Rabbi Cynthia Kravitz
Parshat Pinchas
Being a rabbi is about being actively present for people — being there to help others find their way through life’s trials. It’s a privilege to be in this trusted role of hearing the innermost feelings of others. Rabbis share this honor with all those who are seen as trusted confidants.
In my rabbinical training, I did not learn how to be that person through books. I may have learned ideas from books, but it was actually through the practical experience of sitting in front of real people, sharing their lives with me, that my heart got “schooled.”
I have learned that compassionate listening is the key to helping people unlock the doors to their own dilemmas and searches. Lecturing or being judgmental is definitely harmful and closes people off.
This learning finds a home in this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Pinchas.
The parsha continues the story of Pinchas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, who, in an act of zealous fury, slaughters an Israelite man and a Midianite woman for licentious behavior.
The rabbis have always struggled with Pinchas’ zealousness. They were uncomfortable with his vigilantism as a role model. It had the markings of fanaticism and was seen as dangerous. The Talmud tells us that later rabbinical courts said, “The law may permit it, but we do not follow that law.”
In this week’s parsha, the story continues.
It happens in the form of God granting the line of the priesthood to Pinchas and his descendants after his zealous behavior. On the surface, it seems to be a reward. But maybe not. Perhaps God’s decision to grant to Pinchas this position may have been something far more subtle and instructive.
Perhaps giving Pinchas’ descendants the priesthood was God’s way of educating us about what we all need to do to become good leaders and guides for others. God moved Pinchas from the distant sidelines to a role of one with intimate contact with people.
It’s far easier to be judgmental with people when we live our lives removed from people. And that is what Pinchas was doing. He made a judgment from afar, and he slaughtered the man and woman. God’s reward of the priesthood puts him on a path to developing himself.
Extremism is lacking in the quality of compassion. It reacts to problems on too simplistic a level. Extremist thinking lifts from us the responsibility of really having to listen to each other and “walk in another person’s shoes.” Calm listening is not easy, but human beings are deserving of this.
We are subtle and complex creatures, and rarely is there a “one-size-fits-all solution.” It requires investing our hearts into the other person sitting before us and understanding who they are.
This is what that God was hinting at here, when God appears to be rewarding Pinchas with the line of the priesthood. I believe that God was saying to Pinchas — and to us all — that we cannot pass judgments from remote places.
Learning to be compassionate and effective helpers requires throwing ourselves into positions where we will learn to listen, look and interact with real people. If our compassion for the other is to grow, we need to move from the distant ivory towers of judgment and become real people. If we want to “be there” for others, we need to be with others in the same room, listening and not pontificating.
God gave Pinchas a job that, in time, put his descendants front and center with people so that they could hopefully gain a sense of compassion for others.
In another few days, I am off to Israel, a place filled with traumatized people. I have spent a long time thinking about what I would say to those I meet.
Maybe the answer is just what God appears to be teaching us here; that the best way to serve others honestly is to sit together and listen with no judgment or lectures. Just be there and listen. That’s what is needed and what I hope to do in Israel.
Rabbi Cynthia Kravitz is the rabbi of Congregation Hesed Shel Emet in Pottstown. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.