Rabbi Andrea’s Sermon 19th July 2025 / 23rd Tammuz 5785

The Broken Vav

Last week's Torah portion ended on a cliffhanger. A plague swept through the Israelites' encampment, God's punishment for their lack of morality. 

Then a guy called Pinchas saw a couple copulating - well, more appropriately, it was a rape. He killed them. God halts the plague and, we read in this week's Torah portion, rewards Pinchas with a Brit Shalom, a "pact of friendship" as Plaut translates.

It sounds horrible: killing a couple (or, better: interrupting a rape, killing the rapist alongside the victim) to placate God's anger. But the plague stopped. 

The Biblical narrative links the two events: Pinchas' violent actions against the rapist and the end of the plague. 

Narratives are so powerful.  They connect the facts and give us a sense of where history is going.

Take, for example, the narrative of the pro-Hamas, pro-ceasefire, anti-Israel demonstrators, (you know those who want to get rid of the Memorial in Palmeira Square). You can see how they talk about history: "we are on the right side of history" and "history is going in our direction", etc.  They believe that history will inevitably lead to the end of Israel. 

In their vision of history, it is inevitable that, just like Algeria got rid of the French settlers, (and entered the Soviet orbit), Israel will get rid of the Jews, and will become Palestine, a proxy of Iran.

I beg to differ. I want to offer a different narrative and a different vision of history.

I want to share with you what I have learnt about the Druze.  In 1992, when I was 24, I visited Jerusalem with a group of friends, and we stayed in a youth hostel. 

That place was a fascinating microcosm of Israeli life: Isaac, the owner, was a Yemenite Jew, almost certainly a Mossad agent, (remember, it was 1992, and the hostel was very close to the Green Line). The staff was just one person, a former yeshiva bochur, Menachem Mendel, (or so he said his name was), with impressive tattoos on his arm.

And then there were the Druze. They were the builders. They used to work at the hostel, whose owner wanted to add an extra floor. They took over a whole floor of the hostel. They were all from the same village in the Golan Heights, that region of Southern Syria conquered by Israel during the Six-Day War. 

In the evenings, we spent a lot of time chatting and drinking coffee, (Italian coffee), and became friends.

Now, let me repeat. That was 1992.  Ten years before there had been a strike of the Druze population against "the Israeli Occupation", instigated by Syria in the Golan Heights . The Druze at the time were allied mainly with the Syrians; therefore, the critics of Israel saw them as heroes. The Syrians were the main allies of the Palestinians, and that was the time of the Intifada, remember?

During these coffee-filled conversations, my friends and I discovered how much the Druze loved Israel. They were not eager to "end the Occupation" of the Golan Heights and to return to live under Syrian rule. On the contrary, they told us about good relationships with their Israeli neighbours, how they were invited to marriages and simchas and how they reciprocated. The reality under our eyes contradicted the news report that we were so used to, according to which the Druze, especially those living in the Golan Heights, were oppressed by Israelis, and staunch supporters of the Palestinians.

I didn't realise it, I thought I was just drinking coffee, but history was before my eyes.  Those folks of my age, in their 20’s, were part of the first Druze generation to benefit from Israel. They had jobs. They were the first recipients of mortgages from an Israeli bank, so they could build a house and marry without borrowing money from the family's elders and asking for their permission. They had access to Israeli health care.  That was one generation ago, 1992. 

Fast forward to today, 2025. The Druze minority in Israel and in Syria has developed a strong support for Israel and for the Zionist project.  Israeli Druze serve in the military; we all know that. But they are also MPs, doctors, lawyers, and judges. When my son Dov was born, the doctor in the delivery room in a hospital in Jerusalem, was a Druze woman. The nurses were Russian Jews. Here you go: a Druze in a position of power, and Jews as juniors in the profession. So much for "Zionism is a racist project", "Jewish suprematism", and other lies peddled everywhere, including, unfortunately, this town. 

Remember last Winter? Lorin Khizran, a young Israeli Druze, talked here during the Israel in Focus events. She was down-to-earth and articulate in her support for Israel and open friendship with the Jewish people. It was really refreshing, and she is a Druze. 

In two generations, the Druze have moved from being anti-Israel to being allies of Israel. This is a very inconvenient fact for the anti-Israel narrative. Small wonder that the Druze are now ignored by the same media who worshipped them in the past: the supporters of Hamas, those who call for a ceasefire and for the end of Israel. Their existence does not square with a narrative according to which Israel is the oppressor. 

