kana'us for the sake of love

Rashi writes that the Torah spells out Pinchas' yichus because the shevatim criticized him saying, "How dare a descendent of Yisro, someone who fattened sheep to offer as sacrifices to idols, kill a prince of a sheivet!" The Torah therefore links Pinchas to his grandfather Aharon.  

Taz asks: either Pinchas was justified in killing Zimri because kanaim pogim bo or he wasn't; either way, his yichus has no bearing on the issue.  Secondly, reminding us that Pinchas was a descendent of Aharon, which surely everyone knew, does not take away from the fact that he was also descendent from an oveid avodah zarah.  

We've discussed this before, but I wanted to add another twist this year.  R' Tzvi Yehudah Kook explains that there was never a question that the din of kanaim pogim bo justifies killing even the leader of a sheivet.  The issue the shevatim had was the question of motivation.  When there is a cost involved -- loss of life or otherwise -- proper intentions matter.  For example, there are shitos that hold yibum must be done lishma because by definition, there is a conflict between the mitzvah and the issur kareis of eishas ach.  It's the intent and motivation of the mi'yabeim which transforms the act from an issur into a kiyum mitzvah.  Similarly, Ramban in parshas Lech Lecha asks why it is the Egyptians were punished for enslaving Bnei Yisrael when they were just fulfilling the prophecy given to Avraham that his children would be slaves for 400 years.  One of Ramban's  answers is that the Egyptians were punished because they were lacking the right intentions; their motivation was she'lo lishma.  Enslaving a people, with all the negative consequences that go along with that, is something that can only be done for the right reasons.  When Shaul failed to eradicate Amalek, the navi Shmuel tells him (Sh I ch 15) that he was guilty of turning away from Hashem and making Hashem's words disgusting.  Shaul may have failed to finish the job, but how was he guilty because of that of "turning away from Hashem?"  The Chofetz Chaim explains that by substituting his own thinking regarding who to kill and what to eradicate, Shaul proved that he was acting on his own initiative, not purely lishma to carry out the dvar Hashem.  That amounts to murder, not the fulfillment of nevuah.  Here too, even if Zimri deserved to be killed, the shevatim questioned whether Pinchas did so with the right motivation.  Could this descendent of an idolator kill, someone purely lishma, or perhaps there was a little bit of bloodthirst in his genes that led him to act?  By linking Pinchas to Aharon, the great oheiv shalom v'rodef shalom, the Torah gives a stamp of purity to Pinchas' actions.

The pasuk in Tehillim (106:30)  וַיַּעֲמֹ֣ד פִּֽ֭ינְחָס וַיְפַלֵּ֑ל וַ֝תֵּעָצַ֗ר הַמַּגֵּפָֽה tells us that that Pinchas davened (Targum of יְפַלֵּ֑ל is וְצַלֵי, though the derash [Sanhedrin 44] reads it differently) and brought the mageifa to and end.  The gemara (Eiruvin 65a) writes that R' Chanina would not daven on a day when he got angry . רַבִּי חֲנִינָא בְּיוֹמָא דְּרָתַח לָא מְצַלֵּי, אָמַר: ״בְּצָר אַל יוֹרֶה״ כְּתִיב.  How then, asks the Pnei Menchem, was Pinchas able to daven at this moment of kana'us and passion when he killed Zimri?!  

Al korchacha, Pinchas did not act out of anger.  Pinchas ben Elazar ben Aharon the oheiv shalom v'rodef shalom, acted lishma, out of love -- love for Bnei Yisrael, who were suffering a mageifa.  That is the only motivation that can justify kana'us.