This past Shabbos, when Parshat Pinchas was read, I was walking to shul in the afternoon and realized that the gematria for Zimri, from the tribe of Shimon, murdered by Pinchas, has a gematria of 257 – 49 more than the gematria for Pinchas. My interpretation is that by this murder, Pinchas brought the people down 49 levels of the 50 levels of impurity – the same 49 levels of impurity the Jewish people had gone down in Egypt and had left behind in the redemption. Kozbi, the Midianite woman also murdered, has the gematria of 39 – the same number of categories of work, melachot, used in constructing the Mishkan and prohibited on Shabbat – thereby destroying the holiness of both the Mishkan and Shabbat. The command to keep Shabbat includes the command to work - what work are we commanded to do? - the 39 malachot that we don't do on Shabbat - the things we do to build the mishkan. I would argue that we are commanded implicitly to build a dwelling-place for Hashem on earth (the Alter Rebbe talks about this) - and any work that does this counts metaphorically. Pinchas, through killing them, rather than building/caring for/doing the service in the Mishkan, is in fact destroying it through a zealous act of killing.
To be clear, they were sinning – but murder was not the correct response but helping them to teshuvah – the murder was far, far, far worse. Pinchas destroyed two people created in the image of G!d. When Rabbi Meir was mugged by bandits, he prayed for G!d to cause them to die in retribution. His wife, the sage Beruriah, interpreting the last verse of Psalm 104 to read “Let SINS (rather than sinners, as it is commonly translated) cease from the earth, and the wicked will be no more [because they are now righteous, having repented]. Rabbi Meir did pray for their repentance – their teshuvah – instead, and indeed, they did!
The verse ends with “My soul bless Hashem, Hallelukah!” I would add to Beruriah’s interpretation that this part of the verse acknowledgess, by saying “my” soul, that all of us have also sinned and need to do teshuvah – and, not only need to do teshuvah, but are capable of doing teshuvah. This psalm is read on Rosh Chodesh, the new moon. The first commandment given to the Jewish people is to make the month of Nisan the first month of the year. The Jewish people are associated with the moon, as the rabbis have taught. One of the most fundamental aspects of being Jewish is the hope that, just as the moon that has waned will wax again, so when we do teshuvah, when we repent by turning from sin and returning to be the people G!d created us to be, G!d will forgive us and restore us even higher. As the rabbis teach, the sinner who repents is in a higher state than the one who never sinned. There is even a midrash that explains the curious commandment to bring a sin-offering FOR G!d on Rosh Chodesh by saying that after G!d created the two great lights, G!d then diminished the moon, and the sin-offering is to atone for this. G!d can do teshuvah, we are taught.
But Pinchas, in his zealotry, cannot place himself with the sinners – he cannot acknowledge his fallibility – he cannot add his “MY soul will bless Hashem” to the prayer for sins to leave the world so the sinners repent and become righteous. He cannot pray for their restoration. Instead, he kills two people made in the image of G!d, believing himself to be pure and perfect. If only he had followed in Beruriah’s footsteps and prayed for their repentance, rather than killing them, the story would have been so much more powerful.
In a world of Pinchases, may we be given strength by G!d to be Beruriahs instead.
