Pinchas's Reward: Beyond the Bounds of the Body

1“Therefore say: Behold, I give him My covenant of peace.”¹ The Midrash says: “The Holy One, blessed be He, said: By right he should take his reward.”² Several holy sefarim, the Kol Simchah, the Toras Moshe and the Sifsei Tzaddik, ask: but surely “there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world”!³

2aLet us first look at a verse in this parshah. Moshe asked the Holy One, blessed be He, “Let Hashem, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation,”⁴ and Hashem answered him, “Take for yourself Yehoshua bin Nun, a man in whom there is spirit.”⁵ The holy sefer Tiferes Shlomo, by R' Shlomo of Radomsk, takes up the word “spirits” in this verse.⁶ He explains as follows. As is well known, Moshe Rabbeinu gave himself over for the people of Israel. When a person gives himself over in this way, his whole body becomes sanctified and cleaves to Hashem, blessed be He, and he remains only spirit and soul, not a physical body. The same is true of every tzaddik who reaches such a level of mesirus nefesh, the readiness to give one's life: he remains spirit and soul alone.

2bThis is the meaning of what we say in Nishmas: “The soul of every living being … and the spirit of all flesh shall glorify and exalt …”⁷ The words speak of the tzaddik whose whole life force is soul, and whose flesh is so sanctified and so closely cleaving to Hashem that he is nothing but spirit; it is he who will bless Your Name forever in the time to come. This is what Moshe Rabbeinu asked for: that the Holy One, blessed be He, appoint a leader of this kind, who would be spirit and soul alone, free of the body's physicality, and who would give himself over for them. Hashem answered him, “Take for yourself Yehoshua bin Nun, a man in whom there is spirit,” for Yehoshua truly stood on this level, spirit and not body.

3On this basis we can explain the Midrash's words about Pinchas, “By right he should take his reward.” The Maharal in his Tiferes Yisrael and the Tanya explain why the reward for a mitzvah is not given in this world.⁸ The reward and the light of a mitzvah are immensely great, beyond all limit, while a person in this world is clothed in a limited physical body; so he cannot be paid the reward for a mitzvah while he is still in this world. But Pinchas, in carrying out Hashem's vengeance, reached the level of mesirus nefesh and became wholly free of the physical body, without limit. So he could be paid the reward for his mitzvah in this world, and that is why “by right he should take his reward.”

4This also explains the episode of Eldad and Medad. Yehoshua said to Moshe, “My lord Moshe, kela'em, restrain them.”⁹ Targum Yonasan ben Uziel, the Aramaic translation, renders it “and withhold from them the spirit of prophecy.” As the Peirush Yonasan explains, the Targum reads kela'em in the sense of withholding: withhold ruach hakodesh, divine inspiration, from them.¹⁰ Rashi explains along the same lines: “Place upon them the needs of the community, and they will cease (kalim) of themselves.”¹¹ For the Torah testified about them, “and the spirit rested upon them”:¹² they had reached the wondrous level we saw in the Tiferes Shlomo, raised up to be spirit alone, and so they were privileged to receive ruach hakodesh. That is why Yehoshua advised Moshe, “Place upon them the needs of the community”: once they were forced to deal with physical matters and come down from spirit to the level of the physical body, they would be held back from attaining ruach hakodesh.

5In this light we can explain the verse “Though you are small in your own eyes, you are the head of the tribes of Israel.”¹³ That is, the more the body's physicality and selfhood, everything the eyes of flesh and blood see on the outside, become small and nullified in a person's own eyes, the more ready and fit he becomes for the level of “head of the tribes of Israel.”

6May Hashem grant that we be privileged to serve Him, blessed be He, with an uplifted spirit. Amen, may it be His will.