Parashat Pinchas / Leadership in Times of Darkness

There is a powerful, yet seemingly unfair, contrast between the reward which Pinchas received for his deed and the reward which Moses did not receive for similar deeds.

When the Jewish people were encamped in Shittim, they became Pinchas was the hero of the moment!promiscuous with the local Midianite women and started worshipping their idols. Zimri, the prince of Simeon, even went so far as to publicly flaunt his Midianite paramour, Cozbi. Pinchas was the hero of the moment. In an act of great self-sacrifice, putting his own life in danger, risking revenge by the tribe of Simeon, Pinchas killed both Zimri and Cozbi, thus stopping the plague that ravaged the Jewish people.

The Torah relates the dramatic story:

Then an Israelite man came and brought the Midianite woman to his brethren, before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of the entire congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.

Pinchas the son of Elazar the son of Aaron the kohen saw this, arose from the congregation and took a spear in his hand.

He went after the Israelite man into the chamber, and drove [it through] both of them—the Israelite man, and the woman through her stomach—and the plague ceased from the children of Israel.

For more please visit http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3387299/jewish/Leadership-in-Times-of-Darkness.htm