I had a comment on this week’s parsha, so to speak, maybe I should say last week’s parsha. This comment comes after I fulfilled a dream of mine a month or two ago, I made a siyum in shas mishnayos, lately acquiring a certain bekius in Seder Taharos.
At the end of Parshat Balak, the Targum Yonasan lists 12 miracles that occurred when Pinchas stabbed Zimri and the shiksa that he was living with. The eleventh miracle that he lists is as follows:
נֵס חַדְסְרָאֵי דְאִתְנַטְרוּ כַּד חַיָין עַד זְמַן דַהֲלִיךְ יַתְהוֹן בְּכָל מַשִׁרְיָיתָא מִן בִּגְלַל דְלָא יִסְתָּאָב כַּהֲנָא בְּאָהֳלֵי דְמִיתָא.
That Zimri et al were kept alive the whole time that Pinchas was marching them throughout the entire encampment in order to show that it was not in vain that he killed Zimri the head of Shevet Shimon. And the Targum adds, “in order that the Cohen (Pinchas) should not become tameh (ritually impure) by being in an ohel hamais”, in the tent, so to speak, meaning under the same roof as a dead person.
I comment, why do you have to come on to an ohel hamais? A mais is metamei even by masah. Even if Pinchas would have held the romach at an angle such that he was never underneath, he would still be tamei because of masah.
In the afternoon I learn in the Tzanzer Bais Medrash Beitar B2. I asked this question to one of the talmidai chachamim who learns there, and he answered me that he thought that I was going to ask something else, a question that was bothering him. That at the time Pinchas was not yet a Cohen, so why does the Targum express itself “the Cohen”?
To my question he didn’t have an answer. But to his question I suggested, that even though the gemara states, and Rashi brings this:
וְכֵן שָׁנִינוּ בִזְבָחִים (דף ק”א) לֹא נִתְכַּהֵן פִּינְחָס עַד שֶׁהֲרָגוֹ לְזִמְרִי
(and since Zimri was not yet dead you can’t say עַד שֶׁהֲרָגוֹ), still, what the posuk actually says is: is that G-d granted Pinchas to be a Cohen אֲשֶׁ֤ר קִנֵּא֙ לאלקיו and when he did the myseh with the romach he was kinay Lailokav already, even though Zimri didn’t die immediately. Hashem Yisborach told this to Moshe afterwards, but there was no official ceremony that was done to make Pinchas a Cohen, Hashem granted this when Pinchas did the myseh kana’us. So I suggest.
When I finished afternoon seder I took a bus home, it was hot and a bus was expected momentarily. I got on and I met Rav Yitzchak Kline, the Rosh Yeshiva of Amshinov. He asked me if I have any chidushim, and so I told him my comment on the Targum Yonasan. He asked me why did I not ask from maga, the fact that Pinchas was touching the romach, and חרב הרי הוא כחלל. I thought to answer him that I imagined the romach to be made out of wood, but then I realized that he was probably correct that it was made of metal. And besides, the mishnayos in Kailim talk about where the functional part of a kli is made out of metal, and the rest, even the rov, is made out of wood. But I don’t have the mishna on my fingertips to quote it responsibly.
But on my question, whether you ask from masah or whether you ask from maga, I don’t think that he answered me anything.
I feel like a million dollars though, that I finally have the bekius that I could ask such a question.
