29 Jun PINCHAS- ACHIEVING BALANCE

Who am I?

You are always very close to me. You almost never let me go. You look at me all the time. I know your deepest secrets. I am almost always the last thing you look at before you go to sleep. Sometimes you stay up late at night because you’re so interested in me. When you wake up in the morning, I’m the first thing you look at. You protect me and take care of me to make sure nothing happens to me.

Who am I?

I am your cellphone.

This is no joke. This is what our world has turned into. We are so distracted at all times because of all our calls, messages, emails, notifications and everything else, that many people can hardly function. In many ways, technology is improving our lives, but in many other ways, it is ruining our lives, causing stress and anxiety, and consuming us, preventing us from living.

Defining םולש

To help us tackle this difficult, but ever so critical, issue, let us turn to the opening verses in Parashat Pinhas. The context is the story of Pinhas, who stood up to oppose something terrible that was happening among Beneh Yisrael. After Bilam’s attempts to curse Beneh Yisrael failed, he advised the nation of Moav to send their women to seduce Beneh Yisrael to sin, and this plot succeeded. At one point, a leader of one of the tribes of Israel, Zimri, got up and sinned with a woman from Midyan. The people looked on in horror, until Pinhas arose and killed Zimri and Kozbi. This brought an end to the plague that G-d had brought upon Beneh Yisrael as punishment for their sins.

Parashat Pinhas begins with G-d proclaiming the reward He would be giving to Pinhas for his heroic deed. And this reward, ironically, was םולש†יתירב†– “My covenant of peace.” By killing two sinners, Pinhas was rewarded with peace.

How was this an appropriate reward? Wasn’t Pinhas’ act the diametric opposite of peace?

To begin answering this question, we need to refine our definition of the word םולש†– peace. We commonly think that םולש†means simply the absence of fighting. When a country is not at war, we say that it lives in “peace.” When we are not in a fight with any neighbors, family members or work associates, then we say we have “peace.” But this is not what םולש†means. The proof is in the prayer that we recite several times each day: וימורמב†םולש†השוע†ונילע†םולש†השעי†אוה†– “He who makes peace in His upper worlds shall bring peace upon us.” G-d does not need to make “peace” – in the conventional sense of the term – in the upper worlds. There is never any reason for the angels to fight or compete with one another. Heaven is not a place where peace needs to be “made.” What, then, do we mean when we speak of Hashem as bringing םולש†to the heavens?

The Malbim explains that םולש†means balance and harmony. The heavenly bodies don’t just merely avoid fighting, but they coexist in seamless harmony and synthesis.

The Malbim proceeds to explain that human beings consist of four components: 1) “fire” – meaning, passion and energy; 2) “water” – an inclination towards calmness, or perhaps even laziness, which can “extinguish” passion; 3) “earth” – base physical needs and desires; 4) “air” – the spirit, a level of spirituality and religious awareness. These various forces are constantly at war with one another. Our energetic ambitions clash with our lazy nature; our physical needs clash with our spiritual goals; and so on. From the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep, there is a struggle waged within us between the various forces and tendencies that comprise the human being. True םולש, the Malbim writes, is achieved when a person’s various forces are at ease, when he is able to find the perfect balance between his energy, his desire for calmness, his physical needs, and his spiritual ambitions. When we are able to fulfill each of our innermost drives in just the right proportion, then we have achieved םולש. This happens when we have appropriate outlets for our energies, we enjoy rest and relaxation, we fulfill our bodily needs, and we strive for spiritual, idealistic goals – all in perfect balance and harmony. This is םולש.