parshat Pinchas

Since Parshas Pinchas includes all the maftir readings of the holidays, and also the reading of Rosh Chodesh…

To preserve tradition and at the same time defend those others condemn is the difficult, necessary task of religious leadership in an unreligious age.

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?

An artist may be able to create without knowing how to teach others how to create. That doesn't make him less of an artist. But even if an artist is not a great teacher, given a pupil of spirit, that pupil will flourish with very little instruction. Yehoshua's was like the Moon. Because he was 'a man of spirit', he shone from the inspiration of his teacher Moshe.

A harsh conflict, which reached its apex with the sale of Yosef, split the family of Yaakov. Between the two leaders of their respective mothers’ parts of the family, Yehuda and Yosef.

At times and as proven by Pinchas, an act of violence or war is justified and necessary, to make peace. If the Allied Forces had not intervened and declared war against Nazi Germany and Japan, can anyone imagine our lives today, if at all we would have survived?

There are those amongst us who abhor violence at all costs, in all circumstances. Apparently, these murmurings against Pinchas,were so strong that the Lord had to "intervene" to defend Pinchas and highlight the justification and necessity of his act.