Rather than acting on our instincts as would lower beings, or simply repressing them, we can act as higher beings by channeling our instincts towards the good. This is however the lower end of high-level action. At the highest levels we are perhaps challenged to totally overcome our nature for higher purposes.
Avraham’s culture was known for hospitality to travelers; Avraham was the symbol of chesed, not simply waiting for guests to arrive, but actually running out to them to offer water. He was asked therefore to do the complete opposite, to cast his wife Hagar and son Ishmael in to the desert without water, an act that must have humiliated him to all neighboring peoples. He longed for a son and the elder son has a privileged place in that society, and he cast him out instead. He was given a son to continue his heritage and was expected to kill him. He was campaigning to bring people close to God, away from paganism, and was asked to perform the abomination of child sacrifice. He wanted to be a man of chesed, reaching out to others, and instead he had to wage wars against them. He wanted to be close to God, and was asked for the ultimate self-sacrifice: to do the act (bringing Isaac to be sacrificed) after which there is no record of communication between him and God.
Yitschak (Isaac): was the brother who was favored over the other, Yishmael, who was cast out, with an eternal enmity of Yishmael’s family to Yitchak as a result, through no fault of Yitscahk himself. He wanted nothing better than to enfranchise his own son Esav, to ensure that Esav felt close, and wanted to give him the blessings to strengthen him in his way. He could see the positive inEsav, and blind himself to the negative, his strength was this blindness, the love for the one who was so different than him. But he was forced to cause Esav the ultimate anguish and alienation, and to see his two sons locked in eternal enmity as a result, just as he and his brother.
Yakov(Jacob) was “a simple man, a man of the tent” (to sit in the tent = to study Torah). He had to be a liar and cheat all his life: to connive against his brother at the behest of his mother, who was following God’s message to her to ensure that the blessings would go to Yakov not Esav), and to deal with the cheating Lavan.
Yosef (Joseph) intrinsically was very spiritual but started off acting like a vain and arrogant boy, tattling on his brothers. And when he received dreams which he felt were prophetic, he didn’t openly acknowledge God. At the end he changed and was operating at the highest level not just internally but also in relation to others, though his total focus on matters at this high level could be interpreted as arrogance by those around him.
Paradoxically it was the two Egyptians, the jailer who elevated him and later Pharaoh, who did not see him thus. Yosef received dreams which he knew to be prophecy but was totally oblivious to the effect the telling would have on his brothers, he was aware of the higher level, but was arrogant as well. He was also oblivious to the effect his dream interpretation of the minister to be executed would have on that man, but he attributed his power to God. And his chutzpah at telling Pharaoh what to do when all he was asked was to interpret is an act that should have earned him execution. And Pharaoh could easily have suspected Yosef of ambitions to overthrow him. But Pharaoh also operated at the highest level and recognized Yosef as a peer in this sense and knew he was not a threat, not a man after power or wealth or fame, simply a man above others, operating at that level, uninterested in vanities of power and wealth. The brothers at the end still did not “recognize Yosef”: he told them that he could not harm them for their deeds since he could not hold them responsible for those deeds since these were not their own actions but rather God acting through them to place him in his pre-destined role of savior of the world [45:5-8 , 50:19-21]: a supreme arrogance to those operating at the usual human level, but an indication of his superior level to those capable of recognizing this.
Moshe (Moses) was the most humble of men, and was asked to be a powerful leader. He wanted nothing better than to give honor to his older brother, but was asked, even forced, to assume the role of his brother’s leader and authority. He wanted nothing more than to enter into the Land, towards which he had faithfully led the Jewish People for 40 years, and was denied this, he had to accept dying just before his people would enter.
Pinchas's action saved many lives. One has to remember that there was a plague, people were dying, and in retrospect of the cessation of the plague as soon as Pinchas acted, it is clear that this act was exactly what was necessary in order to stop the plague. Since people were dying, it was "sha'at hadchak", and one could apply "eys la'asos", so perhaps this would be considered sufficient justification, particularly as Zimri was perhaps like a 'rodef' (as in the justificaiton for abortion in case of harm to the mother). So perhaps 'kanaim pogim bo' was not even needed as justificaiotn or grounds to act.
