What is being held back, and at what cost?

אֶת־חֲטָאַ֕י אֲנִ֖י מַזְכִּ֥יר הַיּֽוֹם  et hatatai ani mazkir hayom, I recall my own sins today (Gen 41.9): sure, I’m a control freak. How do you think our High Holy Day services became so choreographed? 

Yet even I must admit that there is such a thing as too much order; what our comedian friend would call an OCD amount of order. There have been years in which the careful choreography breaks down, usually on Yom Kippur afternoon when the cues somehow no longer follow the page numbers. The chaos that ensues is not a bad thing; it’s a moment when things work out anyway, hardly anyone even notices, and those of us who tried to plan the thing down to the minute get a good lesson in how hard that actually is.

Maimonides reminds us that we should strive for a balance, a “golden mean” between extremes, and if chaos is an extreme state, then order is, as well, to some extent. When order helps us live coherent, ethical lives, it’s a good thing. When we insist on ordering, controlling, our lives and those of others, that good intention becomes a wrong. If counting the number of prayers we say on this day obscures our ability to actually hear them, we’ve lost our balance.

If order is somehow informed by the idea that chaos must be not only overcome but erased, then that is an extreme, just as a world ruled only by chaos would be too extreme.

Order has its natural limits, as do we. Order is not God, nor are we. Take a deep breath. Let us unclench our hands, and our hearts, and our timers. Existence is constant chaos just underneath a veneer of schedules, and we are carried along with the prevailing winds. Let’s spread a sail together and enjoy the ride.

Are you a good person? Is your neighbor? How do you know? How do you judge? Why does it matter? After all, we have seen the wicked in great power, and the innocent suffer for far too long.

The Jewish tradition you and I belong to insists that this matters very much, and that you matter very much.

What you do matters. You may have heard the teaching that Judaism doesn’t care about your thoughts, but only your actions. That’s not quite true, but it is accurate that Jewish ethics accepts that we cannot fully control our thoughts. We can, however, control our actions.

Our actions come in three Jewish categories: hovah, reshut, and averah. 

Hovah: this is something we must do. Until we do, it holds us in the grip of “should.” We should observe the Pesakh Seder; we should do tzedakah; we should be reliable to each other as MOT, members of the tribe. This list tends to grow as we become more aware of our obligations toward life and our ability to meet them.

Reshut: this is something we may choose to do. What a relief to know that this is the category of most of daily life. We may go see a movie; we may adopt a cat; we may try a new recipe.

Averah: this final category is, of course, the things we must not do. This list tends to grow as we become more sensitized to the ripple effects of our actions through space and time. 

Part of what we expect from these Ten Days of Awe is a chance to consider how to repair the ill effects of the averot we’ve done in the world. To this we must also add: how to live with the consequences we cannot repair.

You can’t “carbon offset” a sin. As our ancestors taught:

With regard to one who says: I will sin and then I will repent, I will sin and I will repent, it won’t happen, and they will remain a sinner all their days. With regard to one who says: I will sin and Yom Kippur will atone for my sins, Yom Kippur will not be able to atone for their sins.  – Mishnah Yoma 8.9

It reminds me of the very old commercial tag line: You can’t fool Mother Nature. And wow, have we seen how true that is. Half of Canada seems to be on fire, and from lax emergency procedures in Lahaina in Maui, to resource scarcity war in Khartoum in Sudan, to the dried up River Po of Italy, human inability to believe in the power of our sins is leading inexorably to what the prophet Malakhi called the day that burns like an oven:

כִּֽי־הִנֵּ֤ה הַיּוֹם֙ בָּ֔א בֹּעֵ֖ר כַּתַּנּ֑וּר וְהָי֨וּ כׇל־זֵדִ֜ים וְכׇל־עֹשֵׂ֤ה רִשְׁעָה֙ קַ֔שׁ וְלִהַ֨ט אֹתָ֜ם הַיּ֣וֹם הַבָּ֗א … אֲשֶׁ֛ר לֹא־יַעֲזֹ֥ב לָהֶ֖ם שֹׁ֥רֶשׁ וְעָנָֽף׃ 

Don’t look now, but that day is at hand, burning like an oven. All the arrogant and all the doers of evil shall be straw, and the day that is coming shall burn them to ashes, and leave of them neither stock nor boughs.  – Malakhi 3.19 

We’ve been so seduced by the silly idea that we are individuals (the guy drilling a hole under his seat in the lifeboat) that we can’t see the forest for the trees that keep burning up. It’s not us as individuals but us as the human community that will experience the effects of our actions.

