BS”D

Pinchas – Passion and Compassion in the Name of H’

Dr Mori Bank

A Guten Erev Shabbos everybody. This weeks parsha, parshas Pinchas is a famous parsha, about somebody that is a zealot. There is a very important message to be learnt here. The underlying question is, is a person is so to speak allowed to be a rodef, a person follows him, a person does not speak nicely to him, a person gives him a parking ticket and he doesn’t agree, can he be rodef in the name of H’? if the Prime Minister bothers him, and he doesn’t like his policies, can he go out there and be an assassin? Is this a holy concept? After that he adjusts the laws to fit his particular action.

In other words, the Torah isn’t something that he serves. It is there to serve him. Anybody that bothers him, he becomes the great dictator. Tragically in History how many billions of people have perished in the name of somebody’s false god. In the Western world, the tragic war, the Jewish people over thousands of years, their crusades and their pogroms, in the name of their god, Yishmael and his holy war against civilization, when he rises up and becomes suicide bombers, and anybody and everybody that gets in his way, has to perish by the sword in the name of his god. What kind of mischief is going on here?

We have to underline what it is to be passionate and compassionate in the name of H’. There is much more than the initial observation. What we have to explore today is, what gave Pinchas the right togo out there, slay a man and a woman, doing their freewill, as they say in America, between 2 consenting adults, behind closed doors. Anybody who did this would receive the same response Pinchas received, everybody would want to annihilate him. It is very interesting, when they saw somebody doing an aveira, and the saw the magefa (plague) sweeping through the nation, there was a lot of confusion as to what is the halacha. Once Pinchas came out with the 2 Baal Aveiras, on the end of his spear, Maseches Sanhedrin says that there were 10 miracles, amongst them that there was no blood upon him, yet the evidence was blatantly available to the whole nation – he pierced them in a way that it was irrefutable what the aveira was, and that he had the koach to carry these two people on one spear, amongst the other miracles. In spite of all that, the plague had stopped which had already taken 24,000 lives, the biggest plague that struck the Bnei Yisrael in the dessert. Of course there were bigger sentences, like the whole generation were going to perish, but that was over the course of 40 years. In one moment 24,000 died, can you comprehend the plague sweeping through the nation. Through this act, the whole nation, it seems, were paralysed. Pinchas was doing the exact opposite of what everybody thinks he was doing. He wasn’t killing two people who were baalei averias. He was actually saving the whole generation and saving the nation, as we will explore shortly.

There is a small yid over there. At the outset Pinchas is a little known personality amongst the nation of Israel. Through his rising up in protection of H’s name and His ratzon, he rose to eternal heights in this world and the next world. If you see how profpund this one moment of passion and compassion was. The emotion was captured forever by the Torah. The emotion, for everybody that wants to be inspired by Pinchas. What do I do next time I see a person blatantly doing an aveira in parhessia, in public? Blatantly eating a bacon double cheeseburger in public on shabbos. Do I go up to him with a sword and lop his head off, and say, leshem mitzvas Pinchas? In the name of the mitzvah that Pinchas did, I am saving the nation. We have a terrifying responsibility to make absolutely sure that H is with him, and that he is with H’. Then there is nothing to talk about, especially if it’s a righteous generation. But there may be other ways to approach this challenge in our generation. One of the greatest ways of approaching it is through the unique institution of kiruv. When we walk down the street and see somebody smoking on shabbos, desecrating it, or not keeping kashrus, we all become accused. Really what is needed is not so much the passion in this generation, perhaps internal passion, but external compassion. We have to rise up to the occasion and take care of our brother, hand in hand, to show him what H wants of all of us. So it is not me serving my own ratzon, it is in fact h wanting a brother to save his brother.

