Towards the end of this week’s parshah of Balak we encounter the zealotry of Pinchas and the complex confrontation of due legal process and a state of exception. To recap, after his failed attempt to curse the Jewish people, King Balak of Moab devises a cunning plan together with Bila’am to prostitute the Moabite and Midianite women and to seduce the Jewish men. The widespread sexual depravity aroused G-d’s anger and the offenders were sentenced to death. In a brazen response, Zimri, the head of the tribe of Shimon, appears before Moshe with his Midianite conquest Cozbi and challenges him: ‘if this is forbidden, how were you able to marry your wife Tzipporah who was also a Midianite woman?’ In response, Moshe’s great-nephew Pinchas assassinates Zimri and Cozbi with a direct launch of his spear when they were sexually engaged, for which he will be richly rewarded and praised in next week’s parshah.
The Talmud (BT Sanhedrin 82a) explains how due legal process would never lead to the sentencing to death of Zimri for engaging in sexual relations with a non-Jewish woman. So much so, that had Zimri defended himself in the face of Pinchas’ aggression and killed Pinchas instead, he would be deemed innocent since he would have acted in self-defence. Moreover, if Pinchas had killed them post-coitus he would have been deemed a murderer. Similarly, were Pinchas to have encountered an act of incest or adultery between a Jewish man and a Jewish woman and acted the same way, he would have committed murder and been punished.
Accordingly, there are circumstances that even Torah law acknowledges can only be handled outside of courts of law. As opposed to all other sexual misdemeanours, sexual intimacy between a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman is treated as a state of emergency and warrants exceptional measures. Why that is the case is the central question of one of the Rebbe’s talks from parshat Balak 1965 which was produced as an edited essay in 1970. Put simply, why is the prohibition to be engaged in sex with a non-Jewish woman treated differently in Jewish law to all other prohibited sexual acts? Why is it considered so exceptional that it is placed outside of ordinary, normal legal procedures. (Click here for a Hebrew translation of the Rebbe’s essay and click here for Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ translation and adaptation).
An important starting point is to understand the profundity of an erotic sexual encounter, especially as it relates to fertility. The Rebbe highlights the ability to reproduce oneself through intercourse indicates that sexual intimacy reaches and touches the very essence of the person. Yet a child is not just a mere replica of their parents’ personalities, they can even exhibit greater abilities and prowess than is evident in their parents. This suggests that in an act of conception, the most essential and fundamental components of the parents are being engaged and conveyed. As a consequence, we can understand the seriousness of prohibited sexual behaviour and how the misuse of this G-d-like creative quality impacts the sinner in the deepest way.
What makes the sexual encounter of a Jewish man with a non-Jewish woman distinctive from the other forbidden sexual relations is the possibility of fathering a non-Jewish child. Central to the Rebbe’s analysis is an awareness of the distinctiveness of a Jew. In the words of the Midrash (Shemot) Rabbah (36:1): “All other liquids mix together, but oil remains separate. Similarly, Israel does not mix with gentiles.” As such, for a Jew to ‘convert’ their creative and reproductive power into something non-Jewish is of a significantly different order than the other forbidden relations. Whilst in cases of other forbidden relations, such as adultery, there is a possibility of giving birth to a mamzer, the child is nonetheless Jewish. Moreover, the Talmud (BT Horayot 13a) extols the virtue of a wise mamzer, who should be respected and treated with more honour than even a High Priest who is not his equal in wisdom.
If however, as the Midrash says, the distinctiveness of a Jew is as natural as the hydrophobic quality of oil, from where does a Jew have the power to change the nature of things in this way? If G-d’s separation of Jew and non-Jew is compared to His separation of day and night (Midrash (Bamidbar) Rabbah 18:7), then how can that ever be revoked?
At this phase in the essay, the Rebbe develops a radical concept. Just as G-d Himself is not bound by any of the natural laws which he established, so too a Jew when they tap into their most core and essential identity as a Jew is not bound by any restrictions, and can cross over the natural boundaries which even G-d Himself has set. In a positive sense, this dimension of a Jew is exemplified in the act of teshuvah. Whereas the rules of the Torah dictate what is right and what is wrong, teshuvah is able to transform what was once wrong into something worthy and meritorious. In a negative sense, as in the case of Zimri, it enables a person to convert the sacred into the mundane. (See my essay for ‘Transition and Transcendence’ for more on the notion of traversing boundaries)
Let’s develop this idea a little further. Maimonides describes in his Guide and at the beginning of his Mishneh Torah how all of existence is contingent on G-d and only G-d is a necessary existence. It is this independence of G-d that allows Him to be absolutely free to do as He wishes, in contrast, our contingent reality lacks the independence needed to make absolute free choices. We are of course gifted with the ability to choose right from wrong or vice versa, but that is already within the boundaries set by the Torah between good and evil, permitted and forbidden, Israel and the nations. But, in the words of Rabbi Sacks, “the Jew has resources in his soul to cross the boundaries, for good or for bad, and to rescue holiness from the lowest reaches of the profane.”
To be chosen is to be given the ability to choose. When we choose to transcend the prescribed boundaries of reality, even those dictated by the Torah, we express our deep rootedness in the very essence of G-d. In a counter-intuitive way, when a Jew is sexually engaged with a non-Jew and they ignore even divinely ordained boundaries, they are manifesting an essential dimension of being a Jew, albeit in a tragically misguided way.
Now it becomes understandable why Zimri could only be punished with the zealousness of Pinchas. Zimri’s crime was to misuse a power that exceeded the parameters of the Torah, and he could only be punished through an act of zealotry which also exceeded the regulatory boundaries of the Torah and which bypassed the ordinary judicial process.
This idea is mirrored in the thought of Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben. One of his profound insights is that the “paradox of sovereignty consists in the fact the sovereign is, at the same time, outside and inside the juridical order.” Drawing on the thought of Carl Schmitt, Agamben explains how the capacity and the ability to be above and outside the law is a necessary condition for a legal system to function. The exception to the rules should not be conceived as a ‘chaos that precedes order’ but rather the marking out of the limits of those rules which make the validity of legal order possible.In a certain way, Zimri is striking example of Agamben’s concept of a Homo Sacer, who can only be killed but not sacrificed. (This is not the place to elaborate on the relevance of Agamben, but I find him to be a very useful thinker on these topics and highly recommend some of his works. A fuller examination of his usefulness may happen in the future)
This essay of the Rebbe is both structurally and conceptually challenging, and Rabbi Sacks’ rendition is hard to follow at times. I hope with the above I have helped unpack some of the ideas and made them more accessible. For now, what might be some of the implications of the Rebbe’s essay and how might it inform Rabbi Sacks’ later thought?
In my view, a significant idea in the essay is the expansion of the idea of choice to not just whether we abide by or transgress the edicts of the Torah, but our power to choose at the most fundamental level. Do we observe the Torah because we have been chosen to do so, or do we observe the Torah because we choose to do so? Of course, it doesn’t have to be an either/or conundrum and our reality can be a blend of both, but for it also to be a matter of our own absolute free choice allows for our Torah observance to be infused with a deeper conception of ourselves.
I also believe that this idea is critical for Rabbi Sacks’ notion of the covenantal relationship between G-d and the Jewish people. To take one example, in The Home We Build Together (2007, 105) he explains how this covenant is conceived of as a partnership between G-d and a people, “the fact of choice is fundamental” and that G-d makes space for “human freedom.” In the following remarkable passage we can hear echoes of the Rebbe’s essay:
“G-d makes space for human freedom and invites an entire people to become, in the rabbinic phrase ‘his partners in the work of creation’. The free G-d desires the free worship of free human beings. G-d transcends nature; therefore G-d is not bound by nature; therefore G-d is free. G-d sets his image on the human person; therefore humanity is free.”
There is a lot more still to unpack and these are just my initial thoughts. I think there is more to say on the possible differences between the Rebbe and Rabbi Sacks on the issue of Jewish particularism. I also think this essay could be used to challenge some of Rabbi Sacks’ negative views on postmodern thought. In the meantime, please get in touch and let me know what you think.