Why does all this matter? Why not continue to go through life as you are, in the habits you’ve developed, in the life you’ve built? 

Because this is real, and you are here, on this planetary that we share. Today is a day; maybe your last day. Why not live it as you would wish to be remembered? As the Presbyterian pastor and writer Frederick Buechner wrote: 

Today is never going to come again. 

Today is a moment of light surrounded on all sides by oblivion.
In the entire history of the universe,
let alone in your own history, 

there has never been another just like it
and there will never be another just like it again. It is the point to which all your yesterdays
have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows
will proceed until the hour of your death.
If you were aware of how precious it is
you could hardly live through it.
Unless you are aware of how precious it is,
you can hardly be said to be living at all. 

Because we are here and we are lucky enough to be alive. Because we didn’t do anything to deserve to be alive; it was a gift, and the only way we can justify it is by actually living, in an aware state. By letting the soul out of the cage of habits and expectations. By recognizing despair and demoralization as the yetzer hara’ trying to keep us from realizing our true potential. By repenting one day before our death. Today. 

On Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur we will recite the Unetaneh Tokef, a prayer that contemplates the human endings that come to us. Its message is that we must cling to three things:

Tefilah, prayer and contemplation; Tzedakah, insisting on doing what justice you can; and Teshuvah, turning away from despair, cynicism, and selfishness. 

These are how we ma’avirin et ro’a hag’zerah, together we lighten the burden of that which we cannot erase, nor avoid, nor save anyone from.

This is real.

This is inescapable.

We are utterly unprepared.

And we have nothing to offer but each other, and our broken hearts.

And, G*d willing, a dawning sense of our true human potential to live a life that will be remembered for good.

וְהָיָ֣ה ׀ עֵ֣קֶב תִּשְׁמְע֗וּן אֵ֤ת הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים֙ הָאֵ֔לֶּה וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֥ם וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑ם וְשָׁמַר֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהֶ֜יךָ לְךָ֗ אֶֽת־הַבְּרִית֙ וְאֶת־הַחֶ֔סֶד אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבַּ֖ע לַאֲבֹתֶֽיךָ׃ 

And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, your God יהוה will maintain faithfully for you the covenant made on oath with your fathers (Deuteronomy 7.12)

Our parasha for this Second Shabbat of Consolation is called Ekev, which can be translated “as a result.” In the Torah, good is promised to us, more than once, ekev asher shamata, “as a result of your having listened.” In last week’s parashah we had a review of the Shema; this week the theme, it seems, is being extended. Listen, we are told, and as a result….

Listen. The word shema in Hebrew is so familiar to us that we can easily miss deeper levels of its meaning. Hear, listen, pay attention; all these related actions appear as the meaning of this ancient word in Assyrian, Aramaic and Arabic as well as Hebrew. Another related meaning often appears, which we might see as a sequential understanding of the term: consider, consent, as well as obey, or agree. In Biblical Hebrew usage the term can further mean “take to heart” or to “listen carefully”, to internalize and to respond in deed.

All of these make sense in our own modern Western culture. But this is not the end of the possible meanings of the root ש.מ.ע in the Hebrew of the Tanakh (the Jewish Holy Scriptures). There is one more, less attested meaning, which we find in an account in the book of Shmu’el:

וַיְשַׁמַּ֤ע שָׁאוּל֙ אֶת־הָעָ֔ם וַֽיִּפְקְדֵם֙ בַּטְּלָאִ֔ים מָאתַ֥יִם אֶ֖לֶף רַגְלִ֑י וַעֲשֶׂ֥רֶת אֲלָפִ֖ים אֶת־אִ֥ישׁ יְהוּדָֽה׃ 

Saul gathered the troops and enrolled them at Telaim: 200,000 men on foot, and 10,000 as Judah’s contingent. (I Samuel 15.4)

How is it that the same root that conveys the meaning of listen can also mean gather together? Here is where the connotational context of a verb has changed over time. We may be related to them, at least spiritually, but we do not necessarily or easily discern what the ancient tribes of shepherds in the Levant who first heard these words knew right away: that the default assumption for their lives was as a collective, not an individual.

We are the products of a much different time and place, with different assumptions, as a result, about what words can mean. But we can learn one lesson from the verse from the book of Shmu’el. There is more than one way to hear, and our ancient tradition can re-acquaint us with a truth that can support us in the here and now: sometimes, perhaps always, the things we hear as an individual ought to be tested against, compared with, what others are hearing. What might we hear, understand, take to heart, and act upon more profoundly, more righteously, more truly, if we listen with each other, instead of by ourselves? 

