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Thoughts on the Parsha ~
Parshas
Pinchas
Hypocrite or Hippogriff
By:
Daniel Listhaus
פִּינְחָס בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן אַהֲרֹן
הַכֹּהֵן הֵשִׁיב אֶת חֲמָתִי מֵעַל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּקַנְאוֹ אֶת קִנְאָתִי
בְּתוֹכָם וְלֹא כִלִּיתִי אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּקִנְאָתִי
“Pinchas
the son of Elazar the son of Aharon the kohen has turned My anger away
from the children of Israel by his zealously avenging Me among them, so that I
did not destroy the children of Israel because of My zeal”
-Bamidbar 25:11
Rashi[1] points
out that the Torah goes into more detail of Pinchas’s ancestry than necessary. The
Be’er Heitev[2]
explains further and writes that the indicator that there is something to be
learned from the extra ancestry stated here is that the Torah already introduced
Pinchas to us, just four passukim earlier at the end of parshas Balak,
and went through his family tree at the time that he actually killed Zimri
and Kazbi.[3]
Rashi therefore explains that the passuk (verse) here is
coming to counter what people were saying about Pinchas. People were teasing
him for being a hypocrite that it was not his place to get up and kill a nassi
of Yisroel. After all, his maternal grandfather was Yisro who was known for his
previous occupation of fattening cows for avodah zarrah (idol worship). This
is why the Torah ties Pinchas’s yichus (lineage) to Aharon Ha’kohen.
In order to demonstrate that he came from good stock as well and therefore had
the credentials, so to speak, to do what he did.
The
difficulty with this Rashi is that it does not seem that such an
argument would be strong enough to counter a teasing crowd which is not
thinking logically. Pinchas got up and took the initiative to do what was
unquestionably right. The people who were also involved in the aveirah clearly
felt ashamed and embarrassed. Unable to justify their actions, they did the next
best thing to rationalizing: they verbally abused Pinchas, knocking him down in
front of everyone by bringing up the fact that his ancestors were involved with
avodah zarrah. This was not a logical defense or rationalization that
what Pinchas did was wrong or that what they did was right. It was a mere
statement that Pinchas was a hypocrite. After all, how could someone who comes
from a family of avodah zarrah feel confident enough to stand up for
Torah values? This was the case that some members of Klal Yisroel were
making. In such a situation where a crowd is clearly not thinking, what purpose
is there in the Torah countering that Pinchas’s grandfather was Ahaon Ha’kohen?
Does the Torah really think that the people were only aware of part of
Pinchas’s family tree that it had to inform them of Aharon to justify his
actions and demote their claims? Furthermore, why does the Torah even feel the
need to play their game? The fact that Pinchas’s grandfather was Aharon was not
really what gave him the credentials to kill the nassi. There were no
credentials necessary. It was the right thing to do no matter who Pinchas’s
grandfather happened to be. So how could we understand the purpose of the passuk
repeating here that Pinchas was a descendent of Aharon Ha’Kohen?
The Kli
Yakar[4] has a
slightly different approach to explain what the Torah is trying to teach by
tracing Pinchas’s ancestry here. He suggests that the passuk is not coming
to address the argument of the people, but rather to report how great Pinchas
was based on an internal struggle that he had to overcome in order to bring
himself to kill Zimri. Pinchas knew beforehand that by taking the
initiative, people would try to defend themselves through debasing and humiliating
him by calling him a hypocrite coming from one grandfather who fattened cows
for avodah zarah, and another who was personally involved in forming the
eigel ha’zahav – the worst aveirah in history done by K’lal
Yisroel! Different from pashut p’shat (simple explanation) in Rashi,
the Kli Yakar explains that the Torah mentions Aharon Ha’kohen
because Pinchas knew going in that his only “redeeming quality” was his
grandfather Aharon, and even that only provided a shaky foundation because of
his involvement with the eigeil. Therefore, the passuk comes to
praise Pinchas by saying that even though he was Pinchas ben Elazar ben
Aharon Ha’kohen and came from a family involved in “avodah zarrah”,
which meant that there was a window open for people to mock him and call him a
hypocrite – Pinchas overcame these feelings with the understanding that he was
his own person tasked to do what was right and that he was not going to let
these emotions get in the way from doing what was right. This is how the Kli
Yakar learns the passuk and also offers it as p’shat in Rashi
as well, perhaps for the reasons we underlined earlier.