In Syria, in this very moment, the Druze minority are targeted by religious violence. Muslim fundamentalists want to get rid of them. Followers of the now-defunct Assad regime wish to punish them for their "betrayal".  

The scenes we have seen on TV are horrible: elderly Druze men are forced to shave, so reminiscent of the Nazi cruelty in the Warsaw ghetto. Then they are murdered, and their families are informed dryly, with a phone call. 

Of course, Israel had to intervene because the Israeli Druze are loyal Israeli citizens. Because their relatives in Syria are persecuted and humiliated. Because the Druze deserve self-determination, in the region of Syria where they are the majority.

It seems evident to me. 

If you are Jewish, the Druze are our allies. If you believe in Jewish values:  the dignity of human beings, the right to live according to your culture... how can you not raise your voice in favour of the Druze, in their defence? 

Is there a more progressive cause? 

I would love to see not only 36, but 40, 50, 150 members of the Board of Deputies pleading the cause of the Druze in front of the public opinion. But, alas, the Druze are not the Palestinians; so, there is no compassion for them. 

Last July, when Hezbollah murdered twelve Druze children in Majdal Shams while they were playing football, we said Kaddish for them in Palmeira Square. Those who have said Kaddish for Gaza did not. 

But let us get back to history. 

In 1992, when I thought I was only drinking coffee with young men my age, I was witnessing history. There was a change going on in the Druze culture: from enemies of Israel to supporters of Israel. 

Perhaps the fathers of the folks I was talking with were soldiers in the Syrian Army during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. These same youth, growing up in the 1970s, were exposed to rubbish Syrian propaganda. Maybe their elderly brothers took part in the 1982 strike, instigated by the Syrians. Still, history was in motion, as they were beginning to benefit from the Israeli health system, banking, and work legislation. 

So today, their children, the young generation, are loyal citizens of Israel, if they live in Israel. And they are supporters of Israel if they live in Syria, Lebanon, or Venezuela; there is a large Druze community in Venezuela, by the way. 

We hear people shouting in the streets that history is on their side, on the side of Hamas. We hear that Israel is doomed to fall. We hear this stuff all the time.  But think of the Druze and how their attitude to Israel has evolved: the narrative sold by Hamas, with the help of the usual allies, (the Guardian and the BBC), is just like that: a narrative. And it is not even persuasive. So many facts don't square with it.

With this, let me return to the Torah portion. It begins with the reward God granted Pinchas for halting the plague, with that killing, a Brit Shalom (Num 25:12), a covenant of peace.

If you look at the actual text, in the Torah Scroll and in the printed edition, the vav of the word shalom is somehow broken into two parts, in some printed editions, it is smaller than the rest of the word.

It is not a complete shalom. It is not complete peace. For all his life, Pinchas will carry the memory of the killing. Yes, with that killing, he had stopped the rape. He had stopped a plague, but human lives had been lost and this is never a reason to celebrate. 

This is very telling for us now. 

Israel is involved in a war operation and has intervened in defence of the Druze. For this, human lives have been lost, and, regardless of how criminal they were, a life is a life, and the violent end of a life, as inevitable as it is, especially in war, is a tragedy, nonetheless.

But an entire region of Syria can fall under the control of a renewed version of ISIS. The Druze may end up slaughtered, raped and sold as slaves, as the fundamentalists of ISIS have already done with the Yazidis. So, Israel had to step it. 

This, I think, is where the Jewish narrative trumps the Islamic narrative and the Marxist ideology. That broken vav admonishes the Pinchas of Jewish history to have compassion for our enemy. The Hamas narrative preaches nothing of this sort. In the Hamas project, which we have seen in full display under ISIS, there is no room for faiths other than Islam. And those who live according to a different interpretation of Islam, like the Druze, are considered enemies, publicly humiliated, tortured and murdered.

The same for Marxism. Look at Cuba and North Korea and tell me how religious minorities live in those hells and whether in Cuba or North Korea, there is compassion for the enemies. 

We are radically different. Our faith preaches compassion for the enemy. 

With a military intervention to protect the Druze, Israel is doing what a Jewish State is supposed to do.  It sends a message to the Middle East: don't touch our friends. They were enemies, but now we are friends. Because for our enemies we have had compassion, and now we are allies.

I cannot see a clearer demonstration of what Jewish values mean. 

Can you? 

Rabbi Dr. Andrea Zanardo, PhD