Building & Growing Through Positivity

Insight of the Week

Parashat Pinhas begins with Hashem’s announcement of the rewards that He would be giving to Pinhas, the grandson of Aharon. The background to the story is the sin of Ba’al Pe’or , when Beneh Yisrael became involved with the women of the nation of Moav, and also worshipped the god of Moav. Hashem punished the people by bringing a plague which killed 24,000 people. The plague ended only when Pinhas boldly arose and killed two people – a Jewish man and a gentile woman – who were committing a public sinful act. By defending Hashem’s honor in this way, Pinhas brought an end to the devastating plague. Hashem then announced that Pinhas would receive two rewards. First, he would receive בריתי שלום – “My covenant of peace.” He was blessed with peace and serenity. In addition, he was rewarded with ברית כהונת עולם – the status of kohen . Due to a technicality, Pinhas had not previously been a kohen , despite being a grandson of Aharon. In reward for his heroic act during the calamity of Ba’al Pe’or , he and his descendants were declared kohanim . It seems that Pinhas received two rewards because of two great things which he accomplished. The Midrash tells that after he killed the two violators, he turned to Hashem and asked, “Because of these two people You are going to kill 24,000 members of Beneh Yisrael ?!” This shows that Pinhas acted as he did not out of anger and rage, but to the contrary, out of genuine love and concern for Am Yisrael . He truly believed, with every fiber of his being, that Beneh Yisrael were much better than this, that this debacle didn’t at all define who they were. There were these two sinners who needed to be eliminated, but the rest of the nation were all good and deserved to be saved. This is how Pinhas felt toward Beneh Yisrael. Pinhas thus received two rewards: 1) He was rewarded with the status of kohen for his bold, courageous act to kill the two sinners. 2) He was rewarded with peace for his sincere love and concern for the people. Pinhas wasn’t an angry, mean zealot who set out to violently oppose those who acted wrongly. Rather, he deeply cared for Beneh Yisrael even in their moment of disgrace. He realized that there were two “bad apples” whom he needed to confront for the sake of saving the rest of the nation. This was an act of love, not an act of rage. Tens of thousands of people sinned – but he loved them, and acted against only the two public violators. Rav Binyamin Finkel of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem is an extraordinary figure, commonly known as “Rav Binyamin Ha’tzadik.” Once, when he visited our community, he came to shul on what turned out to be an exceptionally busy Shabbat morning. A lengthy, double- parashah was read, and a fundraiser was being held. There were lots of extra aliyot , and the shul was extremely noisy, with lots of talking. Before the time came for him to speak, I had no choice but to approach him and explain that the people in the shul are very strict about time, and so he had only three minutes, and no more, to speak. The words he spoke in those three minutes left me astonished. He spoke about how wonderful the shul is, how wonderful the congregation is, how wonderful the tefilah was. This man is the mashgiah (spiritual supervisor) of the Mir Yeshiva, where hardly anybody speaks a single word during the tefilah , ever. And here he was, in a commotion-filled shul with lots of noise, talking about how wonderful the people were. Rav Binyamin understood that the way to people’s hearts is through positivity, not through negativity and criticism. Angrily berating people for doing things wrong is not likely to change them. It will just make them not want to listen to what we have to say ever again. If we want to elicit change, we need to treat people and speak to them with respect even if they do things to which we strongly object. In the early years of our community, there were many members who would drive to work after davening on Shabbat morning. The Rabbis of the time did not throw them out of shul. They did just the opposite – they warmly welcomed them, understanding that their ongoing connection to the shul, to tefilah , and to the Rabbi is what will gradually influence them to raise their standards of religious observance. Pinhas is not a model of angry zealotry, of harshly protesting against sin. He is a model of love and positivity, of caring for fellow Jews especially in their lowest moments. This is the way our community will, please G-d, continue to grow and flourish – through positivity, through love, through building connections between the different types of people, so that we can work together to move our community forward.