Jul 2, 2026 · 25 min · 8 segments
Send us Fan Mail Rabbi Roni Tabick joins Simon to discuss Pinchas, zealotry, and his upcoming novel, Radiance. **Rabbi Roni Tabick** is rabbi of…
Roni TabickGuest
Simon EderHost
Um, I want to-- your take on what this really reveals perhaps about divine justice, holiness, perhaps human responsibility.
It's interesting, isn't it? O-one of the fascinating things about this story is that we get half of it at the end of last week and half of it at the beginning of this week, and that's quite an unusual situation in, in the, um, in the structure of how we read Torah.
And it, it almost feels to me like the rabbis wanted us to disassociate the reward somewhat from the act, like that we get-- It's, it's quite peculiar that we get this division between the two.
Um, very rarely do we experience that kind of break in the story halfway through.
Like, and it's quite a short story, you know, it could all have been in one Parashah.
You know, we talk about, uh, God as El-kinah, God as the jealous God, and that's the word that we have here for Pinchas, which is, um, which is a challenging word, I think, 'cause zeal in English has, has some positive connotations, right? That being zealous means being enthusiastic, being, um, keen, having lots of energy, maybe too much, right? There's a little bit of, um, of, of a sense of it being too much or too, uh, single-minded perhaps.
But kinah has also senses of like, um, wanting revenge or anger or punishment, which maybe zeal doesn't quite have.
I mean, you know, as I said, God is described as having zeal, El-kinah, as having, uh, uh, jealousy.
Um, but n- there aren't that many other biblical figures that have this feeling or have this motivation.
Well, I wonder if Pinchas-- I mean, we, we see in the opening of our Parashah that Pinchas is, uh, acting on behalf of God, right? We see, uh, it says in verse 11, uh, Pinchas bin Elazar bin Ahron HaKohen heshiv et chamati me'al bonei Yisrael, right? Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aaron, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites.
Um, perhaps that's a, a good place just to reflect as you've been, um, unpacking this word zeal.
Um, I wonder your take on how it plays an importance in the life of faithful worship.
Is Pinchas presented as a kind of model of righteous zeal, or is his action Perhaps unique to a particular historical and covenantal context, how, in effect, can, I know maybe believers distinguish between godly zeal and destructive fanaticism? Um, a timely-
Um, I want to-- your take on what this really reveals perhaps about divine justice, holiness, perhaps human responsibility.
It's interesting, isn't it? O-one of the fascinating things about this story is that we get half of it at the end of last week and half of it at the beginning of this week, and that's quite an unusual situation in, in the, um, in the structure of how we read Torah.
And it, it almost feels to me like the rabbis wanted us to disassociate the reward somewhat from the act, like that we get-- It's, it's quite peculiar that we get this division between the two.
Um, very rarely do we experience that kind of break in the story halfway through.
Like, and it's quite a short story, you know, it could all have been in one Parashah.
You know, we talk about, uh, God as El-kinah, God as the jealous God, and that's the word that we have here for Pinchas, which is, um, which is a challenging word, I think, 'cause zeal in English has, has some positive connotations, right? That being zealous means being enthusiastic, being, um, keen, having lots of energy, maybe too much, right? There's a little bit of, um, of, of a sense of it being too much or too, uh, single-minded perhaps.
But kinah has also senses of like, um, wanting revenge or anger or punishment, which maybe zeal doesn't quite have.
I mean, you know, as I said, God is described as having zeal, El-kinah, as having, uh, uh, jealousy.
Um, but n- there aren't that many other biblical figures that have this feeling or have this motivation.
Well, I wonder if Pinchas-- I mean, we, we see in the opening of our Parashah that Pinchas is, uh, acting on behalf of God, right? We see, uh, it says in verse 11, uh, Pinchas bin Elazar bin Ahron HaKohen heshiv et chamati me'al bonei Yisrael, right? Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aaron, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites.
Um, perhaps that's a, a good place just to reflect as you've been, um, unpacking this word zeal.
Um, I wonder your take on how it plays an importance in the life of faithful worship.
Is Pinchas presented as a kind of model of righteous zeal, or is his action Perhaps unique to a particular historical and covenantal context, how, in effect, can, I know maybe believers distinguish between godly zeal and destructive fanaticism? Um, a timely-
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.