Musar zu Könige I 19:10

And so, with Moses our teacher, may peace be upon him, because he said (Bamidbar 32:14): "a growth of sinful men," there descended from him Shevuel ben Gershom, who ministered to idolatry, as Chazal have said (Bava Kamma 109b, Yerushalmi 9:2). And more than this we find with Eliyahu, who, because he said (I Kings 19:10): "I have been very zealous for the L-rd … for they have forsaken Your covenant, etc.", he was removed because of this from prophecy and the Holy One Blessed be He commanded him to anoint Elisha in his place, as Chazal state (in Yalkut Melachim).

Moses was jealous of the Egyptian, as it is said, "And he smote the Egyptian" (Exod. 2:12). And so we find in the case of Elijah, when he said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant" (I Kings 19:10). And so is it said, "In that he was very jealous for My sake among them" (Num. 25:11), and the Lord, may He be Blessed, gave him his reward for this as it is said : "Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace!" (Num. 25:12). And it is said, "… Ye shall not be afraid of any man …" (Deut. 1:17). Now he who reveres the Lord, may He be Blessed, will gladly offer his life for the sanctification of God's name. As it is said, "Whoso is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me. And all the Levites rallied to him" (Exod. 32:26), and it is further said, "And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand" (Num. 25:7).

The two words "לאמר" that we mentioned earlier as apparently superfluous, have something in common. The repeated "דבור" suggests that there was an exoteric (נגלה) as well as an esoteric (נסתר) element in what the Torah tells us here. In 25,10 the exoteric meaning is to inform the people of the noble lineage Pinchas was descended from, whereas in 25,12 they are to be informed of an additional dimension of Pinchas' greatness, i.e. that he is equated with the prophet Elijah. This is alluded to in the words "because he displayed jealous fervor on behalf of his G–d" (25,13). The letters in the expression “לאל-היו,” are identical with the word “לאליהו,” “to Elijah.” The latter also excelled by displaying jealousy on behalf of G–d, something that he himself is quoted as saying to G–d in Kings I 19,10. He referred to his having slain four hundred Jewish priests who had forsaken the Torah to serve the idol Baal instead. Elijah's performance on Mount Carmel was similar to that of Pinchas at Shittim. The name אליהו (which in the Bible is frequently spelled without the letter Vav at the end) contains two names of G–d, i.e. El and Ya-h. In his encounter with Zimri Pinchas restored the honor of the name El, since the Israelites at the time had been guilty of insulting that name of G–d by serving the El of the Moabites and Midianites, "וישתחוו לאלהיהן" (Numbers 24,2). The second of the Ten Commandments specifically prohibits a Jew prostrating himself before an alien deity (Exodus 20,4). Pinchas' deed restored the relations between G–d and Israel which the people's behaviour had upset. His deed, when analysed, consisted of discrediting a man and a woman who respectively were leaders of their tribes, or, in the case of Cozbi, whose father was an ancestral tribal head. The Torah emphasizes the word איש and אשה, when referring to these two both in 25,8, and in 26,14-15, although there is no need for this. We have mentioned repeatedly that the letters "י and ה" in the Hebrew for "man" and "woman" teach us that only when they remain aware of G–d's Presence in this world are they safe from burning up in the passion of their sexuality, seeing that without those letters of G–d's name their names would signal merely masculine and feminine "fire" respectively. The name of G–d contained in those two people whom Pinchas slew was Ya-h. These two had disgraced the name of G–d by their conduct. The Torah in order to draw our attention to all this repeats: …. ושם … איש … ושם האשה, (26,14, 26,15). Rashi already explained that at the count of the people after this episode the peculiarly worded names of the tribes i.e. ה-ראובנ-י, and not simply ראובן demonstrated that the name of each tribe contained the name of G–d. G–d thus personally testified-that the members of all these tribes were conceived while their respective parents maintained absolute chastity. This too is the meaning of Psalms 122,4: שבטי י-ה עדות לישראל, "Israel are G–d's tribes, as per G–d's personal testimony." The letter ו in the word שלום, is "amputated" in 25,12. Baal Haturim points out that the numerical value of that word equals זהו משיח, "this is the Messiah." By diminishing the size of that letter, it is as if one had not thought about the last letter in the name of אליהו. Elijah is the prophet who announces the imminent arrival of the Messiah and prepares people for that. Removing part of the letter ו is meant to convey to us that Elijah (as alluded to by the absence of the last letter in his name), will materialise when one least thinks of him.. The letters added to the names of the tribes during this count therefore can be viewed as making up the second name of G–d contained in the name אליה, the name Ya-h. The Torah informs us in Exodus 6,25 that Pinchas' father had married one of the daughters of Putiel, who according to Midrash Hagadol fattened (play on word Putiel) all the idols in the world and the other tribes despised him on account of his ancestry. Since the name פוטיאל concludes with the letters of the name of G–d, however, the Torah alerts us to the fact that he converted to monotheism, i.e. El Ya-h. The whole verse is an allusion to Joseph who controlled his desire in his involvement with the wife of his master Potiphar, whose similarly sounding name reminds us of what took place then. Just as Joseph preserved the holy covenant with G–d at that time, so Pinchas, his descendant maternally, restored the holy covenant with G–d by taking G–d's revenge on Zimri. As a result, G–d granted him "My covenant Peace." Targum Yonathan on that verse says that Pinchas was made into an angel who would live until he could announce the final redemption. It is further written (of Pinchas) that G–d's covenant of life and well-being was with him (Malachi 2,5), that "the true Torah was in his mouth. He walked with Me in peace and equity, nothing perverse was on his lips. He served Me with complete loyalty; he held many back from committing iniquity, for the lips of a priest guard knowledge and people seek Torah from his mouth, seeing that he is an angel of the Lord G–d of Hosts" (Ibid 6). This verse clearly alludes to Pinchas, since Pinchas became an angel, as our sages comment on Joshua 2,4, (Tanchuma quoted by Rashi). Since Pinchas held back many from sinning, he is described by the prophet as having the true Torah issuing forth from his mouth. "Truth" is an element that reinforces and strengthens religious belief and practice. It is not something merely personal, but is something that must be demonstrated to the community in order to be capable of convincing such a community to do penitence. Such a result is called אמת, truth. Truth is something of an everlasting nature.