Shema started as a statement of loyalty to HaShem; over time, alas, it became a proclamation that made the death of our martyrs holy. In neither of these cases is its full meaning plumbed individually. After all, does a Shema really exist if no one hears it?

on a cold morning a small bird finds warmth clinging to the neck of a neighbor horse

This Shabbat is Shabbat Nakhamu, the Shabbat of Consolation. No Shabbat of the year cries out for meaningful community more than this one. Which of us can ever feel completely consoled unless we have been seen?

In the book Devarim we will find ourselves reminiscing through Moshe’s words of farewell, remembering tales of the Exodus, days and years of wandering, times of strife and destruction, but also times of exaltation and excitement. Remember the Sinai moment? The Mishkan that we built together, each bringing the gifts of our own hearts?

The act of remembering together, and of pondering the meaning of these events for our lives, gives us a precious treasure that many in our time do not have: a shared history, and an automatic place to belong.

The power of shared community, with agreed-upon (or disputed) norms and customs, is spread over us like a sukkah, like the great Sukkah of Peace that we pray one day to be able to huddle under. In so many ways that we can never appreciate until we need each other, we carry with us a great, mostly undiscovered treasure.

Community like ours means that when you are mourning, your house can be overflowing with people who showed up to support you. When you are celebrating, you’ll have someone to raise a glass (or whatever) with. And when someone else is in need, you’ll know what to do, and how to do it.

The amazing part of Jewish community is its flexibility. Yes, really. Two Jews, three opinions, actually means that we will never all together agree on anything – which gives a lot of room for being Jewish in many different ways. 

You can be G*d-intoxicated, or you can be an atheist:

A hasid decided to become an atheist. He sought out the most famous atheist in the town, to learn from him and to be his disciple, hasid-style. The atheist welcomed the hasid into his home for a Shabbat. 

Together they went to shul at sundown, came home to make kiddush, washed and shared a Shabbat meal. 

After, the atheist handed the hasid a bencher, so that they could sing the blessings after meals together. 

The hasid could stand it no longer. “But when do we start denying HaShem?” he said.

“Who?” the atheist asked.

You can be Zionist, or anti-Zionist:

וָאָבִ֤יא אֶתְכֶם֙ אֶל־אֶ֣רֶץ הַכַּרְמֶ֔ל לֶאֱכֹ֥ל פִּרְיָ֖הּ וְטוּבָ֑הּ וַתָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ וַתְּטַמְּא֣וּ אֶת־אַרְצִ֔י וְנַחֲלָתִ֥י שַׂמְתֶּ֖ם לְתוֹעֵבָֽה׃ 

I brought you to this fertile land to enjoy its fruit and its bounty; but you came and defiled My land, you made My possession abhorrent. (Jeremiah 2.7)

What you cannot be, by definition as a Jew, is alone:

a wise Jew does not live in a community which does not have 

a process for ensuring justice

a communal tzedakah fund

a place to pray

bathroom facilities

a doctor

a therapist

a scribe

a grocer

a Torah teacher 

a variety of fruits  (BT Sanhedrin 17b)

The need to live with others is not conditional nor can one abrogate it. We are all affected by each other, and there is no such thing as a perfect boycott or a perfectly ethical life. There is only us:

There is no one but us.

There is no one to send, nor a clean hand,

or a pure heart on the face of the earth,

nor in the earth,

but only us,

a generation comforting ourselves with the notion

that we have come at an awkward time,

that our innocent ancestors are all dead –

as if innocence had ever been –

and our children busy and troubled,

and we ourselves unfit,

not yet ready,

having each of us chosen wrongly,

made a false start,

failed,

yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures,

and grown exhausted,

unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved.

But there is no one but us.

There never has been.   –   Annie Dillard (excerpt from Holy the Firm)

“What are you reading, my lord?”

“Words, words, words.” – Hamlet Act II scene 2

אִישׁ֩ כִּֽי־יִדֹּ֨ר נֶ֜דֶר לה’ אֽוֹ־הִשָּׁ֤בַע שְׁבֻעָה֙ לֶאְסֹ֤ר אִסָּר֙ עַל־נַפְשׁ֔וֹ לֹ֥א יַחֵ֖ל דְּבָר֑וֹ כְּכׇל־הַיֹּצֵ֥א מִפִּ֖יו יַעֲשֶֽׂה׃ 

If anyone makes a vow to HaShem or takes an oath imposing an obligation on themselves, they shall not break their pledge; they must carry out all that has crossed their lips. (Numbers 30.3)

In this week’s double parashah, much journeying is recounted without being related. Only the names survive, the names given the places where we stopped and rested, setting up our tents and regaining strength to continue walking. So much living goes unrecorded.

