A Broken Peace in Indianapolis
Comment sections on articles are not the likeliest place to find wisdom or compassion and they are famously worth ignoring. Still, I found myself scrolling through the comments on an article about Elisjsha Dicker, the 22-year old man who was able to shoot a gunman who had already taken three lives in an Indianapolis mall. Dicker is undeniably the good guy with a gun and while having no professional military or law enforcement training was able to shoot the assailant from a distance, preventing what would likely have been a greater loss of life. Most of the comments called him a hero and thanked him for his courage. Some went out of their way to drive home the point that only by having the gun with him was his heroic act possible. Others noted his heroism but asserted that it was the exception not the norm. The one comment that caught my eye though was a little different: “God give him the strength to get through the ordeal of killing a man.”
There is something powerful about a response that cuts through the labels and the debate and touches on the human experience. From all appearances (which is not much) Mr. Dicker has himself shied from the spotlight, only making a statement thanking others for their generous statements about him. His lawyer has said that at this time he is processing going through this experience. Again, from the sparse information available, Mr. Dicker seems to understand that he did save many lives that day with a remarkable combination of courage, decisiveness and proficiency. And he also seems to understand that taking another person’s life, even under these circumstances takes a piece out of you.
The Torah portion this week opens with the aftermath of a split second decision undertaken by Pinchas to wield his spear killing an Israelite tribal chief named Zimri and a Midianite princess named Kozbi as they intended to be intimate in the Holy Chamber itself. In that moment G*d had brought a plague against the people as a punishment for being seduced into idolatry. The plague ceased when Pinchas struck. In that context, Pinchas saw his action as necessary and generations of commentary have discussed his act and whether it was justified or not. At the beginning of the Torah portion that bears his name, however, Pinchas is given what seems like a stamp of approval from G*d: “Behold I give My covenant of peace (briti shalom).” Yet, as learned from the incident in Indianapolis and the comment cited above, even if in the Torah Pinchas is validated, committing the act of taking these lives still takes a piece out of him.
There is a hint of this in a remarkable irregularity found in the Torah scroll itself. The third letter of the word shalom, the spear-shaped letter vav, is broken. The very word that means both peace and wholeness is written with a piece missing. What could be meant by this offer of a covenant of incompleteness? The blessing given to Pinchas is not just a pat on the back and a well-done which perhaps others have offered in affirmation and admiration of his act and his halting of the plague. What G*d grants to Pinchas is a recognition of his brokenness even within his peace. G*d, seen this way, models the powerful practice of allowing space for what is not captured in the judgment of right or wrong. The processing that perhaps Elisjsha Dicker is allowing himself in recognition that he survived when others didn’t. The three murdered by the gunman and the gunman himself shot to death by a heroic and decisive human being now seeking his own broken peace.