I was reading some commentary on the Torah portion of Pinchas and the commentators such as Rashi say that Pinchas was assailed by his peers for descending from a convert (Yitro) and therefore his actions came out of self-seeking impure motives. Pinchas was assailed for acting in front of Moses instead of waiting for direction from the sages. There seems to be a lot in the Jewish tradition about waiting for direction from the sages and respecting the elders, but the Biblical text itself does not seem to emphasize this as much in the portion of Pinchas, etc. The mesora (rabbinic tradition) sometimes seems like rabbinic self-serving commentary that the regular Jews must obey them. Is it normative in the Jewish tradition to assume that someone who descends from converts is impure and worthy of suspicion?
Historian Marc B. Shapiro says: “I would not say so. It is normative that someone who converts is just like everyone else. Remember that the people who attacked Pinchas are understood to be doing an incorrect thing. The aggadah reflects the reality presumably of the time it was written (where people thought that way) but is criticized [and] shown to be the wrong way of thinking. People like Herod could have led to the attitude you describe but it was definitely not normative and throughout history I don’t think it was ever a popular viewpoint.”
An Orthodox rabbi tells me: “They thought his actions were alien – and were looking for a source or origin, they thought they had found a genetic one. I don’t think this is a indication of a larger approach.”