Maybe what chazal say about 'forgetting a halachah' is that M"R and Aharon forgot 'shaat hadchak, eys la'asos', and were paralyzed, since actively killing one person to save other is generally forbidden, unless they are a rodef, and in this case it was Hashem who was doing the killing, not Zimri.
In any case we know from the recent parshos that in general M"R had reached the end of his ability to lead.
However a question arises: If the plague was indeed because of Zimri, and he didn't want to cease his act, why didn't the Jewish people gang up on him to save their lives - to kill Zimri in order to stop the plague, in self-defense!? Partly of course because they too were involved. But then why did they not stop if there was a plague?
I think that the issue was that almost no-one else saw what was happening, why it was happening, and what needed to be done. The plague was a divine-human interaction, not visible to all (like the malach was not visible to Bilam); it was like the sneh, people walked by it not 'seeing' the miracle. M"R saw the sneh, not everyone else did, it was a form of nevuah due to his special level, and so the story is told in a nevuah-style narration, poetic:
"Asurah na ve'er'eh,
es hamr'eh hagadol hazeh,
lamah lo yiv'ar ha'sneh!"
So too in the case of Pinchas. Only he saw what was happening, that there was a magefah, and only he understood why it was happening, and what had to be done to stop it, and so only he acted. And indeed it stopped. Bnei Yisrael did not act in self-defense only because they did not realize what was happening, why it was happening, let alone what needed to be done to stop it.
This is my interpretation of what it means that Pinchas was a 'kanai': It was not 'kano-ous' in the sense of "I am a kanai, I know the halacha, I will kill him since he is evil" (and make a brocho and hineni muchan), but rather this: it was because Pinchas really "kine et kin'ati" internally emotionally-spiritually, in other words he did not have ego interfering, [and see my claim that he was actually "ish shalom". [I just saw something similar in the name of the Chabad Rebbe, Pinchas is a man of peace, who did what he did with the sole aim of “turning away My wrath from the children of Israel.”], wanting to be like his Zeideh Aharon - וַיַּרְא, פִּינְחָס בֶּן-אֶלְעָזָר, בֶּן-אַהֲרֹן, הַכֹּהֵן" - who made peace between people.
Pinchas overcame his inclination and desire to be a man of peace, lowering his sense of self and taking an action that was actually against everything he believed in, [like Avrohom Avinu, Ya;akov, M"R]; he was motivated only by 'lishmoh' (pure intent to do God's Will), that's why he was able to 'SEE', (like M"R saw the sneh) and to understand WHY, and what needed to be DONE, and also why he had the clarity to take action (ז וַיַּרְא,..וַיָּקָם .. וַיִּקַּח ... וַיָּבֹא .. וַיִּדְקֹר ) himself (וַיָּקָם מִתּוֹךְ הָעֵדָה) :.
In this, Pinchas was special. The shvatim in contrast were sure they were acting lishmah in selling Yosef, but they weren't. Chazal present reasons for a sanhedrin to judge Yosef and apply the death penalty, but hashem tells us in the chumash something that no-one else could know, that the shvatim themselves were not consciously aware of (and that maybe was first revealed to humanity at the time the chumash was given) - that they were motivated by hatred and jealousy! They would have laughed at anyone accusing them of such a childish and base motivation. And they would have felt themselves sincere in that. But Hashem knows our inner heart and motivation. And Hashem tells us that Pinchas's motive was purely leshem shamayim.
Moral: When someone judges their fellow, especially if it involves enacting judgement with physical consequence on someone, I believe that we are allowed to 'judge' them by assuming that the motivation is negative; even if at the conscious level the "kana'i" is sure they are a tzadik doing it all leshem shamayim, my assumption is that we should not be supportive of it unless they are considered by all of klal Yisrael (not just by themselves) to be even greater than the Shvatim.
