Parsha Pearls: Parshas Pinchas

Why the moon is smaller than the sun
But Chassidim Daven Late!
The Zealot Saves Everyone
What to Do When the Rabbi Doesn’t Answer
Pinchas and Yirmiyahu

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The Satmar Rov, speaking in Bnei Brak in 1952, asked: Why was this a fitting reward for Pinchas’s act? Furthermore, the Targum Yonasan ben Uziel adds to verse 12 the following words: “And I will make him a living angel and he will live forever to announce the redemption at the end of days.” Why was this a fitting reward?

The Yalkut at the beginning of the parsha explains it more clearly: “Pinchas is Eliyahu. The Holy One, blessed is He, said: You made peace between Israel and Me in this world, so in the future as well you will make peace between Me and my children, as it says (Malachi 3:23-24), ‘Behold, I am sending you Eliyahu the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of Hashem, and he will bring back the hearts of the fathers to the children.’”

Many Jews at the time saw Pinchas as a promoter of divisiveness and a starter of fights, who in his arrogance stood up against the entire tribe of Shimon and its well-respected leader. Thus we find that they degraded him (Rashi 25:11) and even wanted to excommunicate him (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 48b). But in truth, he who acts with zeal and starts a dispute for the sake of the honor of Heaven is actually bringing peace and unity between the Jewish people and Hashem. On the other hand, those who make peace and unity with the wicked are actually causing disunion between the Jewish people and their Father in heaven. Therefore, since it seemed that Pinchas was causing disunion, Hashem spoke and proclaimed that he was actually a promoter of peace, and his reward was to be the announcer of the redemption, the time when there will be true peace between the Jewish people and Hashem and among the Jewish people themselves. Until that time, there cannot be complete peace and unity, for it is necessary to keep separate from the wicked. (Divrei Yoel p. 193)

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Rashi says that the sons of Korach had thoughts of repentance at the last moment, so when Korach and his family fell into Gehinom, the sons were given a high place to sit on. In 1869 the Reform movement in Hungary, known as the Neologist movement, took over the official Jewish community organizations in each town. The Ksav Sofer and other leaders of the generation went to Budapest and asked the government that the Orthodox Jews be given the right to make their own separate organizations. Eventually their request was granted. The Ksav Sofer said at the time, “Now I have a new explanation of Tehillim 79 – ‘A song of Assaf, G-d, gentiles have entered Your property, they have defiled Your holy sanctuary, they have made Jerusalem into rubble.’ The question is: why is this called ‘a song?’ It should be called ‘a lamentation!” Rashi answers that Assaf was happy that Hashem took out His anger on the wood and stone of the Temple, and not on the Jewish people themselves. Tosafos answers that Assaf, who was descended from Korach, rejoiced that the gates of the Temple sunk into the earth, for Hashem will surely bring them back up, and when He does, He will bring out the sons of Korach from the earth as well. But now I have a new answer: Assaf rejoiced that the destruction was wrought by gentiles and not by rebellious Jews, for when the reformers of our own people rule over us, it is much worse!

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The Gemora (Berachos 27a) says that the word “morning” means the first four hours of the day. Consequently, the morning Shmoneh Esrei prayer, which takes the place of the everyday offering, must be said during the first four hours of the day.

In 1953, after the passing of Rabbi Zelig Reuven Bengis, the Av Beis Din of the Eidah Chareidis, the members of the Eidah wanted to appoint the Satmar Rov as the next rov of Yerushalayim. But there were some who opposed this idea, saying, “How can we appoint as the rov of Yerushalayim a rebbe who davens after the proper times?” Reb Matisyahu Davis went to ask the Brisker Rov. The Brisker Rov strongly endorsed the choice of the Satmar Rov, and explained, “Davening late is the peculiar problem of Chassidim, and it is not the problem of our generation. The heresy of Zionism, on the other hand, is a much more serious problem, and it has already spread to almost all of the Jewish people, including some chareidim. In all the world, there is no true fighter against Zionism like the Satmar Rov, who is ready to give up all his honor and resources just to publicize the pure principles of emunah. There is no one as good as him for the position of Av Beis Din of the Eidah Chareidis, for the war against Zionism outweighs everything else.”

