Pinchas: Zimreality Bites

As has been detailed previously in these pages, the "zealotry" and "extermism" of Pinchas is often misunderstood, sometimes deliberately (the self-proclaimed "zealot" who murdered Shira Banki in Jerusalem being one such example of the misapplication).  

Yet discussions of not only Pinchas' action, but also the sordid deeds of Zimri sometimes gets limited to the direct halachic implications surrounding the narrative; larger hashkafic questions about why this became the climax of the national emergency, and why, get lost in the legal details. 

The narrative as related in TB Sanhedrin 82 indicates how a "Prince in Israel" was overcome by Balaamic tendencies in the midst of a national emergency, indulging his need to conquer on political and personal fronts.  As Bilaam's "desperation pass" ("come let me advise", 24:14)  has hit its mark with a mass idolatrous orgy, a concimtant plague, and near mass executions, Zimri takes the opportunity to execute a Balaamic grand slam: 

• He asserts his leadership bonafides: "Kozbi: I am the king's daughter. My father asked me to have Bi'ah with the most important Yisrael Zimri: I am Nasi of a Shevet, and my Shevet was born second to Yakov, before Levi (Moshe's Shevet), which was third!";

• He tries his hand at p'sak: "Zimri took her in front of Moshe, and asked 'is she permitted or forbidden? If you say that she is forbidden, who permitted you to marry Yisro's daughter?!";

• He (over)indulges his lusts: "He had 60 acts of Bi'ah";

• He does this all not simply befarhesia, but in the Ohel Moed itself.

What might even be more disconcerting about this is how first his tribesmen, and then the populace at large, at first encourage, then enable, and then defend the executed Zimri and disparage Pinchas:

• Encourage: "Shevet Shimon complained to Zimri (its Nasi) that they were being sentenced to death. He took 24,000 Yisraelim and asked Kozbi to have Bi'ah with him."

• Enable: "They thought [Pinchas] also wanted to sin [-] [Pinchas] removed the dagger at the end of his spear and put it in his garment. He used it as a walking staff and came to Shevet Shimon [and said] "Where do we find that Levi is greater than Shimon?" (Also we can do like you!)[-] so they allowed him to enter the tent of Zimri."

• Defend: "The tribes were scorning Pinchas - 'this son of Puti, whose grandfather (Yisro) was Pitem (fattened) calves for idolatry, killed the Nasi of a Shevet!'"

Zimri, in effect, becomes the archetype of one who would sell out his own people to their enemies for his own aggrandizement and gratification.  Even Korach didn't do this: while there was certainly something egregious about tying up his quest for power in a spiritual guise, the fact that Korach at least "merited" a miraculous intervention to being about his demise indicates that, as inappropriate as his power grab was, it was an internecine offense.

Zimri's offense wasn't that. Zimri, as it were, sided with the enemy in a time of war: while the Moabite mass seduction was aimed at the general populace, the Midianite harlotry was aimed right at the upper echelon.  Unlike Korach, Zimri's motivations aren't as extensively parsed, but the results are spelled out: he influenced a not insignficant number of his tribesmen that his conduct was preferable.  The fact that he met a rather and sordid and ignoble in public indicates the baser nature of his offenses.

In other words, Korach, while trying to upend the system, wasnt employing completely alien influences to foment his rebellion.  Zimri was, and his primary influence was Bilaam, even if he was was too libidinally addled to realize it.

Finally, we saw last week that Bilaam was among other things a master cultural appropriator: 

• Balak, told about Moshe that "his power lies only in his mouth", and is compelled to engage an antagonist "whose power was also in his mouth"; 

• Bilaam has pretentions toward nevuah, and in fact is identified in the literature as one, but the nature of his visions are downgraded, and he eventually has to fall back on his original divination skills, betraying his envy for the former when he declares "let my end be like his".

What Zimri does by executing the aforementioned Ballamic power play resembles the methods of misapprorations and gaslighting used by contemporary internal enemies of the Jews: taking our own principles ("is this allowed? Who allowed you?") and using them against us in battles against our enemies; somehow managing to attract a mass following (his whole tribe was behind him); whilst arrogating unearned poitical legitimacy to oneself ("the most important Yisrael").  

The list of current ostensible/erstwhile Jewish eminences who defend our people's most ardent detractors while insisting that their approach is the true expression of Judaism is too long to recount here. But those Zimris are carrying out Bilaam's mission all over again.