Now we are going to explore what made Bilam, like a radar, pick out the one flaw that could cause such devastation in a nation that he was not permitted to curse, and for that he was rewarded with losing his head. When we contemplate the situation, it says at the beginning of the parsha, Pinchas’s lineage – he was the son of Elazar, the son of Aharon, the Cohen. It appears as though he was a cohen already. What was the big deal about him getting the brocho of Bris Shalom? Even that shalom is written in such a unique way. There was a famous baal koreh in the middle of Europe a few centuries ago who was reading the word Shalom, and he saw that the vav was broken. We all know that a vav that is not a complete vav is posul. If one letter is posul, the whole sefer Torah is posul. For whatever reason, there were people in different generation that were not mumchim, experts. A person needs to be a specialist, an expert, in every letter. To read from the Torah, it is not enough that a person knows how to read the trop (tune). The person came up to the word Shalom, stopped, closed the sefer Torah and said please bring me another one. The brought him another sefer Torah, he started again, got to the word Shalom and stopped. This was a shocking thing. They went through all the sefer Torahs and every one of them had this broken vav. They couldn’t finish leining. Unbeknownst to him, a sefer Torah with this vav that is corrected is posul. The fact that it is broken, gives us a certain sense of the broken nature of our peace, of the ratzon, of how the peace was saved. It was paved with tragedy, so to speak, instead of being bishleimut from the very beginning. With kiruv a person can actually repair all of those aveiras. Aveiras are turned into mitvas, as in the famous statement of the Yerushalmi in Hagiga, in the shoes of a baal teshuva, a gadol hador can’t stand. Did the gadol hador ever taste a bacon Doublecheese burger? Did he ever know what was going on in campus from the inside? He should never know such things. 40 years ago Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l said of the lewdness that he was hearing about, that they were cesspools of iniquity. That was 40 years ago when people wore suits to university and to school and greet their teachers, respect their elders, and back then the corrosion and the erosion of moral standards were at such level that they would lead the leaders of the generation – the thinkers, doers and shakers, who were educated in this environment. This led to the values that are coming out today. Every moment that they are shredded and torn to pieces for their previous behaviour, to the point where people say, what do you expect, everybody is like that, what do you want from the guy? That is the tragedy of a generation that does not respect its leaders, does not respect the wisdom of its elders, and there is a tiny remnant of people inspired by ethics and good values. But that tiny remnant can drive the rest of the generation. That is really what it means to be a light unto the nations. That through our good behaviour and impeccable management of all of one’s affairs, that it would be beyond one’s imagination to suspect that a gadol hador would behave in the way of so many of the secular leaders.

Then we have to explore further, what was it about Pinchas that made him Pinchas? He was a quiet person from the tribe of Aharon HaCohen. He didn’t get upset that he wasn’t a cohen, he didn’t create a Korach’s rebellion, saying, look Aaron is a Cohen and I am a Cohen, so what’s the difference, were all holy. He didn’t go out there crying for the fleshpots of Egypt, that we can be absolutely certain about. It causes terrible trauma and agony to see that the leaders of the generation paralysed by the behaviour of those who succumbed to have eaten from the fleshpots of Egypt, physically and figuratively. So, H describes what Pinchas did, that in fact saved the generation. He turned the wrath off Bnei Yisrael when he acted zealously for H’. We have to understand this on a much deeper level.

Sometimes when a great tzadim leaves this generation, it is a big tikkun. He atones for the sins of the generation. This is a very strange and frightening concept and something we have to tremble about. We say, we really need that Torah leader to lead what is left of the generations, healthy, H will lead like the captain of a ship saying off board. People don’t want the cold, waivy and stormy sea. In the depths of the hull, they feel as though they are on a luxury liner. They are behaving in a way that they think they are in the bahamas, and that it is alright to act as behemas (animals). So lets hope that in our generation, the tzadikim have atoned for this. They repair the darkness that comes across the world. I think we are living now, although it seems so quiet, in messianic times because I don’t think we’ve seen a world with such depravity and moral degradation, from the highest levels to the lowest levels. It requires the gedolei torah to put it right. The government have put in millions of dollars to quell the rights so that they don’t have to hear the words of Torah. We have to tremble at such times. We have to go out there to find whatever remnant are still willing to listen to the words of H’.

