I heard a humorous tale from R’ Gavriel Friedman along these lines: Two people—Jo and Shmo were once walking and they saw an animal in the distance. Shmo said, “wow, that’s such a beautiful cat!” Jo responded, “what do you mean, that’s a bird.” “No way, it’s gotta be a cat!” Shmo insisted. “Nah, I’m telling you it’s a bird,” Jo said. They inch closer and sure enough, the creature flies away—a bird indeed. “See?” said Jo, “I told you it’s a bird!” Meanwhile, Shmo is mezmorized, marveling at the sight, saying to himself, “I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it myself….a flying cat!”
When a person has a bias, (in this case Shmo not wanting to be wrong), one can perceive an objective reality and misconstrue it to conform with his subconscious wishes. A bias has the potential to fabricate the truth, to lead one to take fact, and turn it into fiction.
In this week’s parsha the daughters of Tzelafchad approach Moshe wanting their deceased fathers portion in Eretz Yisrael. They begin their plea by prefacing that their father was not involved with Korach’s rebellion, etc (27:3). Why did they bring this up? Ramban explains that they thought Moshe had a unique hatred of Korach’s crew, and therefore maybe Moshe wouldn’t show kindness to them if he thought their father was part of it. Hence, they pointed out to him that in fact their father was not involved.
The implication of Ramban seemingly is that the daughters suspected that Moshe would potentially interpret the law inaccurately to come out against them if in theory Moshe thought their father was part of the rebellion.
R’ Henach Leibowitz asks, how could it be that such righteous and wise people like them would suspect that someone like Moshe would potentially rule inaccurately based on a potential hatred of their father? Says Rav Leibowitz, the daughters didn’t suspect that Moshe would intentionally rule against them, but rather that his potential hatred for their father might cause him to unintentionally “bend the law” to come out against them. And thus we learn from here that if in theory Moshe did actually have something against their father, without consciously realizing it this could have led him to interpret and ultimately conclude the case inaccurately to cause an unfavorable ruling for the daughters.
We see from here that even someone like Moshe could potentially be influenced—albeit unintentionally—by a bias, and end up misconstruing a ruling.
In last week’s parsha, Hashem told Bilaam explicitly “do not go with them; do not curse the nation” (22:12). Bilaam thus told Balak’s officers, “Hashem has refused to let me go with you.” Bilaam makes it seem that Hashem refused to let him go only “with them,” with those specific people, and in fact, Rashi says that since Bilaam was a haughty person, he was essentially telling them, Hashem refused to let me go with you, but I can indeed go with higher class people.
But wait, seemingly, that’s definitely not what God said to Bilaam! Is Bilaam lying in order to show off how great he is and only “rolls” with upper class folk? Rav Chaim Shmulevitz (Sichos Mussar, balak, maamer 79) fascinatingly comments that actually Bilaam was not intentionally trying to deceive them or lie to them, but rather it’s quite possible that his own arrogance led him to interpret Hashem’s message in this way.
We see from here that Bilaam who was a pursuer of honor had a bias to puff up his greatness, which may have unintentionally led him to totally take out of context a message that was seemingly crystal clear, in order for it to conform with his agenda.
As we know, Pinchas saves the day with his heroic and brave act of killing zimri and cozbi. Our parsha begins with tracing his ancestry to Aharon Hakohen which is seemingly unnecessary since the Torah already stated it earlier towards the end of last week’s parsha. The Kli Yakar explains that Pinchas knew he may get insulted and degraded by others [which ultimately ended up happening] if he carries out this act. Hence, by putting his esteem at stake, and showing that he’s not concerned about his honor, the Torah therefore “goes to lengths” by reiterating his anscentry in order to show how great Pinchas is for forgoing his dignity.
The question is, why is the Torah making a big deal out of praising Pinchas that he wasn’t concerned with his honor? People were dying like flies in a raging ongoing plague—wouldn’t anyone throw their honor out the window for the sake of saving the lives of countless people?
Rav Leibowitz gives an incredible explanation, that we see from here that if the Torah didn’t praise Pinchas for forgoing his honor, then in theory we could’ve thought that Pinchas wouldn’t have taken action due to being concerned about his honor. For we would’ve thought that because of this potential bias to preserve his esteem, he would’ve interpreted the law in a way to conclude that really for him in his situation he is exempt from taking action.
Therefore, the Torah reiterates his ancestry thereby praising Pinchas that he wasn’t concerned with his honor, to show that even though Pinchas did in fact have a sense of personal honor, he is praised for nevertheless not allowing it to interfere with the decision.
We can learn two ideas from here. First of all, perhaps even Pinchas could have potentially been misled by a bias and misconstrue what the actual law was regarding whether he is to take action or whether he is exempt.
But secondly, we may see from here that even though Pinchas had a “bias”—i.e. he did essentially care about his personal honor, nevertheless he “wasn’t concerned about his honor”—meaning, he didn’t allow it to influence him to misinterpret the facts to think he could be passive.
Perhaps being in control of and aware of his bias was he able to accurately decide on the right course of action, thus leaving his bias at bay, and instead letting his canny, confidence, and courage prevail.
Binyamin is a graduate of Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan, and Wurzweiler School of Social Work. He can be reached at: [email protected]
