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Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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January 25, 2012
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David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
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January 9, 2012
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Jewish World Review
The Eternal War for Peace
By Rabbi Yonason Goldson
Only one man in history has been awarded the Almighty's 'covenant of peace.' That's a curious distinction for having committed the supreme act of violence. A compelling lesson from antiquity for modernity
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In September of 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from his meeting with Adolph Hitler and famously waved before the House of Parliament the Munich Agreement which, he declared, guaranteed "peace for our time."
In September of the following year, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began. Historians now agree that if Chamberlain and other European leaders would have stood up to Hitler instead of pursuing the illusion of peace through appeasement, World War II might never have happened and tens of millions of lives might have been saved.
Tragically, the lessons of history from 3200 years earlier went unheeded.
As the Jews neared the end of their forty years of wandering in the desert and approached the Promised Land, the armies of the surrounding nations rose up against them, each in turn, to drive them back or destroy them. But the Jews prevailed in battle after battle, until only one enemy remained separating them from the Land of Israel: the nation of Midian.
Having witnessed one miraculous victory by the Jewish people after another, the Midianites contrived a different kind of strategy to defeat them. Rather than sending out their sons armed with weapons of war, the Midianites sent out their daughters armed with the insidious weapons of enticing gowns and beguiling words to seduce the men of Israel and leave them vulnerable to the fierce judgment of their G-d.
The ploy succeeded, not only among the young warriors but even among individuals of great prominence. One of the twelve tribal princes who formed the leadership of the nation, no less, publicly chose a Midianite princess with whom to indulge his lust. In the face of such an example, it seemed inevitable that the majority Jewish men would abandon all restraint and self-control.
In that moment of action, it was neither priest nor sage nor scholar who stepped into the breach. Instead, a relatively unknown youth named Pinchas (Phineas) seized hold of a spear and drove it though the recalcitrant prince and his paramour in the midst of their passion. His action shocked the people out of their lust and brought the nation back to its senses. Through a single act of zealotry, Pinchas deflected the wrath of heavenly judgment and saved tens of thousands from divine retribution.
In reward for his actions, Pinchas received the Almighty's "covenant of peace," a curious term for one who not only committed the supreme act of violence but whose motivation, according to the words of G-d Himself, derived from a "burning jealousy," the very same trait by which, according to the Talmud, man condemns himself to oblivion.
THE REWARDS OF SPIRITUAL SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS
Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says: Jealousy, lust, and the craving for glory cause a person to forfeit his place in the world (Ethics of Fathers 4:28).
Jealousy drives a person to define his existence by the amount of personal property or wealth he has acquired. The jealous person is never satisfied with what he has because he is always measuring his own success in terms of that which he does not yet possess. His perpetual dissatisfaction is the punishment he inflicts upon himself, both in this world and in the World to Come.
Lust is not the longing for material possessions, but the equally physical desire for sensory gratification. The person consumed by lust can only stem his impulses for an instant before he once again seeks the indulgence of his next desire. He too is never satisfied in this world and will find no satisfaction in the next.
Finally, what the person who craves honor truly seeks is the ego-gratification of wielding influence over others. Ultimately, however, only weak-willed people ever submit to such control, and those are the people least worth controlling. On the other hand, people of conviction and integrity resist manipulation with an iron will and refuse to bend before the machinations of others. By their very nature, people of substance accord honor and glory only to those who show their worth through strength of character and good deeds. And so the sages tell us: if one pursues honor, honor flees from before him.
All in all, jealousy, lust, and glory are three different forms of self-absorption. As such, they are three different symptoms of the same metaphysical myopia that can lead us away from the path of eternal reward and down the road to spiritual self-destruction. It is the person who looks beyond himself, beyond the rush of immediate physical gratification, and beyond short term rewards at the expense of long term goals, who lives a life of ultimate value, meaning, and fulfillment.
THE PARADOX OF PEACE
The jealousy of Pinchas, therefore, was not for himself but for the Master of the Universe, just as it was only the honor of the Almighty that governed his actions. What Pinchas understood, and what the Almighty confirmed, is that peace and harmony are not the natural condition of human beings. They arise only through passionate and persistent struggle.
Like a tree that sprouts and matures and gives forth its fruit, true peace must be planted, nurtured, and protected in order to thrive and nourish human society. Pinchas was indeed a man of peace, formally designated as G-d's agent to cultivate the ways of peace among His people. But Pinchas also recognized that not all men desire peace, and not all who do are prepared to make the sacrifices that authentic peace requires.
In the early 1800s, when traditional Judaism was under attack from reformers who sought to erode its foundations and overturn its ideals, a single figure rose up to fight for the integrity of Jewish values in Germany, the center of the Jewish secular "enlightenment." His name was Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, and his commentary on the episode of Pinchas illuminates the struggles with which he had to contend and those which confront us to this very day:
There can be true peace among men only if they are all at peace with G-d. One who dares to struggle against the enemies of what is good and true in the eyes of G-d is - by this very struggle - one of the fighters for the "covenant of peace" on earth.
Conversely, one who, for the sake of what he imagines to be peace with his fellow men, cedes the field without protest and allows them to stir up strife with G-d makes common cause - by his very love of peace - with the enemies of the "covenant of peace" on earth.
The chronicles of history are filled with individuals who made Faustian bargains in the name of peace, only to enable the wicked to wreak violence upon their fellow men. Those who genuinely long for peace know that sometimes we have to fight for peace or lose it altogether. They know as well that only by making every necessary sacrifice to create a world of peace can we ever gain mastery over ourselves and earn the eternal reward of the World to Come.
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Comment by clicking here. JWR contributor Rabbi Yonason Goldson teaches at Block Yeshiva High School in St. Louis, MO, where he also writes and lectures. He is author of Dawn to Destiny: Exploring Jewish History and its Hidden Wisdom, an overview of Jewish philosophy and history from Creation through the compilation of the Talmud, now available from Judaica Press. Visit him at http://torahideals.com .
© 2010, Rabbi Yonason Goldson
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