Pinchas had put an end to the devastating plague that had taken 24,000 lives and had taken retribution for the disintegration and epidemic of immorality that the Moabite and Midianite women. Instead of applauding him, his generation accused him of blatant murder. How could the grandson of somebody who fattened calves to be sacrificed to idols be the judge of other people. Isn’t it shocking? That the grandson of Aaron HaCohen, who had thrown the gold into the fire, had the gall to kill a prince of Israel. This is outrageous wickedness of unimagined proportions. Those people whose lives he saved, this was their gratitude. Clearly even after all the plagues and curses that the people brought upon themselves, sending spies against the will of H’ to check out the land, and to bring machlokes, destroying the faith of the generation, they still had lurking in their heart, further accusations, even though the magefa, plague, destroyed in a few seconds 24,000 of them. That they would turn around to the very same person who stopped the plague, and accuse him of being a murderer. It seems to outrageous to imagine. Can you imagine the emotion at that moment? Knowing that they were probably coming to finish him off. Pinchas’s father was married to the daughter of Yisro, the former Midianite priest, who was called Putiel, one who fattened for their god. H declared that far be it from murder, had Pinchas been motivated. He committed an act that had saved thousands of lives. Indeed H called him a descendant of Aaron. Now we have to explore, what was Aaron’s unique quality. Aaron is described in Pirkei Avos, accused of being a rodef. A rodef is a personally who vigorously, with all their might, pursues somebody else. There is a Torah mitzvah that if you see somebody chasing after somebody to put them to death, it is your commandment to put the first person to death before he puts the second one to death. After he has been put to death, you have to provoke in Beis Din – did you scream out to him, was there another witness that heard you say it, on condition that you be put to death, if you threaten to murder. Nobody is put to death. How could Aaron, one of the Gedolei Hador, be a rodef? When there was machlokes between members of the nation, it caused him immense agony. He went to one side and said, do you know how much your friend regrets what happened, he is crying in his heart. It takes very many years to build up a good name, but a second to destroy it. Then he would go to the other one and say, you know what your friend said, he really regrets it very much. So the bridges of harmony can be built. “What do you mean you didn’t give me the right change. What difference does it make. Our friendship is far more valuable. We’ve been friends for years”. So Aaron would be a rodef shalom. He pursued shalom to the end of the world. In a marital situation the wife would come to Aaron and he would say, I have heard from your husband that he absolutely regrets the way he behaved. The he said to the husband, your wife is full of remorse for what she said to you. They would meet and look at each other once again with an ayin tov. Rodef shalom is the lable, if anybody in history was rodef shalom, then he has the absolute right to be a rodef in that sense. When we contemplate a person acting in the name of their god, and murdering and shedding blood, you have to be absolutely sure this not a rodef shalom, this is a rodef after his own avoda zara. He is serving his own anger, his own hatred. His own lusting and craving. That is not avodas H, that is avoda zara. This is described in Sanhedrin 82b. Aaron HaCohen was made famous for his Bris Shalom, covenant of peace, not a covenant of death.

By acting on behalf of H, Pinchas had put an end to the plague which H brought to punish the devastating immorality. Had it not been for Pinchas, the plague would have consumed everyone. He saved the generation. Now we have to contemplate, why it was only people above the age of 20. This was the case for those under 20 too. Anyone not acting was bringing the generation to magefa, to plague. The word zealous implies anger that turns into vengeancejealousy (Rashi). Jealousy is a person’s reaction when they find that another has taken something that is rightfully his. H is jealous when Jews serve idols (r”l) because they transfer allegiance from H to something else. H doesn’t take such vengeance on any other nation, because in a way we are there to be a light unto them. Am Yisrael is like the bride. Imagine the bride, straight after the chuppa, starts looking at other men. What is the likelihood that this marriage is going to last? Or, if they start talking about previous relations, heaven forbid. “Do you know how much fun I had in Egypt? I loved Egypt. Such a fun kind of place”. Not remembering that her bride groom had rescued her from all the murderers who would have chopped her in tiny pieces and fed her to the crocodiles. Not being ungrateful but being outrageously wicked. What is the likelihood of such a bride lasting the test of time? Not terribly good. We see that Pinchas, the one loyal guard in the nation, acted in a way that only he could have to save the generation from itself, so to speak.

