40 July 25 • 2019
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his week’
s Torah portion con-
tains an especially challenging 
episode, one which produces 
a call to arms against the 
onset of an indecent and cor-
rupt era. 
The episode occurs when 
the Israelite soldiers consort 
with Midianite women and 
a plague breaks out. At the 
climax, the Midianite prin-
cess, Cozbi, and the Israelite 
soldier, Zimri, publicly go to 
copulate inside the taberna-
cle. Moses, our leader, hesi-
tates, while Aaron’
s grandson 
Pinchas, filled with ven-
geance, takes up his spear. He 
impales the couple in a single 
thrust, lifting the plague. 
Pinchas’
 act is gruesome, 
but one that also preserves sanctity. 
We are told in the opening verses of 
our portion that Pinchas is given a 
brit shalom, a “covenant of peace;” 
yet, there is something peculiar 
about this peace. The third Hebrew 
letter of the word shalom, the vav, 
is usually just a vertical line with a 
small dash on top; but here occurs 
a unique orthographic feature: The 
vertical line is broken into two parts, 
extending up and down with a gap 
in the middle (Numbers 25:12). 
Why is this vav broken? Some 
teach this represents the fragility of 
a peace won through violence the 
PTSD trauma that haunts some sol-
diers following a bloody encounter. 
Yet others teach this vav serves a 
more mystical purpose, that we can 
unlock through digging into the ori-
gin of the vav itself.
Although their shapes have mor-
phed over millennia, Hebrew letters 
were originally drawn and named to 
resemble objects, and the letter vav 
which means “hook” originally had 
a more hook-like shape. Today, a vav 

is drawn as a vertical line, a line that 
hooks the top and the bottom of the 
line together, a hook that joins heav-
en above to Earth below. 
Clearly, the Torah is telling 
us something about the bro-
kenness of that moment when 
Pinchas intervened. It teaches 
that sins perpetrated by those 
who do not share our values 
have a lasting effect that lin-
gers even when the perpetra-
tor has been vanquished.
Today, in the United States, 
our Jewish values are under 
assault. Regardless of your 
view on immigration, the con-
ditions asylum seekers on our 
southern border are subjected 
to are reprehensible. Men are 
held in standing-room-only 
cells for more than a month without 
access to showers. Children are torn 
from their parents. And, although 
we can correct these injustices, fur-
ther effort will be needed to repair 
the damage to our sense of decency.
It is our obligation as Jews and 
Americans to object to this self-in-
flicted humanitarian crisis being 
perpetrated, to take up Pinchas’
 met-
aphorical spear without hesitation 
and say loudly and clearly, “These 
injustices do not represent us; nei-
ther are they values that our country 
or our people were built on. This is 
not normal.” 
As Jews, we know what it means 
to be a persecuted minority. We 
know our obligation to love the 
stranger as ourselves for we were 
strangers in the land of Egypt. By 
our resolve, may we see that this 
plague is halted and the rupture 
between heaven and Earth is ulti-
mately restored. ■

Rabbi Brent Gutmann is rabbi at Temple Kol 
Ami in West Bloomfield.

A Broken Peace

Rabbi
Brent Gutmann

Parshat 

Pinchas: 

Numbers 

25:16-30:1; 

Jeremiah 

1:1-2:3.

spirit

torah portion

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