by Rav Yosef Naveh, translated by Hillel Fendel
The main story in this week's Torah portion is how G-d blessed Pinhas for stabbing to death two public sinners, in his zeal to protect G-d's name from desecration. This blessing is particularly noteworthy, for the Torah specifically mentions that Pinhas was the grandson of man-of-peace par excellence Aharon HaKohen. Do peace and zeal truly come together?
We read in Tehillim 97,10: "Lovers of G-d: hate evil." This verse can be understood as referring to Pinhas, who was filled with such love of G-d and truth that he could not tolerate any evil. He was therefore the singularly suitable person to carry out this deed of zealousness – for he did everything out of love of G-d.
The Torah introduces Pinhas as "the son of Elazar, son of Aharon the Priest." The Sages say that the Torah purposely noted Aharon's name as forebear of Pinhas – showing that this zealous deed was done not out of anger and resentment, but only out of love, as befitting a descendant of Aharon, "lover of people, who brings them close to Torah" and full of love of G-d.
And so, not only does Pinhas fulfill the words from Tehillim above, but also their continuation in the same verse: "He [G-d] watches the souls of His pious ones," in that several miracles were wrought for Pinhas.
Love of G-d is a prerequisite for success in blotting out evil, as the holy S'fat Emet writes: "The fulfillment of the mitzvah of blotting out and totally hating Amalek is dependent on the love and cleaving of Israel to the blessed Creator."
The Torah tells us that Amalek "attacked Israel in Refidim." The Sages teach that this place-name alludes to Israel's rifyon, weakness in Torah. Amalek identifies feebleness within Israel – and knows to come right then and attack. It is specifically when Israel does not believe in themselves and their greatness and their inherent goodness and purity and holiness of will – that an opening for Amalek is opened.
In the verse that precedes Amalek's military offensive, we read that the Israelites had expressed doubts about G-d: "Is G-d in our midst, or not?" And when there are doubts, this is where Amalek enters the picture. It is known that the letters of Amalek in gematriya (numerology) are equal to those of safek, doubt; i.e., when I am not sure of myself, of who and what I am, and whether I am good and have value or not. But as soon as I recognize that G-d loves me and wants me as I am, and that I live my life in connectedness with my essence and selfhood and to the love of G-d that burns within me and fills my core, this leaves no room for the Evil Inclination to enter.
We remember the story of Joseph and his brothers, who threw him into a deep pit. The Torah states, "The pit was empty; it had no water," and the Sages deduce a critically important fundamental in the service of G-d: "It had no water, but it had snakes and scorpions." Meaning, there is no middle ground! Either you are connected to the fresh water spring bubbling within you – or you find yourself bitten and stung by the snakes and scorpions of wicked passions.
The evil inclination does not work only by implanting thoughts of evil within us. It sometimes activates a feeling of false modesty within us – "I am weak, I have no will or for what to strive" – and this is a denial of the Divine spark within us. By denying our pure Divine soul and spiritual desire rooted in upper worlds, we fall into negative thought patterns, which lead us to sin. One who wishes to succeed in his service of Gd, must have the opposite traits: "pride and arrogance of holiness." As is written about the righteous King Yehoshafat: "His heart was raised up in G-d's ways" – if you do not believe in the strengths with which G-d gifted you, you will quickly find yourself in very low and debased places, Heaven forbid.
Be a king! Control and responsibility are in your hands; choose what is good for you and that which belongs to you! This is not arrogance and coarseness, but rather your inner truth and commitment to your "Divine spark within you." Do not let the Evil Inclination frighten and weaken you, do not allow it to make you his slave. Believe in yourself and your strength! Believe in your power and kingdom! In the words of R. Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin: "Just as a person should believe in G-d, so too he should later believe in himself."
The Middle Ages Torah commentator Rabbeinu Bachye writes that Pinhas was a 7th-generation descendant of Yaakov Avinu, and therefore he was considered as symbolizing the Sabbath. What can this mean to us on a practical level? R. Avraham Shorr explains, in his work Lekach V'haLibuv:
On the holy Sabbath day, a Jew becomes filled with love of G-d – via which he reaches the highest level of revulsion of evil. And when a person hates badness, it runs away from him. We therefore find that on the Sabbath, we merit that the Sitra Achra, the Kabbalistic "Other Side," runs away from us, as we say in the pre-Sabbath liturgy – for we are then raised up to the level of lovers of G-d "with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our essence" (based on the famous Kriat Sh'ma words of Deut. 6,5).
The Sabbath is the source of our love for G-d, as we see in this sparkling innovative gematryia thought by R. Tzvi Hirsch of Ziditchev: The Hebrew for "love with all heart, love with all soul, love with all essence" is equal to the gematriya of "Sabbath."
"אהבה בכל לב אהבה בכל נפש אהבה בכל מאד" = "שבת"
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