There ius a very interesting thing at the end fo the last parsha. The people of Israel began to do harlotry with the daughters of Moab. They invited them and led them to pray to their gods. This was all part of Bilam’s final solution. Once he had explored Israel from the peripheries, after having said mah tovu ohalechas, he realized that those people on the periphery are not so pure, not so resistant to immorality. So, they can bring on the nation tremendous catastrophe, by inviting other to sow their forbidden seed. In this area, if the people actually went into the tent of the Moabite woman, and began to have relations. What happened when the Midianite princess went into a tent with the Prince of Israel, this was an outrage of infinitely greater proportions. This wasn;t done over the hill, in a foreign place, that maybe people had heard about. No, this was done in the face of Moshe Rabbeinu, in the face of the leaders. It is described that the leaders were weeping. What was happening with the leaders at the time? Israel became attached to that avoda zara and H’s wrath flared up against Israel. H said take all the leaders and hang them before the people against the sun. Do you hear this? Take all the leaders, hang them, before the sun, and this will abate the situation before H’. the leaders were not doing their job. It was a catastrophic change. Moshe Rabbeinu was pure as always, but he heard about a great treasure. There is enough for everyone. Moshe said let each man kill his name, for the idolatry. “Behold an Israeli man came to a Midianite Princess…”. Pinchas was doing the right thing. Why were the Midianite woman punished? They were just like the Moabite women who were acting out of fear, they thought Israel would be like an ox that eats up all the grass around it. For the Midianite women, however, it was a matter of revenge, trying to destroy the Jewish nation. For that, they are forbidden to become a part of H’s nation at any time in the future.

He brought a Midianite woman in the sight of Moshe and all the leaders… You have to understand the pachad of this. That Moshe Rabbeinu prayed to H for one second, and korach and his team of 250 rebells were annihilated. Moshe Rabbeinu prayed to H’for each of the 10 plagues, when they started and when they stopped. This was Moshe Rabbeinu intimately involved with H in both aspects. That such a man could come forward after Moshe’s track record was absolutely an acted of such wickedness. It was a total challenge to Moshe Rabbeinu’s leadership, again, the leadership of the generation and, even worse than that, the ability to see H’s powers is lacking in some areas. It may be because the leaders are emotionally involved. Now h can’t deal with the situation. Does he slay the whole nation? Is it possible that the Creator, after the 10plagues, krias yam suf, Matan Tora, all these events that for a temporary lapse in sanity or for a person to act in an unbecoming way. Why not. 2 consenting adults, behind closed doors. A person might say, it doesn’t matter, that is OK, it doesn’t matter who or what. That is not in fact the case. This was the act of a generation who were empty and devoid of Torah values. Despite this, the Torah was ready to mikarev them.

In the meantime, the Midianite women came near to the tent, in the sight of Moshe and the assembly. They wept. The entrance to the tent of meeting at the Mishkan. The leaders were weeping. Why were they weeping, what is the problem? There is a wicked act going on that endangers not just the tent or the camp, but rather the whole generation. There may be nothing left of the whole generation. How could they be weeping? They were at a loss. Moshe, tradition has it, forgot the rule of one who publicly violates a Tora prohibition of cohabiting with a gentile. Knaim pogin bo, The zealous one is allowed to put him to death. Pinchas acted and was worthy of the blessing H gave to him. He reminded Moshe of the law, and Moshe said that as the one that read the note, Pinchas should be the one to carry it out. Pinchas was the one that remembered it all, he should be the one to act it out.

Alternatively, according to the Ibn Ezra, Moshe and the Elders davened that H should be compassionate in regard to the plague. They knew the plague was coming. They cried out to H, please stop the plague. It seemed H had commanded a certain commandment that they take the leaders, the people that had been involved in that act of wickedness, and that they had to be put to death. That was the way to stop the impending plague. Not to show mercy to the wicked at the expense of the righteous. We see this too often in history, if one shows mercy to the wicked, this devastates the righteous. H has his ways and ultimately, the wicked get their just desert. The tragedy is that sometimes the righteous get swept away with it.

