Machshavot HaLev - Yeshivat Lev HaTorah

194
Pinchas
Pinchas: A Radical Act of Obedience
Rav Asher Friedman
P inchas’ stunning act of violent protest at Kozby and Zimri’s public immorality is
rewarded at the beginning of our parasha. “I hereby grant you My covenant of peace,”
God proclaims (25:12). Originally outside the lineage of the kohanim, Pinchas is
reassigned and receives a share of the priestly duties.
On the one hand, the justice of this reward is clear. In a moment of crisis, as all
structures of spiritual commitment and morality in the Jewish camp crumbled, and
as God’s punishment, the plague, reared its terrifying head, Pinchas stepped into the
breach and in one brief act put an end to the chaos. Of course his moral clarity and
courage deserve reward.
But from another perspective, Pinchas’ act and its subsequent reward are deeply
troubling. Both the pesukim and the elaboration on the part of Chazal indicate that
his act was not required or perhaps even fully permitted by the normal rubric of
halacha. Normally, a person committing a consensual act of sexual immorality is
brought to trial and only then punished. Pinchas’ violence was an expression of the
halachic concept of kana’in pogin bo, which by definition involves an act outside the
jurisdiction of law. Rashi explains that in a situation of public betrayal of God like that
of Kozby and Zimri, if one asks a court for permission to stop them with violence, the
court may not permit it. But if one acts out of a passionate desire to defend the honor
of God, without asking for halachic permission, it is viewed as an act of greatness.
In other words, in the case of kana’in pogin bo, the validity of the act depends on the