Or HaChaim on Numbers 25:14/אור החיים על במדבר כ״ה:י״ד

1 ושם איש ישראל, And the name of the Israelite man, etc. If G'd was so interested in our knowing the names of the people Pinchas slew why did the Torah not report this at the time it reported Pinchas' deed in the last Parshah? If the Torah had mentioned these names at that time it could have saved at least a half a sentence here!

2G'd has made it a rule not to belittle even the wicked unless there is a compelling reason. We know that in the case of the person who collected wood on the Sabbath and who was subsequently executed the Torah did not reveal his name at all (Numbers 15,32-36). In our instance the Torah revealed the names well after the occurrence because there was a compelling reason but not until after G'd had praised Pinchas for what he did and we have learned of the beneficial effects of his deed. Having recorded that G'd not only approved of what Pinchas had done but rewarded him publicly, the Torah explained that Pinchas had taken very great personal risks as the two victims involved were very highly placed individuals. When the persons for whose sake one displays just jealousy on behalf of G'd are aristocrats, higly placed, this makes the act of sanctifying G'd's name even more meritorious. Although in the process of mentioning their names, the Torah publicly displayed its contempt for the sinner, it only followed approved practice as we know from Proverbs 10,7 "the memory of the just is a source of blessing whereas the name of the wicked will rot." Perhaps the positioning of the names of the victims at this point was meant to hint that if these two individuals had not been so highly placed, Pinchas' deed would not have sufficed to turn away G'd's wrath and bring about atonement for the entire people. When Samael saw to what extent a man like Pinchas despised someone guilty of sleeping with a Midianite, his own power was weakened. Had the individuals in question been ordinary people Pinchas could not have accomplished as much through his display of jealousy on behalf of G'd as the personal danger to which he exposed himself at the hands of the victims' surviving relatives would have been much less.

3Perhaps the reason the Torah did not mention the name of the victims in 25,6 where we would have expected it was that at that point Pinchas had not yet carried out his deed but had only planned it. As long as he had not carried out his plan it would not have been seemly for the Torah to reveal the names of prospective victims. Once Pinchas had completed his deed the names of the wicked had to be mentioned in order to publicise them.

4המכה אשר הכה, that was slain, who was slain, etc. why was the verb "was slain" repeated here twice? Besides, why did the verse commence by mentioning the nationality of the Jewish victim before mentioning the occasion, whereas when the Midianite woman is named the occasion is mentioned before her nationality is mentioned?

5All this can best be explained by reference to Berachot 18 where we are told that the wicked are referred to as dead even while they are still physically alive. The reason for this is that the power of evil, which is another word for the power of death already clings to the wicked. I have mentioned repeatedly that the name people are known by is the name of their soul. G'd placed a variety of "names" on earth as the Talmud in Berachot 7 says about Psalms 46,9: ראו מפעלות ה׳ אשר שם שמות בארץ, "come and see what the Lord has done, He has wrought desolation on earth." The Talmud suggests that we do not read the word shamot in that verse with the vowel patach but with the vowel tzeyreh so that the meaning of the word desolation is changed to "names." When a human being sins his soul becomes tarnished or injured in that the evil he did clings to it. This is the real meaning of Proverbs 10,8 that the "name" of the wicked will rot, i.e. his soul will rot. This explains an enigmatic story in the Talmud Yuma 83 where Rabbi Meir is described as examining people's names and thereby arriving at conclusions about their character. When he and his colleagues arrived at a certain inn they asked the innkeeper his name. Rabbi Meir concluded after hearing the man's name that he was a wicked person. In our situation, a Jew who sleeps with a Midianite woman causes his soul to become tarnished; this is what the Torah means when it describes the name of the Israelite as being מכה, struck by a fatal blemish even before Pinchas had a chance to inflict bodily death upon him. The words אשר הכה, teach that for all practical purposes the man had already been fatally injured prior to Pinchas stabbing him. When the Torah wanted to tell us about what happened to Zimri's soul, it wrote: "and the name of the man who had been struck etc." The idea is that from the moment he committed his abominable act his soul had already sustained a fatal injury. The reason the Torah emphasises: "Israelite," is to tell us that a Jewish soul could not survive an act of such a wilfully committed abomination. As to the physical killing of Zimri's body, the Torah refers to this by the words אשר הכה, "who was struck." The reason the Torah wrote אשר הכה את המדינית, "he who was struck down with the Midianite woman," was to inform us that the soul of the Jewish man was struck down because of his intimate association with the Midianite woman." The act of sleeping with her constituted a fatal blow to his soul.

6The Torah also alludes to another point when writing את המדינית. When the Torah describes how the wife of Potiphar tried to seduce Joseph (Genesis 39,10), we read that Joseph refused לשכב אצלה, להיות עמה "to sleep beside her and to be with her." Our sages in Yuma 35 comment that the words לשכב אצלה refer to Joseph sharing her life in this world, whereas the words להיות עמה refer to Joseph's refusal to be her companion in the world to come. If we take this comment as our cue, we can understand the words הכה את המדינית as telling us that the Israelite's being smitten meant that he would not be with that woman in the hereafter. We must assume that Zimri died before becoming a penitent as Pinchas stabbed him while he was engaged in the act. This answers the question why the word: "he was struck" was repeated in the Torah's description of events. It also explains why the word איש ישראל had to precede the report of his being struck to teach us that the name, i.e. the soul had been struck before the body was killed. When the Torah got around to mentioning the name of the Midianite woman, the fact that she was struck is mentioned only once, as she did not have a soul rooted in holy domains that she could be deprived of. She was also not especially mentioned prior to what happened to her as she was considered as dead already while she was fully alive; essentially what happened to her was nothing new, except that her death became manifest. We have mentioned on repeated occasions that the names of the various cults which the pagans practice are the names of spiritually negative forces, קליפות.

7There is yet another way of approaching our verse, based on a kabbalistic approach. It is based on the principle that "sparks" of sanctity which have become exiled for one reason or another to one region or another, are not to be perceived as lost forever. Eventually, somehow they will find their way back to their holy origin. When the Torah speaks of the "name of the Israelite man," this is a hint that even after such a self-debasing encounter as he had indulged in with the Midianite woman the Torah still refers to Zimri as איש ישראל, "an Israelite man." This teaches that he had not been totally uprooted from his holy origin. The word המכה refers to what Pinchas had done to him. By adding the words את המדינית, "with the Midianite woman," the Torah indicates that rather than having been smitten with perdition of his soul he had only been smitten with losing his Midianite partner, i.e. that particular evil partner he had acquired. As a result of their physical union her characteristics had clung to his soul. This act of clinging to his soul is described by the term הכאה, a fatal blow. This teaches that by becoming Pinchas' victim Zimri's soul was released from the negative spiritual force his soul had absorbed from Kosbi. His death acted as his atonement, converted the damage into something transient rather than enduring. As soon as he and she parted company physically, Zimri's soul no longer bore the imprint of that fateful association.. His death purified his soul. This explains why the Torah could refer to him as "an Israelite man" only after he had been killed. If this approach is correct in terms of our השקפה, please accept this as my interpretation of this verse.