We live so much of our lives

without telling anyone, 

going out before dawn, 

working all day by ourselves, 

shaking our heads in silence

at the news on the radio.

– Telephone Repairman, Joseph Millar (excerpted)

The first mitzvah of this week’s Torah reminds us that we are to keep our promises. How are we to do so if we do not even remember making them?

Some of us keep a journal or a diary, allowing us to return to forgotten days and be reminded of the life we lived in those moments, what we did, and with whom. Many of us do so, whether we realize it or not, in the reams of photographs it is so easy to take these days, now that they are digital and immediately available. (Once upon a time, young’un, you had to take your exposed film to a developer and wait for days – days! – before you received the photos you took.)

Ironically, since Jews are the people of memory, much of our lives goes unremarked, just like the lives of our ancestors in the parshas that end the book of Numbers. Behind us we leave a trail of words and acts that we mostly do not remember. That is why our prayers include this line:

שְׁגִיא֥וֹת מִֽי־יָבִ֑ין מִֽנִּסְתָּר֥וֹת נַקֵּֽנִי Who can be aware of errors? Clear me of unperceived guilt (Psalms 19.13)

Because whether or not we remember what we’ve done, and what we’ve promised to do, the effects of our acts are what create the world in which we  – and others – live.

We might be tempted to downplay the effect of an unremembered promise which went unkept, if it were not for the seriousness of this week’s command.

According to the Sages, when God declared in the Ten Words, “Do not take my name in vain [through oaths],” the entire universe shook. Why did this command frighten the entirety of creation? Perhaps because a שבועה shevua [oath] summons all שבע sheva [seven], all the seven spiritual roots of creation, and invests them in the cause. 

A human is a miniature universe. Since I parallel the world, whatever I do with my soul causes a corresponding effect on the soul of the world. When I make a promise I arouse all the parts of my heart; the physical world then finds all the sources of its existence aroused as well. A false oath weakens every root of mine, and that causes all the channels through which God pours life down to the world to shake with instability. 

– Zev Reichman, Flames of Faith 1.19

Our ancestors, who carried the ancient legend that the entire world was created by words (HaShem spoke and there was), understood that with our words we, too, make and unmake worlds, both by our acts and by our forgettings. This is why we understand promises, or oaths, to be so serious. We see how words manipulate our reality today, as we worry over the trustworthiness of media and public figures; our concern over AI is, in part, a quest to understand where we might ground ourselves in certainty, if more and more of what we read and hear may be false.

Our words create, and strengthen, and undermine, our world. Our words have the capacity to help and heal, or to hurt and destroy. May we take our own words as seriously as those we read, hear, and – most of all – repeat.

פִּֽינְחָ֨ס בֶּן־אֶלְעָזָ֜ר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹ֣ן הַכֹּהֵ֗ן הֵשִׁ֤יב אֶת־חֲמָתִי֙ מֵעַ֣ל בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בְּקַנְא֥וֹ אֶת־קִנְאָתִ֖י בְּתוֹכָ֑ם וְלֹא־כִלִּ֥יתִי אֶת־בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל בְּקִנְאָתִֽי

“Pinhas, son of Elazar 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” (Numbers 25.11)

אָמַר רַבִּי סִימוֹן, בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁבָּא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לִבְרֹאת אֶת אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, נַעֲשׂוּ מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁרֵת כִּתִּים כִּתִּים, וַחֲבוּרוֹת חֲבוּרוֹת, מֵהֶם אוֹמְרִים אַל יִבָּרֵא, וּמֵהֶם אוֹמְרִים יִבָּרֵא, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב (תהלים פה, יא): חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת נִפְגָּשׁוּ צֶדֶק וְשָׁלוֹם נָשָׁקוּ. חֶסֶד אוֹמֵר יִבָּרֵא, שֶׁהוּא גּוֹמֵל חֲסָדִים. וֶאֱמֶת אוֹמֵר אַל יִבָּרֵא, שֶׁכֻּלּוֹ שְׁקָרִים

Rabbi Simon said: When the Holy Blessed One came to create the first human, the ministering angels divided into various factions and various groups. Some of them were saying: ‘Let it not be created,’ and some of them were saying: ‘Let it be created.’ That is what is written: Hesed [Kindness] and Emet [truth] met; righteousness and peace touched (Psalms 85:11). Hesed said: ‘Let it be created, as it performs acts of kindness.’ Emet said: ‘Let it not be created, as it is all full of lies.’  – Bereshit Rabbah 8.5

Israeli settlers kill Palestinian farmer – 48 year old Mahmoud Ahmad Zaal Odeh was tending to his crops in a village near Nablus

Our parashah this week begins in the aftermath of yet another event of communal upheaval. Once again, HaShem is dismayed by the behavior of the people, and once again there is violence and death. We have seen in earlier times of discord that those who are guilty are punished and those who are innocent are lifted up. The scouts and those who believed them are doomed to die in the wilderness; Aaron’s rod flowers while Korakh and his followers are swallowed up by the earth; and now a plague breaks out upon those who chose to undermine Israelite ethics and practices.