Continuation of the Bil'am story in Parshas Matos: Bil'am is killed. But one cannot just kill a figure like that using a sword in ordinary attack, it has to be part of Hashem's plan and with the right spirituallevel backing. Moshe Rabbenu had finished his tafkid, and gave it over to the new generaiton, Yehoshua, and now Pinchas. Pinchas was placed in charge of the war against Midian (after the znus event), and was the one who enbaled Bil'am to be killed (whehter directly by Pinchas, or at Pinchas's command:[There are various versions of how Bilam actually was killed. According to the Zohar, Pinchas commanded Tzilaya to kill Bilam on the spot with a magical sword upon which was inscribed the likeness of a snake. Another midrash says Pinchas himself drew a sword and killed Bilam.
The Talmud(Sanhedrin 106b) relates that Pinchas brought Bilam for trial before Moshe and the Sanhedrin(Jewish court). He was found guilty and was executed with all four kinds of death penalty given by Torahcourts.http://www.torahtots.com/parsha/bamidbar/matot3.htm]
It was specifically Pinchas who could cause his death because Pinchas went beyond himself, and so was able to be like Moshe Rabbenu, and Bilam was on a level with M"R but let himself be led by his nature instead of overcoming it, so Pinchas at the level he went up to, could defeat Bilam at the level he went down to.
Pichas was willing to be moser nefesh to take the step of killing Zimri, he knew he could be killed by the Jewish people, or Moshe Rabbenu or by God as a result, but he acted, and this reduction of ego made him the counterpart to Bilam who was led by ego.
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A different type of self-transcendence - redirecting life goals
A young religious Jewish boy who intended in peace-time 1939 to be the biggest Torah-scholar in Poland when he grew up, would in the new reality have had to redirect their ambition for achievement. Even if he died in the camps in 1945, maybe he became instead the most compassionate helper of his fellows, and achieved no lesser greatness than he would have had he achieved his original goal.
Just as Christopher Reeve’s ambition has changed, just as the Avos had to change, it is not for us to decide what the fundamental circumstance of our lives will be, only what we do with those circumstances.
For many people the struggle of their lives is an inner one. However this does not mean that their lives are of no great value to the cosmos - a person who struggles with deep challenges, achieves self-understanding, and acquires a compassion for themselves has the potential to develop into a great person (especially if as a result they develop empathy for - and acceptance of - others). Their achievement in this can be of equal significance to the spiritual development of a saintly individual, or the ethical development of one who engages exclusively in acts of chesed etc. [It is clear that such development can be more significant than the mere memorization of information – even that from holy books – and more even than the intellectual understanding acquired from intellectual study.]
It is possible also for a person to actually get to their original goal despite having to refocus those goals: let’s imagine that Christopher Reeve desired to be president as Ronald Reagan was or Arnold S might be. Let us imagine that he intended to start his campaign some time before the accident. He would have had to convince people he was worthy, not simply a wealthy movie star, and he’d have had an uphill fight, trying to cash in on the image of him in a superman costume. However the accident changed everything. He completely redirected his energies, gave up on his political ambitions.
He became a very unusual individual. Imagine if he continued to grow, and that people in 10 years from now (this was written before his death) appeal to him to run for president - without ever knowing that this was his secret ambition – because he is an extraordinary person by then. He will have ‘lost’ 15 years due to the accident, but he would be a much more appealing candidate, and possibly much more likely to achieve his original goal. And he’d be such a better leader, so much more valuable to his country and to the world.
So it is possible sometimes – not always – to change focus and then discover that one has in the end actually achieved the original goal. The 1939 aspiring scholar had no chance to achieve the original goal of being a scholar, but the underlying goal of achieving a spiritually-meaningful level was indeed realized.
For example, an aspiring young person who wanted to become the scholar to whom everyone else would turn, could be sidelined by inner struggle. However, growing via struggle and self discovery, compassion for self and eventually compassion for others, can lead one to greatness, and if one is also intellectually gifted and can apply the insight gained in self-exploration and development to help others, it can even result in one becoming seen as a leader, not the greatest scholar but the deepest seer into the human heart, maybe a person to whom others, even the great scholars would come for advice or even a blessing. And of course, one could discard the ego-aspects of what one desires to achieve in life, and thereby achieve the deeper-level goal rather than its shallower outer-level manifestation.
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