20 Tammuz 5784
Erev Shabbat Kodesh
Parashat Pinchas
Excerpted from "Parashat Pinchas: Peace Through Vengeance" by Rabbi Meir Kahane as compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner.
...Since G-d leaves it to good men to further the cause of goodness, after Pinchas took G-d's revenge against Zimri ben Salu and Kozbi bat Tzur, Moses appointed Pinchas leader when he sent G-d's hosts to take His revenge against the Midianites (Num. 31:6):
“Moses sent forth the thousand men from each tribe as an army, along with Pinchas son of Elazar the Kohen.”
Who won the “covenant of peace”, the everlasting reward of peace, if not Pinchas? Pinchas acted zealously on G-d's behalf, taking G-d's revenge, and becoming the first “mashuach milchama”, or Kohen anointed to lead the nation in war (Deut. 20:2-4).
Yet G-d said (Num. 25:12), “Tell him that I have given him My covenant of peace”. Here we have a reward well-suited to the deed. Precisely he who gives up his peace and tranquility, devoting himself to G-d's battle and to taking G-d's revenge, merits everlasting peace. And precisely he who rebels against G-d, treating His command to fight and root out evil and evildoers with contempt, will never have peace, for there is no peace for the wicked, those who cast off their yoke.
Today, people have risen up to destroy us who are smitten with the alien [Western secular] culture. Tragically, these include even Torah scholars and learned Jews who have pronounced that, halachically speaking, there is no state of war between us and the Arabs in our land, hence we are forbidden to treat them as enemies. They have gone so far as to rule that if an Arab tries to attack or even to kill a Jew with a stone or weapon and flees, one may not kill him, but may only catch him and deliver him to the authorities, our impoverished regime which is better off ceasing to exist. If someone renders a halachic ruling that there is no state of war between us and the Arabs in our midst, that we are obligated to treat them with mercy, and that it is forbidden to kill one of them even after he tries to attack and kill a Jew, that person is nothing but a “rodef” [one who attacks with the intent to kill], who collaborates with the gentiles in the killing of Jews.
[As Rav Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane puts it in his commentary on Parashat Pinchas]: Pinchas' act of killing Zimri and afterwards meriting the peace covenant teaches us that the Torah's way of bringing peace is by making the world a better place. The first step towards this goal is the uprooting of evil and evil-doers from the world. “Depart from evil” (Ps. 34:15) – this is the first step in making the world a better place. On the other hand, making peace with evil, or even worse, giving in to it, is the very opposite step that one can take if he wants to arrive at peace. Peace is not the mixing of good and evil and the attempt to create a co-existence between them, as we have been trained to think! The very opposite. There is no co-existence between good and evil, nor is there partnership between good people and evil people! The Master of the Universe demands of the righteous that they burn out the evil from the world - “and you shall burn out the evil from thy midst”, the Torah commands us in so many places, for only in such a way will peace reign in the world.
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Since we have now entered the period of the Three Weeks between 17 Tammuz and 9 Av, the regular haftarah of Pinchas is replaced with the one from Parashat Mattot -- the first of the "three haftarot of affliction."
It comes from Jeremiah 1:1 - 2:3 and includes this chilling warning...
"I hasten My word to accomplish it. ...From the North shall the evil loose itself upon all the inhabitants of the Land."
~ SHABBAT SHALOM ~
