Parshas Balak: The Cozbi Show

(1) While Israel was staying at Shittim, the menfolk profaned themselves by whoring with the Moabite women, (2) who invited the menfolk to the sacrifices for their god. The menfolk partook of them and worshiped that god. (3) Thus Israel attached itself to Baal-peor, and ה' was incensed with Israel. (4) ה' said to Moses, “Take all the ringleaders and have them publicly impaled before ה', so that יהוה’s wrath may turn away from Israel.” (5) So Moses said to Israel’s officials, “Each of you slay those of his men who attached themselves to Baal-peor.” (6) Just then a certain Israelite man came and brought a Midianite woman over to his companions, in the sight of Moses and of the whole Israelite community who were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. (7) When Phinehas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly and, taking a spear in his hand, (8) he followed the Israelite man into the chamber and stabbed both of them, the Israelite man and the woman, through the belly. Then the plague against the Israelites was checked. (9) Those who died of the plague numbered twenty-four thousand.

(1) ה' spoke to Moses, saying, (2) “Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin.” (3) Moses spoke to the militia, saying, “Let troops be picked out from among you for a campaign, and let them fall upon Midian to wreak יהוה’s vengeance on Midian. (4) You shall dispatch on the campaign a thousand from every one of the tribes of Israel.” (5) So a thousand from each tribe were furnished from the divisions of Israel, twelve thousand picked for the campaign. (6) Moses dispatched them on the campaign, a thousand from each tribe, with Phinehas son of Eleazar serving as a priest on the campaign, equipped with the sacred utensils and the trumpets for sounding the blasts. (7) They took the field against Midian, as ה' had commanded Moses, and slew every male. (8) Along with their other victims, they slew the kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. They also put Balaam son of Beor to the sword. (9) The Israelites took the women and other noncombatants of the Midianites captive, and seized as booty all their beasts, all their herds, and all their wealth. (10) And they destroyed by fire all the towns in which they were settled, and their encampments.

(14) The name of the Israelite man who was killed, the one who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri son of Salu, chieftain of a Simeonite ancestral house. (15) The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur; he was the tribal head of an ancestral house in Midian.

(9) And ה' said to me: Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war. For I will not give you any of their land as a possession; I have assigned Ar as a possession to the descendants of Lot.—

(2) Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. (3) Moab was alarmed because that people was so numerous. Moab dreaded the Israelites, (4) and Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the grass of the field.”Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, (5) sent messengers to Balaam son of Beor in Pethor, which is by the Euphrates, in the land of his kinsfolk, to invite him, saying, “There is a people that came out of Egypt; it hides the earth from view, and it is settled next to me. (6) Come then, put a curse upon this people for me, since they are too numerous for me; perhaps I can thus defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whomever you bless is blessed indeed, and whomever you curse is cursed.” (7) The elders of Moab and the elders of Midian, versed in divination, set out. They came to Balaam and gave him Balak’s message. (8) He said to them, “Spend the night here, and I shall reply to you as ה' may instruct me.” So the Moabite dignitaries stayed with Balaam.

The Gemara relates: Rabbi Yannai had a tree that was leaning into the public domain. There was a certain man who also had a tree that was leaning into the public domain, and the general public was preventing him from leaving it there, insisting he cut it down, as required by the mishna (27b). He came before Rabbi Yannai, who said to him:

Go now, and come tomorrow. At night, Rabbi Yannai sent and had someone cut down that tree that belonged to him. The next day, that man came before Rabbi Yannai, who said to him: Go, cut down your tree. The man said to him: But the Master also has a tree that leans into the public domain. Rabbi Yannai said to him: Go and see: If mine is cut down, then cut yours down. If mine is not cut down, you do not have to cut yours down, either. The Gemara asks: At the outset what did Rabbi Yannai hold, and ultimately, what did he hold? The Gemara replies: At the outset, he held that the general public is amenable to having the tree there, as they sit in its shade. Once he saw that they were preventing someone else who owned a tree from keeping his, he understood that it was only out of respect that they did not object to his tree being there. He therefore sent someone to cut it down. The Gemara asks: But why did he tell the man to return the next day? Let him say to him: Go cut down your tree, and then I will cut mine down. The Gemara answers: Because of the statement of Reish Lakish, who said: The verse states: “Gather yourselves together and gather [hitkosheshu vakoshu]” (Zephaniah 2:1), and this can be explained homiletically to mean: Adorn [keshot] yourself and afterward adorn others, i.e., act properly before requiring others to do so.