It says about the Beis Hamikdash in the time of the destruction of the Beis hamikdash, Shabbos 55b described the situation of the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash. People were wading up to their chests in blood from all those that had been put to death. They were guilty of three cardinal sins, forbidden relations, idolatry and murder. Anybody that got in their way, as we saw in this Parsha, ran the risk of being murdered. They tried to create a democracy of one, where each person that thinks he is right considers himself to be a law unto himself. We see form this particular incident, it says in the Gemora, that when the generation came to be judged, H told the avenging angel that he should put a Tav on the forehead of the generation, a tav in red for those that had desecrated the Tora, through shfichus damim, giluy arayos and avoda zora, and for those that were righteous, a tav in black that represents Torah. They were the guardians of Torah. Those that had desecrated the Torah, their blood would be on their own head. They were worthy of being annihilated by the Angel of Death. At that moment, listen to what happened as described by the Gemoro, the prosecuting angel said why these and not those? Why just the wicked and not the righteous? H said that the righteous were righteous. The prosecuting angel said, they did not do enough to warn the wicked that what they were doing was truly wicked. Forbidden by Tora. H told the accusing Angel that had they gone out of their way to the end of the world with all their might, to warn them , to demonstrate and to plead, that what they were about to do would bring destruction and impending din, the wicked would absolutely not have heard. They would not have wanted to hear and they would have endangered the lives of the righteous. The accusing angel said to H, You know everything, said it, which is true, but the righteous did not know. They didn’t even bother to warn their brothers. Maybe one righteous person was caught up with the wicked just because he was on the wrong side of town. He was caught up in a bad crowd. Really lurking in his heart was ratzon H’. Maybve he would have done teshuva and through his teshuva it would be worthy to stop the whole world being destroyed, just because of one person. The Angel of Death said, go ahead and destroy everyone.

We have to understand, by doing acts of desecration of the torah, blatantly, one has to cry out, to stop the wickedness. Converselym if one knows absolutely the ratzon H in his own heart, and knows in the name of H that he is doing the ratzon H, H protects him, because he is not simply doing it out of popular anger at that moment. It is not that he simply pulls out his gun and shoots a person that is bothering him. Maybe by warning them off they would have done teshuva. Ultimately, teshuva is a tikun on everything in the world.

The leaders were paralysed. They were crying. If they just cried out in prayer, that was not good enough. They had to cry out to that generation, stop that evil immediately or you stand to perish. That was what was happening. There was a paralysis that struck the leadership. Moshe Rabbeinu had commanded him and they were paralysed. Why? Beause their own sons were involved. How could they warn their own sons of the penalty of death. They would perish if they didn’t do teshuva gemura. They feared maybe they wouldn’t. They would say, nobody can tell us what to do. The generation with the face of a dog, barking at their Torah leaders. Not interested in what anybody has to say. What are dogs saying to each other when they bark? One dog says to the other, you son of a dog. The other says, who do you think you are calling a son of a dog, you are a son of a dog. It could be they are saying something much more simple. They say woof. The other answers woof. It says I don’t like the tone of your voice. Woof woof. Once one dog starts barking, the neighbours dog starts barking, four dogs are barking and soon the whole neighbourhood, all the dogs are barking and nobody can put them to sleep. When am Yisrael left Egypt it is said that not one dog barked. What does this tell you? It was a supernatural event. On one level, Amalek is figuratively compared to the dog, for it says there Am Yisrael is compared to a journey in the desert. Am Yisrael are on their Father’s shoulders. They meet a stranger and say, has anybody seen my father. What has he done for me lately? With that, the father put him down, whereupon a huge dog came and bit him. What does he do? Cry out to his father.

The intrinsic aspect of avodas H’, and gratitude. Modim. Thank you H for allowing me to thank you. How can we thank H’? We cannot count the ways. From Mode Ani in the morning to Hamapil at night, and beyond that, at every second in between. Every second of our life is just pure chessed from H’. Nobody could stand in pure din before the kise hakavod. We can see that many tragedies are brought upon the world because of a lack of gratitude. For example birhcas hamazon – when a person is achalta vesavata. What was eisav’s behaviour – berachta – he got up and ran away leaving his birthright and heritage forever. Yaakovs children continue to thank H, keeping the d’oraisa mitzvah, not just for the food, but also for the good land, where we can keep all of torah. If the person does their avodas H in Jerusalem, he is guaranteed to be buried in the land.

