PARASHAT PINCHAS - By Daniel Pinner

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“Hashem spoke to Moshe saying: Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aharon the Kohen has turned away My fury from on the Children of Israel by his zealousness for My zealousness in their midst; and I did not put an end to the Children of Israel in My zealousness. Therefore say: I hereby give him My covenant of peace, which will be his and his seed’s after him, a covenant of eternal priesthood, as recompense for his zealousness for his G-d, and he atoned for the Children of Israel. And the name of the slain man of Israel, who was slain with the Midianitess, was Zimri son of Salu, a Simeonite tribal chief; and the name of the woman who was slain – the Midianitess – was Cozbi, daughter of Zur – he was the national head of a household in Midian” (Numbers 25:10-12).
           
After the heathen prophet Bala'am failed to curse Israel at King Balak’s behest, he suggested to Midian a method of undermining Israel: send the Midianite women to seduce the men of Israel, and thereby destroy their basis which is sexual morality. So important was it to the Midianites to destroy Israel, that they were willing to send their own daughters – and even their own princesses! – as whores to entice the Jewish men. They succeeded to a chilling degree: 24,000 Jews died in the ensuing plague.
           
We do not know exactly when this incident happened; but it was in the final year in the desert, after Aharon’s death (Numbers 20:22-29) on the first of Av (ibid. 33:38-40). It is significant that this Parashah is always read around the time of the Three Weeks, and there is a direct connection.
           
On the ninth of Av in the second year of the desert, the twelve spies had delivered their evil report about the Land of Israel, the people lost heart, and were condemned to live and die in the desert for forty years. Hazal, in Midrash Eichah, give a graphic description of how the ninth of Av was marked every year by that generation: “Every eve of the ninth of Av, the proclamation went forth: Go out and dig; and on the morrow they would lie in their graves. On the tenth of Av, the proclamation went forth: Separate the living from the dead. And in the fortieth year, when the tenth came, they saw that no one had died, and they thought that they might have miscalculated the date. So they remained in their graves until the fifteenth of Av, which [is unmistakeable because it] is when the moon is full. And then they made a tremendous celebration, because they knew that the decree [of dying in the desert] had finally been revoked”.
           
Even in the midst of mourning Aharon’s death, they rejoiced that no more men would die before coming home to Israel. It makes this disaster – that no one could have known still awaited them – all the more poignant. And it makes Zimri’s sin all the more heinous.
           
Zimri was not satisfied with consorting with Princess Cozbi in the privacy of his own tent. Rather, “he brought the Midianitess close to his brothers in the sight of Moshe and in the sight of the entire community of the Children of Israel” (Numbers 25:6). Zimri and Cozbi had to flaunt their debauchery in public – to put on a show that no one in all Israel could miss. It was to this brazen display of blatant rebellion against
G-d that Pinchas reacted – and it was because of his zealousness of reaction that G-d granted him His covenant.
           
Rashi explains the words “his zealousness for My zealousness” (be-kano et kinati) to mean “he avenged My vengeance” (be-nakmo et nikmati). Targum Yonatan renders: “Pinchas the zealous, son of Elazar, son of Aharon the Kohen turned away My fury from on the Children of Israel when he had zeal for the zealousness, and he killed the sinners among them; and for his sake I did not put an end to the Children of Israel in My zealousness… And as recompense for those who [tried to] humiliate him by saying: ‘Is he not himself the son of a Midianitess?’ I hereby grant him the High Priesthood; and as recompense for grasping the spear in his hand and smiting the Midianitess in her bowels and praying for the nation of the House of Israel, the Kohanim will merit three gifts: the shank-bone [i.e. the fore-leg of the animal sacrifices, corresponding to the human arm]; the innards [of the animal sacrifices]; and he and his sons after him will have the eternal Messianic covenant, as recompense for his zealousness for his G-d, and he atoned for the Children of Israel”.
           
The lesson is very simple and very crucial: peace is achieved not by co-existing with sinners, not by compromising with evil, not by making the most of an unfortunate situation, not by choosing the lesser of two evils. Peace is achieved by physically eliminating sin and sinners, by conquering and vanquishing evil.
 
SHABBAT SHALOM