Pinchas
What does it feel like to be at peace within ourselves?
Reflection by Or HaLev teacher Moran Peled:
"`While you, who held fast to your God, are all alive today.` (Deuteronomy 4: 4)
The children of Israel’s encounter with the Midianites in Baal Pe’or is described in another parsha in Deuteronomy with the word `dvekut, ` meaning devotion or holding fast. There are those who hold fast to the Midianites and worship idols, and there are those who hold fast to God.
The word `dvekut` is more refined than the word `kanaut,` zealotry, wrath or rage, which is a word that stands out in the story of Pinchas.
`Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron the Cohen, turned My wrath away from the children of Israel when he raged (bkanau) My rage (kinati) in their midst, and I did not consume the children of Israel in My wrath (b’kinati).” (Numbers 25:11).
Pinchas, who is zealous to the word of God, came out against the idol worship to Baal Pe’or when he killed the prince Zimri ben Salu and his Midianite partner Kozbi bat Zur. In merit of this killing, the Almighty offered him a covenant of Peace.
Peace is the ultimate blessing, the supreme Jewish value present in the blessing of the Cohanim, on Shabbat and in prayer - `May the Lord bestow on his people peace.`
Shalom and hashlama, making peace and acceptance are central to our practice and to our life. We practice so as to experience the acceptance of reality, to come to terms with partial reality so as to become more whole. We aspire that peace be present even when we do not feel whole. To be at peace with imperfection, pain, suffering, yearning, discomfort and loneliness.
Practice does not always become a covenant of Peace. We can aspire to to `hold fast` to our practice until the connection between us and practice is changed to covenant. A covenant of peace among ourselves.”