This
explanation does more than address our original issues with understanding the passuk
according to the pashut p’shat in Rashi, it gives us a
profound insight into Pinchas’s mind and by extension a clarity on an area of
human behavior. The Kli Yakar’s explanation that the Torah is coming to
tell us how great Pinchas was for overcoming an internal conflict is based on
the premise that Pinchas had a hava amina (initial thought) not to do
what was right out of fear of being called a hypocrite. Not only that, but
overcoming this fear was something so challenging, that the Torah goes out of
its way to re-write three generations of his ancestry which it mentioned just a
few passukim earlier as praise to Pinchas’s courage of moving forward.
There is
no doubt that there are many people who do not practice what they preach,
refuse to put their money where their mouth is, or are flat out hypocritical in
their associations and actions. However an important line needs to be drawn
between hypocrites and hippogriffs. A hippogriff is a mythical creature which
has the front half of an eagle and the hind half of a horse. No one would call
a hippogriff a self-contradiction, because it is not. Rather, it is a new
entity made of two distinct parts. A hypocrite is someone who says or
represents one thing but does another. A hippogriff on the other hand is one
who is a work in progress. Someone who does in fact recognize that he or she is
not fully righteous or wicked, and that that does not have to be a self-contradiction
but rather a unique entity which is a work in progress as long as one wants to
search for truth and constantly striving to ultimately doing the right things.
Pinchas
himself was a tzaddik and yet because of his imperfect, albeit tzadikkim,
ancestors, he had an inner conflict and had to struggle to find the confidence
to do the right thing and ignore the people in his head calling him a hypocrite.
If that is true of Pinchas then it is certainly a real struggle that affects
us. When we get caught in the trap of the yetzer harrah, in whatever area
it may be, we are immediately faced with a simple but intense decision. Will we
get stuck enough to make us lose confidence in our own religious devotion and
allow the rebellious feeling to overcome us and extend to other areas rather
than facing the external or internal voices of being called a hypocrite? Or
could we accept the fact that we have fallen with the understanding that as
long as we still want to be headed in the right direction, we are not a
hypocrite, but rather a work in progress – an imperfect human being just like
everyone else. This was the intense struggle that Pinchas had to overcome. It
was so difficult for him to come to terms with the fact that it is okay to do
what is right and continue doing the right thing even though something in the
past might make you look like a hypocrite; and in his case, it was not even him
but rather his grandparents – one who converted and was Moshe rabbeinu’s
father in law and the other, Aharon Ha’kohen, who only had the best of
intentions as the gadol ha’dor and leader of Klal Yisroel
while Moshe went up on Har Sinai! If this is a struggle for Pinchas then
how much more so for ourselves who may have this conflict on a much more
personal and internal level, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Perhaps
this idea is the force behind the concept of aveirah goreres aveirah
(one sin leads to another). Once a person gets hooked with doing an aveirah,
it is increasingly easier for him to do another because it is easier for him to
continue down the path of doing aveiros than to stop and face himself as
a hypocrite. It is a hard struggle indeed, but the way out is what we learn
from Pinchas. One must try to be able to accept oneself even when his actions
clash with each other. As long as he is being honest with himself and knows
that what he really wants deep inside is to work hard and climb higher, then he
is not a hypocrite but rather a hippogriff – a unique entity with a beautiful
personal blend of strengths and weaknesses that he is challenged to work with
in order to reach his potential.
This idea
is one that one must bear in mind when offering rebuke as well. One must be
extremely careful when reprimanding someone not to “yuck the yum”. If a person
is doing something wrong but is also doing something right, one should constructively
point out the good and commend him for it in order to encourage further good
behavior. Unfortunately, however, people often times are trigger-happy and run to
pull the hypocrite card: “How could you learn if you don’t wear tzitzis?”
or “How dare you say ‘baruch Hashem’ when you don’t keep Shabbos?”
Such criticism and comments are more likely to do more harm than good. If the
person is a faker and you feel that he is in too deep to help, then why are you
wasting your time? If you think that there is hope and that this person could
be put back on track, then what purpose is there in allowing doubt to enter his
mind? By calling him or her a hypocrite you may be the direct cause of aveirah
goreres avairah by allowing thoughts of, “Indeed, maybe I should stop learning
because I anyway don’t wear tzitizis” or “He’s right, how could I
believe in G-d if I don’t keep His Shabbos?” to permeate his mind. These
are things which Pinchas had to overcome despite the hypocrisy in his case
being far from him and far from the real truth. How much more so must it be a
struggle for us!
May Hashem
help us be genuine and honest people with the clarity of where we are holding
in life in order that we could accept who we are and decide the direction we
want to be headed in. In this way we will be able to look in the mirror and see
ourselves as a work in progress who is headed in the right direction – a
hippogriff, not a hypocrite.