We have one of 2 choices in our generation. Either we are going to rise up and build the beis hamikdash through our acts of chessed and mitzvos or we are going to perish in the sands of galus, building the pyramids of the pharaohs.

We see later that this prince o Israel and the midianite woman are described by name, Kozbi Bas Tzur, the head of a leading house in Midian, and Zimri, the head of a father’s house in Shimon. They had tremendous yihud. Yihud is like a lot of nouights on a cheque. It all depends on the one in front. Without him, it is nothing.

H’ spoke to Moshe saying, harass the Midianites, \destroy them, for they harassed you, they conspired against you in the manner of Peor, in the matter of Kozbi, who was slain on the day of the plague.

From this brave act Pinchas acquired what seemed rightfully his but was was in fact not. Even though he was living at the time of the anointment of the Cohanim, he was not included. He remained a Levi up to his time. With his Zealousness, he became a Cohen and was promised that the Cohen Gadol would descend from him. Sanhedrin 82 explains that although Zimri was a tribal leader, and Kozbi the daughter of a Prince, it didn’t stop him. This shows the hatred of Midian, that they were prepared to expend the daughters of the Price, just to cause Israel to be cursed. Not unlike the missionary women who hunt after Jewish men today. They marry them just to destroy them. They are bringing holocaust to the world. How many gentiles perished in the Shoah? I have heard 50 million. We can’t comprehend those numbers. The world went to war to say work sets you free.

A person who is not a drug addict sees cocaine as talcum powder. To a non smoker a cigarette is disgusting. If he sees them lying in the street, they look like garbage which could be a stumbling block and should be destroyed, crushed and thrown in the garbage. If a medical expert who is single diagnoses a patient – a beautiful single woman, with the aids virus, and she behaves in a way inviting him to be with her, what does that doctor do? Does he have a temporary period of insanity? Does he think he is above the virus. After a few moments of pleasure, he would be diagnosed with the virus. The way to approach this is to make people aware that what they think is a tempting pleasure is actually a date with the Angel of Death. Like a blind date with a serial murderer. A woman of this sort is a threat to the very existence of the generation. In the case of the Midianite, we insinuated that their immoral behaviour and their idolatry, which enabled them to penetrate the peripheral tent of Israel, reaped such destruction that it was threatening the whole camp of Israel. Now Zimri had brought this Midianite Kozbi into the tent in the face of Moshe Rabbeinu and the leaders and there was emotional paralysis, because their own sons stood accused. An infinitely greater response was neeed. The Midianites were hateful and trying to destroy Am Yisrael, through a sort of Trojan horse. Hence the prohibition against Midianites and the constant state of warfare, thatdid not apply to Moab, that until we know exactly who is Amalek, or Midian, it is forbidden to go out and relate to somebody who has that characteristic behaviour.

Cetainly, it is well within our own ability to guard our own behaviour, and to rise up to any challenge we see in our generation, and if we feel the overwhelming urge to be a Pinchas in our generation, let it be. We should be a Pinchas, and we have to be a Pnchas, but let it be only on our own Yetzer Hora, let us rise up and slay our own behaviour where we crave after the flesh pots of Egypt, where we see a beautiful woman and think to ourselves, would we want to perish because of that? Would we want to bring a curse on all of Israel for a moments pleasure. Would we want this nation to have an evil name? To desecrate the name of H by behaving in such a way, instead of behaving like a brocho, behaving like a behema (animal). And would we want that we could potentially bring destruction on our generation.

We have it within our grasp, every one of us to make a difference. One by one H counts us on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. One by one we can save our brothers. By just saving one Jew in the coming year, we can in fact save the world. If every Jew made it a condition to save one fellow Jew, to be a Pinchas of Ahava, a rodef Shalom, we could into Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur, infinitely refortified, infinitely better, having saved the generation, having saved the name of H’ and having saved our own lives from Eternal destruction.

May I wish you, your families, the whole nation and every righteous gentile, that we should merit soon, geula shleima, moshiach tzidkeinu, the beis Hamikdash Bimheira Veyameinu, ve Shabbat Shalom LKol Am Yisrael.