Musar sobre Números 3:4

I believe that he found such an allusion in the word נא used by Moses when he declined to accept the mission himself. That word seems superfluous at first glance. The Zohar alludes to it in his commentary on our portion when he quotes Job 4,7: זכר נא מי הוא נקי אבד ואיפה ישרים נכחדות, "Consider, what innocent man ever perished? Where have the upright been destroyed?" The following is the text of that commentary: "When Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai studied this portion of the Torah, his son came to him and asked: 'What would have happened with the reincarnation of the souls of Nadav and Avihu if there had been a Pinchas in the world at the time they died (they were two sons of Aaron who died prematurely)? Had Pinchas been born after these sons of Aaron died, their souls could have been re-incarnated in Pinchas's body. Pinchas then could have rehabilitated these sons for whatever shortcomings they had displayed during their first life on earth. Assuming however, as we must, that Pinchas had been born prior to the death of Nadav and Avihu, and that he therefore already had been equipped with a soul, how could the souls of Nadav and Avihu have been re-incarnated within Pinchas?'" Rabbi Shimon answered his son that we are dealing here with a supremely guarded secret of the way G–d works, and that the truth is that at the time the two sons of Aaron died, their souls did not enjoy the protection of the "Holy Rock," i.e. the emanation called מלכות (lowest of the 10 emanations). We know this because the Torah makes a point of mentioning that they had no children at the time they died (Numbers 3,4). They had diminished G–d's image by not having married and sired children as was incumbent upon them. As a result, they were unfit to serve as High Priests. At the time, Pinchas proved his jealous concern for G–d's honor to the myriads of the Jewish people when he displayed the bodies of the adulterers he had speared with his lance, his soul fled from him when he saw the tribe of Shimon approach him in a threatening posture vowing to take revenge for their prince Zimri whom Pinchas had slain. The two unattached souls of Nadav and Avihu, which had not yet found a resting place, entered Pinchas and restored him to life. This enabled Pinchas's own soul to unite with the souls of Nadav and Avihu. In this way Nadav and Avihu attained the position of High Priest which they had been intended for if their lifestyle had justified it. Pinchas, as it were, benefitted from the souls of Nadav and Avihu, and this helped him become High Priest (after the death of his father Eleazar). This is what is alluded to in Job 4,7. "The innocent (Pinchas) had not perished, nor had the upright (Nadav and Avihu been destroyed)." This is also why the Torah in Numbers 25,11 and on some other occasions describes Pinchas as both the son of Eleazar (his father) and as the son of Aaron, i.e. the father of Nadav and Avihu.

Pinchas was innocent (of murder), his soul did not perish. He was restored to physical life through the transfer of the souls of Nadav and Avihu. The word נא alludes to this since it is made up of the first letters in the name נדב and אביהו respectively. This stratagem of G–d is what is referrred to in Job when both the "innocent," נקי, and "the upright," ישרים are described as surviving. This is also why Pinchas is usually described in the Torah and the Book of Joshua as not only the son of Elazar, but as בן אהרון, to indicate that his soul was connected to the soul of the High Priest whose priesthood was confirmed by שמן המשחה, "the holy oil of anointing" (Exodus 29,7). The Torah also mentions Nadav and Avihu as having been the sons of Aaron on repeated occasions (Numbers 3,4; 26,61) after they had been reported as having died. Mentioning their names does not seem to contribute anything in the context of what the Torah then discusses. The reason must be that their souls were absorbed by Pinchas, that their deaths were not absolute. At first glance these comments of the Zohar appear contradictory to the commonly held opinion that the priesthood was conferred on Pinchas (25,13) only as a reward for his fearless loyalty to G–d in risking his life by executing Zimri the prince of the tribe of Shimon. Actually, Pinchas's elevation to the priesthood was not merely a reward for his conduct, but by his absorbing the souls of Nadav and Avihu whose priesthood had been something conferred upon them by the holy oil of anointing, Pinchas became a priest בעצם, i.e. in essence. The priesthood was not just an attribute of his, such as when it is conferred upon a person through heredity. In order to convey this to us the Torah, when describing Pinchas's elevation to the priesthood, says: "והיתה לו," not as we would have expected: "ותהי לו." The meaning of the former is: "he remained," whereas the meaning of the latter is: "he became."