By Rabbi Dr, Michael Leo Samuel in Chula Vista, California
One of the most dramatic and complex figures in the Torah is Pinchas, son of Elazar. Rabbinic tradition suggests he wasn’t initially one of Aaron’s favorites — until a crisis erupted. While the Israelites were camped near the Jordan, they began engaging in sexual immorality and idolatry with the Midianites. Pinchas saw an Israelite man and a Midianite woman in the very act — and he took matters into his own hands with a spear.
Such a shanda!
Normally, Pinchas would have been guilty of murder and subject to execution. Yet God not only spares him — He rewards him with the Covenant of Peace (Brit Shalom) and a lasting priesthood for his descendants. The Torah explains: “He was zealous for his God” (Numbers 25:13).
The rabbis of later generations had a deeply ambivalent attitude toward Pinchas. They lived through the catastrophic results of religious zealotry during the Roman period. Jewish extremists believed a holy war would force God’s hand and bring the Messiah. Instead, it led to the deaths of over two million Jews, the destruction of the Temple, and centuries of exile. As we say today: “Guess what? It didn’t work.”
This is precisely why we are now in the Three Weeks, a solemn period of mourning when we reflect on the causes of our national tragedies. Ignoring our collective flaws guarantees we will repeat them.
Tragically, the temptation of zealotry has not disappeared. Modern Jewish examples remind us how dangerous it remains when religious absolutism merges with politics:
Baruch Goldstein, an Orthodox doctor in Hebron, murdered 29 Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994, believing he was fulfilling a divine mission. His crime was condemned by the vast majority of Jews, yet he still has a fringe of admirers.
In the 1990s, Rabbi Abraham Hecht publicly ruled that any Jewish leader who gives land to Arabs becomes a rodef (pursuer) whose life may be taken. Not long afterward, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, who explicitly cited similar halakhic reasoning.
These cases illustrate how easily zealotry can turn deadly.
We see an even more dangerous form of fanaticism today in the apocalyptic theology of Shia Iran. The Iranian regime is driven by a belief in the imminent arrival of the Mahdi (the Hidden Imam), a messianic figure whose return will be preceded by global chaos, massive bloodshed, and the final triumph of Islam over all other faiths. This is not marginal theology — it shapes Iranian foreign policy, nuclear ambitions, and support for proxy terrorist groups. For the regime’s hardliners, hastening worldwide catastrophe is not a horror to avoid, but a religious duty to accelerate. This messianic fervor makes negotiation and deterrence far more difficult, because the regime may actually welcome apocalyptic confrontation.
The rabbis made it extraordinarily difficult to act as a zealot — you had to witness the sin in the very moment, with almost no room for error or rationalization. They understood that unchecked passion, even in the name of God, usually leads to disaster.
Whether it is Jewish extremists invoking rodef, Shia radicals hastening the Mahdi through chaos and terror, or any ideology that loses sight of human dignity in pursuit of “divine” goals — the pattern is the same. When people assume they fully understand God’s will and that the ends justify any means, tragedy follows.
As we journey through the Three Weeks toward Tisha B’Av, may we internalize this message: True zeal must be tempered by humility, law, and moral clarity. The Brit Shalom given to Pinchas was a covenant of peace — not a license for violence.
Let us channel our passion into building, healing, and perfecting the world, rather than destroying it in the name of heaven.
Shabbat Shalom.
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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader pf Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista, California.