It is stated: “And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Each of you shall slay his men who have adhered unto Ba’al-Peor” (Numbers 25:5). The tribe of Simeon went to Zimri, son of Salu, their leader, and said to him: They are judging cases of capital law and executing us and you are sitting and are silent? What did Zimri do? He arose and gathered twenty-four thousand people from the children of Israel, and went to Cozbi, daughter of Zur, princess of Midian, and said to her: Submit to me and engage in intercourse with me. She said to him: I am the daughter of a king, and this is what my father commanded me: Submit only to the greatest of them. Zimri said to her: He, too, referring to himself, is the head of a tribe; moreover, he is greater than Moses, as he is the second of the womb, as he descends from Simeon, the second son of Jacob, and Moses is the third of the womb, as he descends from Levi, the third son of Jacob. He seized her by her forelock and brought her before Moses. Zimri said to Moses: Son of Amram, is this woman forbidden or permitted? And if you say that she is forbidden, as for the daughter of Yitro to whom you are married, who permitted her to you? The halakha with regard to the proper course of action when encountering a Jewish man engaging in intercourse with a gentile woman eluded Moses. All of the members of the Sanhedrin bawled in their weeping, and that is the meaning of that which is written: “And they are crying at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (Numbers 25:6). And it is written thereafter: “And Pinehas, son of Elazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw and arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand” (Numbers 25:7). The Gemara asks: What did Pinehas see that led him to arise and take action? Rav says: He saw the incident taking place before him and he remembered the halakha. He said to Moses: Brother of the father of my father, as Moses was the brother of his grandfather Aaron, did you not teach me this during your descent from Mount Sinai: One who engages in intercourse with a gentile woman, zealots strike him? Moses said to him: Let the one who reads the letter be the agent [parvanka] to fulfill its contents. And Shmuel says: Pinehas saw and considered the meaning of the verse: “There is neither wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord” (Proverbs 21:30), which the Sages interpreted to mean: Anywhere that there is desecration of the Lord’s name, one does not show respect to the teacher. In those situations, one need not consult his teacher, but must immediately proceed to right the wrong that is transpiring. Therefore, he took the spear and took immediate action. Rabbi Yitzḥak says that Rabbi Eliezer says: He saw that an angel came and destroyed among the people in punishment for the sin of Zimri, and he realized that he must take immediate action to ameliorate the situation.

He said to him: Son of Amram, is this woman permitted or forbidden? Now if you say that she is forbidden, <because> this woman is a Midianite, <remember that> the very woman who is under you (as your wife) is a Midianite; and who permitted you to have her? The ruling (halakhah) slipped from his mind. They all wept bitterly. That is what is written (in Numb. 25:6): <BEFORE THE EYES OF MOSES AND THE EYES OF THE WHOLE CONGREGATION OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, > AS THEY WERE WEEPING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE TENT OF MEETING. Why were they weeping? Because they were discouraged for the time being.

But the meaning of every one his men is that the judges should kill all those who joined themselves [to Baal-peor], that is to say, each court should judge [the men of] its own tribe and its [groups of] thousands, as it is written, So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and full of knowledge, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds … and officers, ‘tribe by tribe’. And afterwards I found in the Gemara Yerushalmi [the following statement] in the Chapter Cheilek: “And how many were the judges of Israel? Seventy-eight thousand and six hundred. Moses said to them: ‘Each one of you should kill two.’ Thus you find that those killed were one hundred and fifty-seven thousand and two hundred.” If so, we must say that according to their opinion [that of these Rabbis] the Israelites increased very remarkably between the [time of the first] census and the [second] census [in order to make up the loss of the many people killed because of this sin of Baal-peor]!
The correct interpretation of the meaning of this section [of the Torah] appears to me to be that at first it says, And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor; and the anger of the Eternal was kindled against Israel, [meaning] that there is wrath gone out from the Eternal; the plague is begun; and G-d in His mercy told Moses that the judges should [first] try and then hang those who joined themselves [to Baal-peor], so that the wrath will not indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked. And Moses gave this command to the judges; and when all the congregation was assembled at the door of the Tent of Meeting to do as Moses commanded, and the plague was still raging amongst them, this Simeonite [Zimri the son of Salu] brazenly brought unto his brethren a Midianite woman to rebel against Moses and the judges, and to do so publicly, because he was a prince and a great man and [knew that] many would come to his help. Or it may be [that he dared to do this publicly] because, as our Rabbis have said, [the people of] his tribe complained to him: “We are being sentenced to death, and you keep quiet!” Then [when Zimri came forth] Moses and the judges began weeping, and Phinehas stood up, and wrought judgment, and so the plague was stayed. Thus none of the people was [actually] sentenced by the judges, for G-d had said, and hang them up unto the Eternal in face of the sun, that the fierce anger of the Eternal may turn away from Israel, and His anger had already turned away [by the action of Phinehas, so that the judges no longer had to proceed with the execution of the judgment]. It is for this reason that Scripture does not say: “and the judges of Israel did so [as they had been commanded].”

.....any matter that is too difficult for you, you shall bring to me and I will hear it.”

It would not, God forbid, occur to anyone to say that Zimri was licentious, for the Holy One, blessed be He, would never have dedicated an entire Parsha in the holy Torah to licentionsness. Rather, there is a secret in this whole affair. .....

Zimri truly guarded himself from all evil desires. And now it occurred to him that she was his soulmate, since it was not within his power to remove himself from the action. Pinchas said the opposite, that it was still in Zimri’s power to refrain....
Cosbi was indeed his soulmate from the six days of creation, as explained in the writings of R. Isaac Luria, Z’L. Owing to this, Moshe Rabeynu didn’t become involved and sentence Zimri to death. Pinchas’s response in this action is thus compared to a child, meaning that he didn’t know the depth of the situation, seeing only through human eyes and no further. Nevertheless, God loved him and agreed with him, for in Pinchas’s mind he had done a great and self-sacrificing act in his zealotry.

(6) With regard to one who steals a kasva, and one who curses with a sorcerer, and one who engages in intercourse with an Aramean woman, zealots strike him and kill him. Although the Torah does not say that one who performs one of these actions is liable to be executed, it is permitted for anyone who zealously takes the vengeance of the Lord to do so. In the case of a priest who performed the Temple service in a state of ritual impurity, his priestly brethren do not bring him to court for judgment; rather, the young men of the priesthood remove him from the Temple courtyard and pierce his skull with pieces of wood. In the case of a non-priest who performed the service in the Temple, Rabbi Akiva says: His execution is by strangulation, and the Rabbis say: He is not executed with a court-imposed death penalty; rather, he is liable to receive death at the hand of Heaven.