‫ב”ה‬

‫פרשת פנחס תשס”ז‬ Insights into Torah and Halacha from Rav Ozer Glickman ‫שליט”א‬
‫שיחות רב עוזר‬
‫ר”מ בישיבת רבנו יצחק אלחנן‬
Lost in Translation: On Being a Zealot
I sometimes sense myself imprisoned by contemporary culture. As much as I immerse myself in Torah, I
am subjugated to ideas that have so insidiously permeated my psyche that I am completely unaware of
them. How then do i ever realize that they are there? It happens, ‫רבותי‬, when I encounter a passage in our
holy texts that I find instantly jarring. The process of dissonance is a welcome opportunity for deeply held
prepossessions to surface so that I may challenge them. 
The ‫ קנאות‬of ‫ פנחס‬presents such an opportunity. In the enlightened modern world in which I reside, ‫קנאי‬
is a pejorative. It is not applied only to one who acts extremely with moral or religious certainty. Just
expressing passion about any aspect of Yiddishkeit can  cause one to be called a ‫קנאי‬. A ‫ בחור‬returning
from a year of learning in ‫ א”י‬resolving to take extra care with his ‫ שמונה עשרה‬may be called a ‫קנאי‬. The
friend who changes his seat in shul so as not to be disturbed by conversation during ‫ חזרת הש”ץ‬may be
called a ‫קנאי‬. The kind person who offers to adjust the ‫ קשר‬on a neighbor’s ill-fitting ‫ תפילה של ראש‬may be
called a ‫קנאי‬.
When I witnessed all three examples over the past several months, my initial reaction each time was only
to challenge the application. This is not ‫קנאות‬, I wanted to say, but normal caring behavior. Perniciously
buried in my psyche was the notion that ‫ קנאות‬is bad. This week’s ‫ פרשה‬raises it to the surface and allows
me to grapple with it. There is no question that ‫ פנחס‬is a ‫ קנאי‬and that the Torah describes his ‫ קנאות‬as
praiseworthy. Why does this make me uncomfortable?
‫ חז”ל‬were not unaware of the reaction passion in the name of ‫ הקב”ה‬can provoke among the less passionate.
They offer this vignette in ‫[ מס‘ סהדרין‬:‫]דף פ”ב‬:
?‫ ראיתם בן פוטי זה שפיטם אבי אמו עגלים לעבודת כוכבים והרג נשיא שבט מישראל‬:‫התחילו שבטים מבזין אותו‬
The [other] tribes began denigrating him: have you seen this descendant of Puti, whose mother’s father fattened calves for idol worship and
who has [nevertheless] killed a tribal prince of Israel?
‫אלעזר הכהן‬, the father of ‫פנחס‬, married one of the daughters of ‫ פוטיאל‬whom ‫ חז”ל‬identify as ‫ יתרו‬. He was
so known because he previously fattened (‫ )פיטם‬calves in the service of pagan gods before his conversion.
‫ חז”ל‬have the crowd refer to him with disrespect, as just ‫פוטי‬. The complaint is not about the act but the
presumptuousness of the one who performed it.
‫רבותי‬, this is the complaint of the talkers in shul when one is passionate about ‫תפילה‬. By deprecating the
person rather than the act, one removes the uncomfortable focus on one’s own deficient behavior. By
turning attention to the presumptuousness of the other person, there is no need to address one’s own
failings. ‫את חטאי אני מזכיר היום‬- I, too, am guilty of this behavior. It is uncomfortable when the righteous
behavior of others makes one realize one’s own shortcomings. What is ‫‘חז”ל‬s answer?
‫בא הכתוב ויחסו פינחס בן אלעזר בן אהרן הכהן‬
The verse comes and provides his genealogy: Pinchas the son of Elazar, son of Aharon the Kohen.
Simiarly, when the ‫ כהנים‬ascend the ‫ דוכן‬to convey the Divine Blessing on the ‫קהילה‬, an act of ‫ מצוה‬that may
appear presumptuous given our own deficiencies, we are reminded that we do so by virtue of our ‫ יחוס‬to
‫אהרן הכהן‬: ‫אשר קדשנו בקדושתו של ארהן וצוונו לברך את עמו ישארל באהבה‬.
And so I say to ‫ בחורים‬returning now from ‫ א”י‬who may be trying on new levels of commitment that can
provoke protests from those who knew you before: There is no problem with passion. Be comfortable with
new commitments as long as you exercise them with modesty. You are ‫ תלמידים‬of ‫ תלמידי חכמים‬and the
descendants of ‫נביאים‬. Explore your passion with sensibility, sensitivity, and ‫לשם שמים‬.
‫שבת שלום ומבורך‬