Then he added, “The Satmar Rebbe has a tradition from his fathers; war against the wicked is well-rooted in his family. His father the Kedushas Yom Tov and his grandfather the Yitav Lev were among the main fighters against the wicked [reformers] in Hungary. They established the standard of hisbadlus (separatism), and so they saved thousands of religious Hungarian Jews from being captured by Haskalah, as they were in Lithuania and Poland.”

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“Today,” the Brisker Rov concluded, “the problem of the hour is Zionism. We must use all our strength against them – un tzvei milchamos ken men nisht firen (we can’t fight two wars at once).” (Uvdos Vehanhagos Leveis Brisk, v. 4 p. 67)

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When Rabbi Menachem Schneerson became Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1950, a copy of his first public discourse was brought to the Brisker Rov. The Brisker Rov read it and then said, “He thinks he is moshiach, and we will eventually suffer from him.” Then he added, “But we cannot waste energy fighting him, because the main fight today is against Zionism, and one can’t fight two wars at once.”

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The Haftarah for this week is the first chapter of Yirmiyahu. Hashem gave Yirmiyahu the unpopular mission to speak out against the leaders of his time: “And you shall gird your loins and arise and speak to them all that I command you; do not fear them, or I will cause you to fall before them. And I, behold, have made you today a fortified city, a pillar of iron and walls of copper against all the land: the kings of Yehuda, its officers, its kohanim and the people of the land. And they will fight against you but will not defeat you, for I am with you, said Hashem, to save you” (1:17-19).

But the very first words Yirmiyahu was commanded to say publicly were in praise of the Jewish people: “Go and call in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: So said Hashem: I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your bridal days, how you walked after Me into the desert, an arid land. Israel is holy to Hashem, the first of His harvest. All who persecute it will be guilty; evil will befall them, said Hashem” (2:2-3). This was to emphasize that the criticism that was to come was all from Hashem and was motivated solely by Ahavas Yisroel – like Pinchas’ act.

Yirmiyahu had to fight not only against the nations’ leaders in Jerusalem; he also had to fight those Jews already in Babylon who wished to return to Eretz Yisroel prematurely. Rabbi Naftali Adler was the chief rabbi of England in 1899, and in reaction to the then-new Zionist movement, he said as follows: “When the Jewish people went into the Babylonian exile, there were among them some who found no rest under the enemy government, and their only thought all day long was to return to their land. The false prophets among them told them to rebel against the king of Babylon.

“At that point, Yirmiyahu the Prophet wrote a letter from Jerusalem to the elders, Kohanim and Levites who had already gone to exile. The letter said, ‘Thus said Hashem Tzevaos, G-d of Israel, to all the exiles that I exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, give your daughters to husbands, let them have sons and daughters, increase there and do not decrease. And seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you, and pray on its behalf to Hashem, for with its peace you will have peace. For so says Hashem Tzevaos, G-d of Israel: Do not let your prophets and sorcerers fool you; do not listen to their dreams, with which they answer your queries. For they prophecy to you falsely in My name; I did not send them, said Hashem… And you shall call Me, and go to pray to Me, and I will hear you. And you shall seek Me and find Me, if you seek Me with all your heart… and I will restore your captivity, and gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have scattered you…’ (Yirmiyahu 29:4-9).”

Rabbi Adler continued, “The prophet’s letter is indeed long, but very fitting for this movement. And I say: In the Babylonian exile they had a well-known and short time limit of seventy years, yet Yirmiyahu found it necessary to warn them so much with the word of Hashem to stay put and not take any action on their own. Now that the end is hidden and sealed, and we are forbidden under oath from taking any action, certainly we must not deviate from the words of the prophet in his letter that he sent to the exiles.

“My brothers! I look at this movement with worry in my heart, since I see it as opposed to the Torah of Hashem and to politics. There is a great danger involved in it. That is why I don’t see in it the great quality of love of Zion.”

Full Reading:

https://torahjews.org/2023/11/26/parsha-pearls-parshas-pinchas

Tags:

Ksav Sofer – Zelig Reuven Bengis – Satmar Rebbe – Brisker Rov – Menachem Shneerson – Naftali Adler -