Pinchas: 5782 - Due to a family celebration: the weekly insight given each week by Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld in Rabbi Tzali Mizrachi's class in Nachlah was filmed this week at the Kinar Hotel on the shores of…

00:05 Change your place, change your fortune. So, today we’re broadcasting from a different place because of a very happy occasion. The weekly parsha: “Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aharon the Kohen.” The Rebbe has a wonderful explanation of the first Rashi in the parsha. Rashi asks: Why does the Torah repeat Pinchas’s lineage? Just a few verses earlier, at the end of Parshas Balak, we already read that he was Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aharon the Kohen. Why say it again? Rashi explains: Because the tribes were disparaging him. “Have you seen this son of Puti, whose maternal grandfather fattened calves for idol worship, and he killed a prince of a tribe of Israel?” So the Torah came and traced his lineage to Aharon, who loved peace and pursued peace. In the Rebbe’s wonderful explanation, the question is: What were they disparaging him for? Either way: If what he did was wrong—if it was forbidden—they should have disparaged him for violating “You shall not murder.” If it was right, what grounds did they have to belittle or condemn him? So what’s going on here? Clearly, they agreed with what he did, because they too knew the halachah that when someone has relations with a non-Jewish woman, zealots may strike him. So he acted according to the Torah, according to halachah. The tribes’ claim was that his act wasn’t purely for the sake of Heaven. There were other motives driving him to do something so cruel. What were they? The cruel nature he had inherited from his grandfather. His grandfather was Yisro, who used to fatten calves for idol worship. The Rebbe points out that Rashi specifies his maternal grandfather, which is why that trait would have passed on to him in particular. It was one of the motives behind his cruel act. It wasn’t purely for its own sake, for the sake of Heaven, out of zeal for Hashem; there were other motives too. So the Torah—Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who sees into the heart—

02:50 is the one who comes and says: No. What he did truly was purely for the sake of Heaven. He was zealous for Hashem, because Pinchas himself was the son of Elazar, son of Aharon, who loved peace and pursued peace. What do we learn from this? When a person is zealous for Hashem, we need to examine it. In other words, the tribes had a reasonable claim. They said that his act also involved something personal, a negative, cruel trait of his own. It wasn’t purely for Hashem. And the question arises—so, there is logic to their claim. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who sees into the heart, can know whether it truly was for its own sake, for the sake of Heaven, or not. And the verse does trace his lineage, showing that his zeal truly was purely for Hashem. Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aharon, loved peace and pursued peace by nature. So when we study this, we learn that when a person is seized by zeal for Hashem, holy zeal, we need to look very carefully at where that zeal comes from. Is it really for the sake of Heaven? Is he zealous for Hashem, or are there other motives rooted in his nature? Perhaps he has a bad nature, a negative nature, a cruel nature. What is the test we can use to examine this? Say we see someone who shouts out of zeal for Hashem. If someone so much as opens his mouth in shul, he yells, “You’re not allowed to talk!” Where does that come from? There’s a simple test: How does he behave in everyday life? Does he act with Ahavas Yisroel? Does he help others? Where do we usually find him? If his character is generally good and he always likes to help and assist another Jew, then when we see him being zealous for Hashem,

05:14 it’s because this truly matters to him; it touches his soul, and he is zealous for Hashem. But if we see that in everyday life he always has complaints about everything and always has something negative to say about someone else, then perhaps this doesn’t come from zeal for Hashem, but from his character. As the rabbi of Jerusalem once said, zealotry is not a method. There is no such method as zealotry. Zeal is when a person sees something that touches on what he believes and everything he does, and he is seized by zeal because it touches the very essence of his soul, and he is zealous for Hashem. But there is no such thing as being a zealot as a method, being systematically zealous. There is no such thing. So to check whether it is genuine—whether it really comes from zeal or from a personal motive—we need to look at how he generally behaves in everyday life. Does he act with Ahavas Yisroel, or is he that way in other matters too?