In this last case, the violence of the event reaches a disturbing peak, when Pinhas, the hero of the story for whom the parashah is named, takes a spear and runs it through two people. The aftermath of the event is at least as troubling, as HaShem responds by apparently promoting the murderer to a special sort of priesthood:

הִנְנִ֨י נֹתֵ֥ן ל֛וֹ אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֖י שָׁלֽוֹם׃ וְהָ֤יְתָה לּוֹ֙ וּלְזַרְע֣וֹ אַחֲרָ֔יו בְּרִ֖ית כְּהֻנַּ֣ת עוֹלָ֑ם תַּ֗חַת אֲשֶׁ֤ר קִנֵּא֙ לֵֽאלֹהָ֔יו וַיְכַפֵּ֖ר עַל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל

“I grant him My pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for his God, thus making expiation for the Israelites” (Numbers 25.12-13)

The reaction of the Sages is horrified, and throughout Talmud and other later commentary they seek to isolate Pinhas’ behavior, so that it cannot be allowed to set a precedent (see BT Sanhedrin 82a). If Torah did not record that HaShem rewarded him, Pinhas would have been liable for murder.

The ethical vertigo caused us by this passage is strongly reminiscent of our own day, in which  murderers are too often praised and their crimes rewarded when they suit the political agenda of those in power: Kyle Rittenhouse and others lionized by MAGA Republicans, Moshe Sharvit by Israeli rightwingers who seek to annex the West Bank to Israel and drive out those Palestinians who live there.

Against all this ominous background, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America occurs this Shabbat, 19 Tammuz. The date is tellingly close to that of the Fast Day of 17 Tammuz, preserved in the memory of the people of Israel forever as the day when the Roman legions breached the walls of Jerusalem. Within a month of this day, the city and the Temple were destroyed, most of the people dead or deported, and home was lost to us for two thousand years.

This, too, is too strongly reminiscent of our own fears for the society in which we live, and the communities we care about. So much seems so far gone already, and the scale of the crisis seems very much like the world-ending moment in which Pinhas acted – and in which his act was praised as restoring order.

Change, and the social upheaval that comes with it, is frightening. Those who lift up people like Pinhas and Rittenhouse and Sharvit do so out of fear of  that change and what they believe it portends for them. How appropriate it is, then, that with the 17th of Tammuz we begin a period known as the Three Weeks, in which our rituals and practices reflect the fearful anticipation of inevitable destruction. It took only three weeks for the Roman carnage to overwhelm Jerusalem, and our people has carried that intergenerational trauma ever since. 

Yet, with all that, Maimonides taught that the 17th of Tammuz does not come to mourn; it is a wake-up call to consider and correct our treatment of others.

“The fast day’s purpose is to arouse our hearts and lead us toward the path of repentence. This will serve as a reminder of the wicked conduct of our ancestors, which resembles our present conduct, and therefore brought these troubles upon them and upon us.” (Laws of Fasts 5.1)

“Our present conduct” does not mean that we are all equally at fault for evil, but rather than all of us suffer from the evil perpetrated by those among us who are enabled by the society we live in together to carry it out. To “arouse our hearts” means that we must turn aware from despair, and continue to care. 

We know through all the prophets that we are to do justice, to seek it out and to pursue it. Similarly, we know that US justice is not brought about by the second amendment, and that Israeli justice, if it would uphold the ethics of the Jewish state specified in its own declaration of independence, must respect the wellbeing of Palestinians as Israelis expect their own wellbeing to be respected.

In short, the story of Pinhas does not fit, and no amount of massaging the text will help. Perhaps the best way to deal with it is to remember that even the Patriarch Abraham misunderstood what HaShem was saying in the story of the Akedah; maybe we have missed the point of the Pinhas story. Maybe it’s not that Pinhas is the hero. Maybe he’s just the grim example of what happens when we let fear overwhelm our knowledge of what is right, and end up making of heroes of those who were better never heard of.