Righteous Zeal? - Pinchas 5785
Is it good to be a zealot? From a superficial reading of the story of Pinchas it would seem so. Let’s recap the story that we read at the end of the Parsha last week. Many of the Jewish men had succumbed to Bilaam’s vicious and disgusting plot. “Their G-d hates promiscuity,” Bilaam told Balak. So, he said, have your women seduce them, and that will bring them the destruction that I could not accomplish by cursing them. The plot succeeded, and many Jewish men, primarily from the tribe of Shimon, went with the Moabite and Midianite women, leading them also to worship the Baal. A plague started and many died. When the prince of the tribe of Shimon, Zimri, brazenly and publicly brought a Midianite woman to his tent, Pinchas went after them with a spear and killed them both. What was Hashem’s reaction? “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Pinchas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the kohen has turned My anger away from the children of Isr...