The Upward Climb Toward Equality: Pinchas

The Upward Climb Toward Equality

D’var Torah for Parashat Pinchas

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

It has been a week of justice—justice pursued, justice denied, justice overturned, justice enshrined.

Justice is there to banish chaos.  Justice gives names and rules to human behavior; it defines outcomes and hopefully validates every individual human being’s right to be recognized and acknowledged.

This past week, we saw the extent of justice—all the way from the underworld of our cities up to the highest seat of law in the land, the US Supreme Court. 

This week in Boston, of course, the trial of “Whitey” Bulger began.  For years, gangs in the city ran unchecked, wreaking mayhem and terror.  Now it was finally time to bring to justice a major player in this chaotic and violent world.  And many of the witnesses are proving only too eager to sing.

But stopping one criminal does not necessarily put an end to crime.  The most prominent violent crime exposed this week was the murder alleged to have been committed by ex-Patriot Aaron Hernandez.  Regardless of the final result of the still-ongoing investigation, what remains is the dark fact that a man’s life was violently snuffed out by a fellow human being.  It is the ultimate crime in our society; but it is also the ultimate sin before God, since life is seen as God-bestowed and thus only in the realm of God to take away.

Not all injustices are so dramatic, however.  Some wrongs exist and persist for centuries and even eons.  Just about forever, there have always been members of society who were excluded from rights afforded to everyone else.  Be they of a different color, class or gender, some people have always been defined by a different standard, one that made them slightly less valuable than others.

From the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Act of 1965, discrimination in the US against racial, ethnic, religious and gender minorities was closely watched by the courts and, step by step, abolished.  Procedures and laws were established to ensure that such practices did not continue unchecked.  And much, indeed, had changed in those 100 years, while yet so much more remains unchecked.

Well, three days ago, the US Supreme Court decided that some of these watchdog procedures were no longer necessary.  A key part of the 1965 legislation was overturned. 

Perhaps, as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the majority opinion, the ancient cultural barriers against these minorities no longer existed and therefore no longer needed guarding against.

Or perhaps they always did, still do, and always will.  This week’s Torah portion, Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-30:1), is very timely in its example of anti-discrimination legislation.  It is the story of a man named Zelophehad.  The man, having had no sons, died.  What would happen to his share in the Promised Land, was the question raised by his five daughters.  Would this share be given to another man, from another clan or tribe, when there actually were physical inheritors, notwithstanding that they happened to be females?

I’m not sure what the decision would be if such a case ever came up in Afghanistan.  I can only imagine how Taliban leaders—or their blindly devout followers—would react to the sight of the five women standing before Moses, Aaron, the priests, indeed the whole people, to demand equal shares and rights like all the men-folk.

But God instructs Moses to give them Zelophehad’s share.  “They speak correctly,” God tells Moses and us.  The commandment must be legislated, spelled out in legal terms that make rightful inheritance the right of every human being.

Must the command come from God?  Evidently so.  Even supreme courts, comprised of flesh-and-blood human beings, can fail to discern cultural inclinations; in Pinchas we find God as the ultimate model of justice and fairness, stating the unimpeachable principle that every human being, regardless of color, gender or belief, is a valued component of the human family.

The problem is that prejudices are often masters of disguise.  They appear as jokes, as harmless words or gestures, as assumptions and deeply held beliefs that defy all rational thinking.

Paula Deen, the doyenne of Southern comfort cooking, tearfully confessed earlier this week that she had used demeaning racial slurs and stereotypes.  The debate on all the media has been on the extent of her guilt.  Yes, she used the slurs, but did she mean them?  Is she an actual racist?  Don’t some of the very people she supposedly insulted use the same term among themselves, to describe themselves, all the time?

Bias and discrimination need to be carefully monitored because, unless you’ve been on the receiving end, you might not recognize that they do indeed exist and hurt.  Maybe it’s in our nature to validate ourselves at the expense of others.  More the reason, then, to recognize it even within ourselves.   To recognize it, then to reeducate ourselves and our children, and finally to legislate—these must be the three ways in which dignity and equality for all can be assured, and it’s a never-ending process.

The week’s really good news, however, was, of course, the repeal of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act—the Supreme Court’s final decision of its 2012-2013 term, delivered only two days ago.   It was an historic day for the entire GLBT community in its struggle for dignity and personal validation.

Ancient prejudices do not disappear quickly.  The wheels of justice grind slowly—and sometimes in reverse.  It’s an ongoing process that begins in the most ordinary acts of human behavior and ends up in the heavenly court.  Along history’s progress, it has been our people’s privilege to be among the marchers, the protesters, the liberators, the legislators.

You could say it all began with Pinchas, this week’s Torah portion, the one that tackles the issues of prejudice and discrimination.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman