July 4th Sermon (Parshat Pinchas)
by Rabbi Avi Billet
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It has to be fought for and defended by each generation.” – Ronald Reagan
Shortly after the incident of Pinchas killing Zimri and Kozbi in an act of zealotry, the instruction is given to Moshe to plan to fight against Midian. This is not to be confused with the actual command which takes place in Bamidbar 31:2 (see Chizkuni 25:17). Rashi says they gave up their daughters to fornication to lead the Israelites to follow Pe’or (an idol). The problem is that the Torah tells us ויחל העם לזנות אל בנות מואב – that the Israelites were enticed by the daughters of Moav. And while one can make the argument that there was an alliance between Midian and Moav (see the interchange of Balak’s officers who come to invite Bilaam, sometimes they are officers of Midian, sometimes of Moav – see 22:4,7,8,14,21), as Balak King of Moav seems to be the impetus behind the plan to cause Israel to sin, the fact is that the instruction is to fight against Midian.
Chizkuni notes, Moav gets a pass simply because they were afraid of Israel, whereas Midian entered a fight not their own and was involved in the real enticement. To bolster this argument, Ramban notes that the elders of the Midian were the real brains behind the whole story. Not to mention that Kozbi was clearly the daughter of a Midianite King – Kozbi bat Zur (Zur is one of the five Midianite kings mentioned as having been killed in the war with Midian (31:8)) – and must have been sent there by her people! What would a Midianite princess be doing in the mountains of Moav, so so so far from home? Not only that, Kli Yakar twists the language of the Torah on its head with the following two insights: 1. The Torah says ויחל העם לזנות אל בנות מואב – painful as it is to admit, the Bnei Yisrael initiated contact with the Moabite women. But the Midianite women?? That was Midianite seduction aimed at entrapping Israelites, and 2. Echoing Rashi, the Midianites gave up their daughters for this sycophantic effort of claiming to desire Israelite men. Really? The daughter of the King to some Hebrew/Israelite man?! There is no way Zimri would have imagined he could have his way with a princess! But if she had approached him…!
It's very clear from Rashi, Ramban and Kli Yakar that Midian started the fight through trying to ensnare and entrap the Israelite men to sin, even beyond what ever may have been planned between Bilaam and Balak. And Chizkuni thus concludes that we learn from here that “regarding those who come to kill you, you are to rise and kill them first…” מכאן אמרו אם בא להרגך השכם להרגו..
This is a lesson that the State of Israel has unfortunately learned since its inception. Even though they extended a hand of peace to neighbors from their very beginnings, their enemies have always wanted to kill them. So they had to learn quickly, perhaps even before the establishment of the state, that war will be necessary for your survival. And that in order to survive, you must win and you must defeat your enemies so they can’t do this to you again. This is the cost of freedom – sometimes there is a need to fight for your right to be free.
When we think of Freedom and Liberty, on this Shabbos of July 4th, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, one of the most famous images of Liberty is the Liberty Bell.
The Liberty Bell was commissioned by a God fearing Hebraist Isaac Norris on the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s 1701 Charter of Liberties – promoting freedom of conscience – in 1751, which is why – in celebrating a 50th anniversary – the words that reference the emancipation of Eved Ivri in the Torah, and of the return of the people to their ancestral property through the celebration of Yovel were enshrined into the bell. But it was not, at that time, known as the Liberty Bell. It was known as the State House Bell, for that is where it was used. It was only, ironically, around 50 years after the adaptation of the Constitution that the statement on the bell was taken up as a cause celebre of abolitionists who felt “How could this be a country of freedom and liberty – proclaim liberty throughout the land?!? - when there are human beings enslaved in this land?” and they renamed it the Liberty Bell. Thus the Bell had its own rebirth of freedom championing that notion for slaves, and not just for those who felt free from that which they had run away from in Europe.
In an article about the Liberty Bell, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik wrote the following, commemorating an event that happened 50 years ago today, about how on July 4, 1976 while Americans woke up expecting headlines to be about the bicentennial of America, they “discovered that after midnight, Israel had engaged in a miraculous mission to rescue over 100 hostages in Entebbe, Uganda.”
By the way, the pilot from that flight, Michel Bacos, died in 2019. HaTikvah was played at his funeral because in many ways, his choice, along with that of his crew, to remain with the hostages – their responsibility – rather than to be let free when the terrorists separated the Jewish hostages from the non-Jewish, became a defining moment in his life.
Soloveichik continues “Speaking at the United Nations, Israeli ambassador Chaim Herzog argued that this had been a victory for the entire free world: ‘We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over 100 innocent people – men, women, and children – but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.’ The Israelis had, on the American bicentennial, proclaimed liberty throughout the land and fulfilled, for the hostages, the very same biblical verse: ‘Each man shall return to his heritage, each man to his family.’”
We have the concept of 50 years as a regular anniversary of celebrating liberty, the concept of Jubilee to honor the notion that things return to how they were, and the ever present need to fight for freedom that defines the very notion of liberty at its core. Hopefully the fight is in the realm of ideology and ideas, but sometimes, as we all know, the fight must be taken to the realm of taking up arms to defend that which is most precious to us.
There is liberty and there is freedom. There is fighting for liberty and freedom, which Israel has demonstrated throughout its existence, and particularly 50 years ago on this date. And there is the freedom from enemies aiming to destroy through enticing sin that the Israelites were forced into fighting in Parshas Pinchas, which we see carried out in the battles of Parshas Matos. This is the source for it in the Torah, as it teaches that while no humans are perfect, it is those who are trying to destroy those looking to live their lives simply serving God and modeling His ways who are the enemy getting in the way of true freedom – freedom to choose to serve God in this world.
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