Parshas Pinchas
Why does the Torah mention Aharon when introducing Pinchas (Bamidbar 25:10)? The usual way of naming a person is “so and so, the son of so and so,” not the grandson of so and so.
In taking the law into his own hands and killing Zimri, who publicly engaged in an illicit relationship with Kozbi the Midianite princess, Pinchas seemingly strayed from the trail that Aharon had blazed before him.
Aharon was all about loving his fellow Jews and persuading them to toe the line with words of kindness and peace (Avos 1:12). From the very beginning what made Aharon happy was making other people happy. Even when his younger brother took away the leadership from him, we are told that he was happy for his brother in his heart (Shemos 4:14). That is the type of person that a kohen should be, a lover of peace. The priestly blessing is about G-d bestowing peace on Israel (6:26). But here Pinchas killed to get his message across.
Where is the peace in killing?
The answer is that Pinchas did indeed do what Aharon had done before him. Like Aharon who stopped the plague in the days of Korach (17:12), Pinchas, took decisive action, stopping the plague that broke out after the Israelites began having relations with the daughters of Midian, a plague which had already claimed the lives of 24,000 Jews by the time Pinchas came on the scene and put an end to it by killing Zimri and Kosbi.
The job of a kohen is to appease G-d’s anger, mostly through the bringing of korbanot, but sometimes, when necessary, by killing the person whose conduct endangers the lives of others. That is why the Torah mentions that he was the grandson of Aharon, because his deadly action was motivated by the love of the people of Israel, whose lives he saved in the hundreds of thousands, even though it meant the killing of one man and one woman.
But such extreme actions leave a bitter taste behind and are not pleasing to G-d, who prefers persuasive talk over violent action. That is why the name Pinchas is written with a small letter yud. The letter yud, which has the numerical value of ten, symbolizes the Ten Commandments, one of which is “Thou shall not kill.” By killing, even under such necessary circumstances, Pinchas weakened and diminished the potency of the sixth commandment. Now that somebody killed in public, there was a danger that others would also justify murder by claiming mitigating circumstances.
Because of the inevitable resentment of the surviving friends and family that killing, even for peace, brings in its wake, Pinchas was given the covenant of peace. And because a kohen who has murdered is disqualified from serving in the Temple, G-d promised Pinchas that the kehunah would never be taken away from him or his descendants. Indeed, Yechezkel prophesied (Yechezkel 44:15) that in the future, only the kohanim who descend from Zadok, a descendant of Pinchas, would be allowed to conduct the Temple service and the kehunah will never be taken away from them.
It was only after the slaying of the two perpetrators that the Torah tells us their identities and pedigrees, namely, Zimri, the head of the tribe of Shimon, and Kozbi, the daughter of Tzur, who was one of the leaders of Midian (Bamidbar 25:14). At the time of the slaying itself, they were referred to anonymously as the man and the woman (25:8). Chazal tell us that all the men of the tribe of Shimon wanted to kill Pinchas for what he did. And the Midianites wanted to kill Pinchas too, because the woman he killed was a Midianite princess. Of course, Pinchas knew who his intended victims were and understood the risks of what he was about to do. But for him, it didn’t matter. They remained anonymous. The law does not discriminate between celebrities and ordinary people. Nobody is above the law. Pinchas was prepared to sacrifice his own life at the hands of the mighty Shimonites and the powerful Midianites to do the right thing. By revealing the names of the victims only after the act, the Torah demonstrates Pinchas’s sincerity in putting his own life on the line, thereby rebutting the cynical claims of his detractors that he killed Zimri and Kozbi because he was a bloodthirsty man (Rashi to 25:11).
After Moshe is told by G-d that he will die in the desert and will not lead the people of Israel into the land, he asks G-d to appoint a successor “who will go out before the people and go in before them, who shall take them out and bring them in” (27:17). Here we see two types of leadership. Going out before the people and going in before them is one type of leadership. It is the leadership of the humble public servant who bends before the needs of his people.
Taking the people out and bringing them in denotes a more authoritarian leadership that enforces the rule of law. It’s not easy for a leader to know when to do the bidding of the people and when to stand up to them. The person who instinctively knew that was Yehoshua Bin Nun. The word “Bin” is unusual. A person’s name usually has the word “Ben” in it, not “Bin.” “Ben” means that a person is the son of his father. “Bin” means something else. It comes from the word “lehavin,” which means to understand. Yehoshua understood the meaning of the two “nuns” in his name, “Bin Nun.” One was a bent “nun,” which symbolizes flexibility and humility. A leader must sometimes bow his head to the will of the people and be their humble servant by anticipating their needs and ruling with kindness. Sometimes, however, he must enforce his will on the people and he should not be afraid to do so when circumstances require it. The “nun” at the end of the name Bin Nun is a final “nun” which stands up for itself. Yehoshua understood when to keep the gloves on and when to take them off.
What follows G-d’s announcement to Moshe that he would die in the desert and not be allowed to enter Israel (27:12) is the chapter of Korbanot (28:1). What is the connection between Moshe’s impending death and the korbanot? Like Avraham before him, Moshe was worried that the Jews who would enter the land of Israel after his death would sin and thereby lose the land. Avraham was concerned about this too and asked G-d the same question, “How do I know that they will keep the land?” (Bereishis 15:8). The answer G-d gave Avraham was embedded in the Bris Bein Habesarim. If the Jews would bring korbanot as G-d commanded Avraham to do, their sins would always be forgiven, and they would keep the land. Moshe too wanted to make sure that the Jews would continue the practice of bringing korbanot after his death once they would enter the land of Israel, so that their hold on the land would be guaranteed.
