After lauding Pinchas for his courageous actions that we read about at the end of last weeks' parsha, the Torah tells us about the victims: "V'shem Yisrael ha'MUKEH... v'shem ha'isha ha'MUKAH" -- the man who was killed, the woman who was killed. Why the passive voice? Why not say the man who Pinchas killed...?
The Zohar answers that es pas nisht for a kohen to kill someone. In last week's parsha, Pinchas was not yet a kohen, so the Torah celebrated his actions. Now that Hashem gave Pinchas the reward of kehuna, the Torah conceals those very same actions since they are not befitting someone who is a kohen.
What the Zohar is teaching us is that actions are transformative. When you do a mitzvah, you become a different person. "Mitzvah gorreres mitzvah" because after you do the first good deed, you are on a higher level, a therefore more good needs to follow. By the same token, actions that may have been appropriate -- even praiseworthy -- earlier in time, may now seem small and tainted after a person grows. Think of it this way: what your teacher gave you praises for in elementary school is expected, not celebrated, once you mature. Pinchas' great act of mesirus nefesh in last weeks' parsha made him into a different person, and based on the standards of who he is now, in Parshas Pinchas, the Torah conceals that same deed because it no longer measures up to the expectations for the new Pinchas.
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Related to that "pas nisht" for kohanim to kill.... David kills, milkhemes mitzvah even, and that disqualifies him from building bayis rishon. Hashem takes that כִּ֧י חַרְבְּךָ֛ הֵנַ֥פְתָּ עָלֶ֖יהָ וַתְּחַֽלְלֶֽהָ׃ thing very seriously.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, why then is Pinechas eligible for becoming an kohein? And it's not like geirus, where we'd say כקטן שנולד דמי, because he's still פינחס בן אלעזר in sefer Yehoshua, in Shofetim, and in Divrei haYamim.
(BTW, the sheva is na, as it comes after a chiriq malei. "פנחס" without the yud is the son of Eli. Shemuel 1:1:3. So, "Pinechas ben Elazar", but "Pinchas ben Eili".)
The Zohar says that is the chiddush of Pinchas -- through his kanau'us he is zocheh to what ordinarily should have been off limits.
ReplyDeletehttps://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=53704&st=&pgnum=8
It is not at all clear that David was denied the right to build the mikdash because of blood he spilled in milchemes mitzvah. See Radak to Divrei haYamim I 32:8 and Shu"T Yechaveh Daat 2:14.
unbecoming that a kohen kill?
ReplyDeletea kohen who kills in war may yet ascend the duchan.
is his past act something to conceal?
what of skull-piercing kohanim (third mishnah of Sanhedrin 81b)?
is that activity also hush-hush?
but this: it is unbecoming for a kohen to kill righteously, zealously, even for national atonement, with a stolen spear-- Pinchas took >a< spear, not >his< spear, in hand*...
*Pinchas took >a< spear from among >his< spears? then let the text read 'from among his spears' or 'took one of his spears', like 'his sword' (Shemos 32:27, cha'r'bo).
took up >a< hefker spear, as in 'we are mingled, we are at peace, with these peoples; cast off your weapons'?
{what would the Chachamim who denounce weaponry, Shabbos 63a, say of klei ha'kodesh or trumpets borne by the kohen anointed for war (31:6)?}