From Bloodied Spear to Covenant of Peace
In Parshat Balak, Zimri son of Salu, a leader of the tribe of Simeon, committed a shocking act of brazen rebellion. He publicly took Cozbi, a Midianite princess and daughter of Zur, before Moses and the entire Israelite nation, and engaged in sexual relations with her. This deliberate provocation was designed to undermine the moral and ethical foundations of the Jewish people.
Witnessing this outrage, Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aaron the High Priest, was filled with zeal. He seized a spear, followed them into the tent, and with one thrust killed both of them, thereby turning back God’s wrath from the people. In response, God declared to Moses that He was granting Pinchas His covenant of peace and the eternal priesthood, because Pinchas had taken zealous action on God’s behalf and had atoned for the Children of Israel.
To modern sensibilities, this narrative seems paradoxical. How can a man who has just killed two people merit a “covenant of peace”? Would it not have been better for him to reason with Zimri and Cozbi, trying to persuade them of the damage they were causing?
Many people view war and peace in binary terms. They believe peace under any conditions is right, and war is always wrong. It therefore strikes them as strange that God would bestow a covenant of peace upon someone whose spear was still dripping with blood. Yet this is not how the real world works.
It was only after Pinchas acted decisively that the plague, which had already killed 24,000 people, ended. Peace cannot always be achieved through dialogue over coffee. Sometimes, when a society’s very existence is under sustained, deliberate, and vicious attack, forceful action becomes not only justified but morally necessary.
Our own existence as a people is under such an attack today. Our enemies have made it clear that they seek our destruction. There is no genuine peace to be made with those who are ideologically committed to annihilating us. They initiated a war we did not seek and did not want. We fight not because we love war, but because we love life and refuse to surrender our right to exist in peace.
I pray for the day when we will no longer be forced to wage war. May the spirit of Pinchas rest upon our soldiers. May God bless and protect them, and may He ultimately grant them and all of Israel an everlasting covenant of peace, so that we may one day beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.
