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PINCHAS 5784
The Man Who Never Died
I want you all now to take a deep breath and hold it for a moment. Once more … We need to catch our breath. These past few weeks have been exhausting. There was the momentous presidential debate and the tumult that followed; the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the tumult that followed that: Joe Biden stepping down as a candidate for president; and the ascension of Kamala Harris as the democratic nominee. Are you drained? I know I am! So take a deep breath—for today I’m not going to comment on any of it!
Instead, I’d like to share with you a powerful spiritual message from our Torah portion and Haftorah. It’s a message I 1st heard from Rabbi Sydney Greenberg, a Rabbi’s Rabbi, one of the outstanding Jewish preachers of the 20th century.
Today’s Torah portion is one of only 6 Torah portions named after a person—Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron. The parsha opens as Pinchas is offered a brit shalom (a special covenant of peace)—something we see nowhere else in the Bible, for being zealous for Gd and bravely putting a stop to an outbreak of rebellion and idolatry. This brit shalom allowed him to be a Kohen—reserved for the sons of Aaron—even though he was only a grandson. Some commentators suggest that part of this brit was that he would live a very long time—hundreds of years—and Pinchas was in fact Elijah the prophet we read about in the usual Haftorah for today. Others suggest Elijah—who never died—was a reincarnation of Pinchas. Either way, both were exceptionally zealous for Gd.
The Book of Kings I (2:11) tells us Elijah never died and ascended to heaven alive in a chariot of fire. That this should happen to Elijah is truly ironic—because at one point in his life he wanted so desperately to die. Elijah had run away from the wrath of the idolatrous Queen Jezebel who had vowed to kill him.
On Mt. Carmel, Elijah embarrassed her and her false priests of the pagan god Baal, with a grand challenge. 2 altars were built. The priests of Baal brought a sacrifice on their altar, prayed to Baal to take their offering—but nothing happened. While a fire descended from heaven and consumed the offering of Elijah.
Wn the people saw this, the Bible tells us (I Kings 18:39): “They fell on their faces saying, ‘Hashem hu haElokim (Hashem, He is THE Gd)!’” With this, Elijah had succeeded in bringing the people back to Hashem—but it was short lived. Meanwhile embarrassed Jezebel was filled with rage—determined to take revenge upon Elijah.
In the usual Haftorah we find Elijah running for his life to the wilderness of B’er Sheva disappointed—convinced of the failure of his mission to bring back the Jewish people to Gd. Elijah—hiding under a bush—was in a dark mood. He felt defeated, abandoned, and cornered. We can sympathize with his soul-wrenching plea to Gd (19:4): “Enough! Hashem, Kach nafshi, take away my soul, take my life.” Elijah had had it. Life had crushed him. He felt he couldn’t go on thinking, “Now Gd, just one last favor please for Your prophet, Kach nafshi (Take my soul, my life)!
Let me ask you: Have you ever felt that way? Yes, this same Elijah who never died, begged for death! And somehow he came back from the abyss of despair to live a life that was never to taste the sting of death.
It seems to me that there’s a powerful message here for all of us when we find ourselves overwhelmed by sorrow, overwhelmed by heartbreak or disappointment. When we are tempted to utter: “I can’t go on!” Elijah’s life responds: “O yes, you can!” When we pray out of the depths: “Gd, take away my life,” Elijah’s triumph over surrender commands us: “Take your life and use !”
Rabbi Greenberg tells the story of a man in Herkimer, New York who received a letter in after WWII from a woman whom he had met briefly 9 years earlier on an eastbound train from California. He was returning from the Pacific where he had flown 60 missions in his B-25 bomber. She had just received a war department telegram informing her that “her husband had been killed in action.”
When they met on that train, he never suspected that he had interrupted her attempt to commit suicide by jumping off the speeding train. Her letter made all that quite clear:
February 1, 1945, that night I was on the train speeding on a journey that seemed endless. You were on the train, too, speeding to the wife you hadn’t seen since the war began. I doubt if you remember me now. The girl in the black dress, sad and lonely, sitting across the aisle.
If you hadn’t come into the vestibule when you did, sat down and spoke with me, I’d have opened the door and jumped out. Did I thank you for that and for all the kind things you did for me?
2 years later I married again. I have a fine husband, 2 wonderful children and a lovely home. To think that I am so happy now and owe it all to a stranger on the train who helped me through my darkest hours ...
Thanks for saving my life. I’m truly grateful.
Our anonymous widow was on the verge of a desperate irrevocable act because her world had been shattered and she had seen no possibility of ever finding happiness or even meaning in life again. But after the grim, dark hours had passed, the dawn of revived hope broke, and with it came the courage to hold on and tough it out until new opportunities presented themselves.
This is the reward for those who don’t surrender, who hold on tenaciously, and respond with heroic Torah (Deut. 24:19) challenge: Uvacharta bachayim (Choose life)!
In Hebrew the word shachor means “black.” With the slightest change of vowels, those same letters spell shachar, which means “dawn.” Shachor and shachar, the blackness of night and the light of the dawn are 2 sides of the same coin.
My friends, Gd sends each of our souls unique individual challenges during our lives so our souls in the process may have the opportunity for a tikkun (a correction) and learn the lessons they were put in this world to learn. And as we face these challenges the shachor (the blackness, the darkness) turns into shachar (the light of dawn).
So, whenever you feel like you can’t go on and want to beg Gd to take you, may Elijah and the widow in our story inspire you to never give in to despair. Instead, take a deep breath, then take your life and use it! Amen!
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