A Different Way to Read Torah - Commentary on Parashat Pinchas
Weekly Torah reflections from Matthew Schultz, a rabbinical student at Hebrew College.
In the introduction to Ein Yaakov—a collection of midrashim—we find the following story.
A group of sages were sitting and debating which pasuk (passage) in the Torah is the most “inclusive,” by which they seem to be asking, which pasuk best captures in miniature the ethos of the entire Torah.
Ben Zoma rises and says, “Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
Then Ben Nanas rises and claims to have an even more inclusive pasuk than this. “And you will love your fellow as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
At which point Ben Pazi rises and says that he has a pasuk even more inclusive than this: “The first goat you will offer in the morning, and the second goat you will offer at twilight,” which appears first in Exodus, and then again in our parsha this week.
At this point, the other sages instantly acknowledge the superiority of Ban Pazi’s answer and a fourth sage rises and declares that Ben Pazi is the winner of the contest.
What is the meaning of this story?
It has the cadence of a Zen tale in which a young student, presented with an absurdity, is suddenly enlightened. For instance:
When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.
“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer.
“Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. “You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.”
At these words Banzan became enlightened.
I have heard a number of explanations of why Ben Pazi’s answer was deemed the best, but ultimately, I think what is being said here is something akin to what the butcher said—everything in my shop is the best. You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.
So too with the Torah. Every pasuk is the most inclusive. There are pasukim that dazzle us. The Shema, as Ben Zoma suggested, is one such pasuk. So is the injunction to love our fellow man, as Ben Nanas suggested. But ultimately, everything in the shop is the best.
This was something that Maimonides stressed, writing that there is no distinction between “I the Lord am your God” (Exodus 20:2) and “And Timna was a concubine” (Genesis 36:12).
Ben Zoma and Ben Nanas offered beautiful pasukim with beautiful messages, but Ben Pazi did something more profound, reminding them that the Torah is more than its messages.
It is, rather, a point of contact with the living God.
To know that “everything in the shop is best” is a radical way of walking through the world. A different kind of consciousness entirely than that we are accustomed to.
And so Banzan was enlightened.
To know that every word in the Torah is an encounter with the source of being similarly cultivates a different kind of consciousness.
And so the sages were enlightened.
It is hard to believe that in the shop everything is the best but that is everything can be meaningful is true. Sometimes we need to go back and read and read again to find the meaning
Rav Matthew, so great!