חמתי את השיב הכהן אהרן בן אלעזר בן פינחס” ולא בתוכם קנאתי את בקנאו ישראל בני מעל (יא כה) “בקנאתי ישראל בני את כליתי
From the words of this passuk it seems that Pinchas stopped the plague in the merit of his zealotry for the kavod of Hashem. But from the words of the passuk in Tehillim (106:30): “Vaya’amod Pinchas vayepallel vate’atzar hamageifah” it seems that he stopped the plague with tefillah. How can these two pesukim be reconciled?
Harav Yosef Dovid of Salonika explained:
In Maseches Brachos (20a) it says that Rav Pappa asked Abayei: Why, in earlier generations, were there miracles, but when we see a tzarah, we get distraught and scream to Hashem in tefillah and we are not answered? And Abayei replied: The early ones were moser nefesh for Kiddush Hashem, and therefore, miracles were performed for them, but we are not moser nefesh for Kedushas Hashem, and therefore our tefillah is not heard.
In light of this, the pesukim are very clear: Indeed, Pinchas stopped the plague with his tefillah, as it says in Sefer Tehillim, but the passuk here explains that the reason why his tefillah was accepted was because “Pinchas the son of Elazar the son of Aharon Hakohein has turned My anger away from Bnei Yisrael,” through his tefillah, and why did he merit to have the tefillah accepted? ‘Bekano es kinasi besocham” – in the merit of being moser nefesh for Kavod Shamayim.
We see this also in the words of the passuk: It says “vayepallel” and not “vayispallel,” because he had the merit of Kiddush Hashem, “he did not have to recite an entire tefillah, and with a bit of tefillah, immediately he was answered.”
Tzemach Dovid
