פרשת פנחס
This week’s Parsha opens by recounting the heroic act Pinchas perpetrated by executing Zimri and Cosbi in their act of rebellion against Hashem. The Gemorah recounts that twelve miracles occurred for Pinchas when he zealously defended Hashem’s honor, and the plague which had befallen the Jews because of their illicit activities and which was also halted in his merit. There is a strange verse right at the beginning of the Parsha which seems to trace Pinchas’s lineage all the way back to his grandfather Aharon with no apparent context. Rashi comments on this anomaly and explains that the tribes were all whispering to each other about how Pinchas’s actions were inappropriate. They knew that Pinchas’s maternal grandfather was Yisro, and that he served fattened livestock to many different deities, and all of a sudden, little mister indignation considers himself to be so self-righteous that he has the audacity to go and kill one of our princes! So Rashi concludes that the Torah went out of its way to trace Pinchas’s lineage back to Aharon Hakohen in order to show that while it is true that Pinchas came from Yisro, Hashem agreed with his actions and wanted to defend his honor by placing the accent on the prestige of his paternal grandfather instead of his maternal one.
However, R’ Chazkal Levinstein is extremely bothered by this Rashi. Pinchas just had twelve miracles performed for him in front of the Jewish nation. He single-handedly stabbed two human beings with a spear, and was able to lift them in the air and walk around the entire camp with their bodies, which anyone who has ever wielded a spear can tell you, requires superhuman strength. Furthermore, he stopped the plague and saved countless Jewish lives. If the Jews had all witnessed these incredible events, how could they have possibly still doubted Pinchas’s integrity? It seems like such a cheap shot to take by insulting him based on his maternal lineage after having Hashem Himself virtually applaud everything Pinchas did and stood for! R’ Chazkal explains that this particular law in Judaism, that a person who has relations with a non-Jewish woman must be immediately executed, is a very boutique law which is only applicable under unique circumstances. If all the prerequisites aren’t met, then this law cannot be implemented. One of the conditions to apply this law is that the person doing the executing must be a zealot in that his sole intention must be to defend Hashem’s honor. So Pinchas’s Jewish brethren were not merely attacking him with a low blow by reminding him of his flawed lineage, but rather were incredulous in their belief that somebody who descended from Yisro, who had fattened animals as offerings to idols, could possibly have been so altruistic that there wasn’t even a slight remnant of negativity involved with his action which was inherited from his grandfather Yisro. Along that vein, Hashem protected Pinchas’s honor by testifying in the Chumash itself to the integrity of his intentions.
R’ Chazkal draws a fascinating Mussar point from this Chazal. We find that when a person commits a sin, the negative tendencies and habits that are generated from that sin on a person are so lasting, that the Jewish people couldn’t fathom how Pinchas, two generations later, was unaffected by his grandfather’s mistakes. Since we all have at least some negative tendencies, whether inherited from our ancestors, or because we have habituated ourselves to negative behavior, it is incumbent upon us to constantly be checking ourselves and ensuring that these predispositions do not spread further, by trying to uproot them at their source. R’ Chazkal goes on to say that this is even more true if our poor character traits have begun to bear fruit. If our sins remain in thought alone, it is a little easier to undo their negative effect, but if on the other hand we have already expressed them in our actions, and incorporated these insidious thoughts into our lives, what was once a mere propensity toward evil becomes solidified and thus much more difficult to undo. Very often, we may not even be aware that this dormant evil exists yet it is festering quietly, undetected inside our hearts, awaiting an opportune time to explode. How easy would it have been for Pinchas to have a minute amount of ego in his action of zealousness, thinking about the personal honor he would get for acting so courageously, or a slight feeling of blood lust at the opportunity to act barbarically and yet be sanctioned by the Torah. These thoughts could have easily penetrated Pinchas’s heart, like a fly waiting to enter at the entrance to a house, and could so easily be present in our own hearts if we are not on constant vigil to obliterate any unacceptable thoughts and actions from our repertoire at their very inception.
The Mesilas Yesharim talks in great detail about examining one’s actions, (פשפוש) and then fine tuning them (משמוש). He explains that in the former, we are called upon by the Torah to make sure that our actions are free from any level of sin, but in the latter, we are required to ensure that even the root of any sin is removed completely from our consciousness. There must be absolutely nothing left, and the only way to do this is with constant effort. R’ Yisrael Salanter used to explain to all his students that to uproot one poor character trait at its origin is more challenging than to complete the whole of Shas. We all know how long it would take us to do that, so we can only imagine the herculean effort necessary in changing one trait, but this is what Hashem expects from us, and we therefore are required, and indeed privileged to put in that effort.
R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz would offer a practical piece of advice in going about this monumental task. He would say that the only way to remove such powerful impetuses, such as seeking honor and pleasure, at their root, is to overpower those desires with our love for Hashem. He would illustrate this with the famous Gemorah of R’ Elazar Ben Durdaya. The Gemorah (Avodah Zarah 17) relates that R’ Elazar was an infamous lecher who had relations with every single known prostitute living in his times. He would actively seek them out and spend all his time and resources pursuing women. One time, when he was with a very prominent lady, she inadvertently passed gas, which was very uncharacteristic for someone in her social class. She remarked that just as she could never retract what had just happened, R’ Elazar could never return to Hashem. When R’ Elazar heard this, something about it touched his heart, and he beseeched many heavenly bodies to intercede on his behalf in order to help him repent, but to no avail. When he realized that nobody was going to help him, R’ Elazar put his head between his knees, and began to weep copiously until his soul left his body. A voice came out from the sky and welcomed Rabbi Elazar Ben Durdaya to Heaven. R’ Chaim asked, why couldn’t he just repent? He explained that certainly R’ Elazar could have atoned for the acts he committed, but to remove the effect his actions had on his future tendencies such that he would reach a stage in which he would never even consider illicit relations again, that he believed he would never succeed in doing, and this was the cause for his despair. In the end, since his love for Hashem was so genuine and powerful, it overcame the difficulties involved with deracinating a bad trait at its root, and he became so close with Hashem that he no longer was able to exist in a physical body. The message for us is clear. To remove the effects of a sin at its root is incredibly difficult, and we need to spend a lifetime constantly involved with it if we hope to succeed.
May we all merit to love Hashem wholly and remove all remnants of evil from our hearts!