overcoming self, the divine challenge

The Divine Challenge: Overcoming your Nature: How Five Great Biblical Heroes Transcended Themselves:

[Abraham (Avraham), Isaac (Yitschak), Jacob (Yakov), Joseph (Yosef), Moses (Moshe Rabbenu)]

Avraham was perhaps younger than nachor, but though he was the winner in terms of chosen by God for a task, it was via exile, self-imposed, or imposed by God, so Nachor was the winner in terms of inheriting his father's position

I still need to do Ah'ron, and Dovid Hamelech.

Dovid Hamelech was on the one hand a dreamer-type, shepherd who wrote poetry to God and played harp, but had the other side, warrior and Batsheva/Uriah etc. Maybe he figured that remaining a shepherd would help him restrain the other side, but he was asked to become king etc.

He probably didn;t want to overshadow all his older brothers, but like all the other ro'im, this was his destiny.

Ahron was the only younger brother to also make it into the ro'im, because he 'firgen' MR, and even was happy for him as Heashem testifies. And before him, Yosef was the first victim of a visious rivalry event who forgave his brothers.

ie in the case of Yitschak and Yakov, they were the winners of the rivalry, not the victims, but in the case of Yosef he was a victim but also the winner of the rivalry.

..

Abraham wanted to be a man of peace and kindness, and to have a son to continue his path, but God brought about events which forced him to be a man of war and of seeming cruelty to his sons, one who he was to kill and the other who he was asked to expell.

Jacob yearned to be a "man sitting in tents" but was forced by divinely-arranged circumstances to cheat his blind father and live with a cheating father in law.

Moses wanted to be a humble shepherd and was tasked by God with being a bossy leader.

I see those precedents as supportive of an interpretation in which Pinchas's actions did NOT stem from anger or intolerance or self-righteousness & 'zealotry, but rather the opposite: that he wanted to be man of peace but was challenged by God to overcome his nature and his choice of life-path of peace to this time act with violence, in order to save thousands of lives in an emergency situaiton where immediate action was required.