Protection for Pinchas
The sidra is named after its main character. Pinchas, the priest who took the law into ns own hands to punish Israelites whom he saw brazenly committing acts of immorality.
Pinchas was radically different from his grandfather Aaron. Aaron, says the Perek, “loved peace and pursued peace”. For the sake of peace he was prepared to overlook provocation and resort to compromise. But not Pinchas. He had no patience at all for evil. When he could no longer bear an unacceptable act. he “rose up and took a spear in his hand”.
This is not how a kohen normally acted. God, however. could not bring Himself to punish Pinchas. Because Pinchas “averted My anger from the Children of Israel”, says the Almighty, he and his descendants would be kohanim for ever, and he would receive from God briti shalom, “My covenant of peace”. It appears that though violence is normally wrong, there are times when God allows and approves it.
But the commentaries do not entirely go along with this interpretation. They focus on the phrase, “My covenant of peace”. Abravanel says God promised Pinchas peace in the sense of protection – against the vengeful relatives of those he killed.
The Talmud believes Pinchas needed to be protected from Moses, Aaron and the Sanhedrin, who wanted him to be punished for by-passing the legal system and taking the law into his own hands.
The Ha’amek Davar offers a third, quite amazing suggestion, that Pinchas needed to be protected against himself perhaps because once having killed once he might do it again… or because as a sensitive person he might begin to loathe himself and make himself into an outcast.
All three views emphasise that violence undermines the whole stability of society and does harm not only to the victims but to the perpetrator him or herself, and that there are legal, democratic means of registering a protest or demonstrating against evil.
