In this week’s Torah portion of Pinchas, we meet the High Priest Aaron’s grandson, for whom the portion is named.
Pinchas suddenly emerges as a bold new leader for this new generation of the Children of Israel, and his unprecedented strike against the heinous immorality calculated by the wicked Bilaam and King Balak to destroy Israel, earned him a Divinely-appointed "Covenant of Peace"… and a covenant of "Eternal Priesthood."
This week’s Jerusalem Lights podcast focuses on the unusual step taken by Pinchas to save his people from the abyss of immorality.
Jim Long and Rabbi Chaim Richman connect the themes of the portion with our contemporary reality, and offer some deep insights into the existential separation anxiety and spiritual roots of the annual "Three Weeks" of mourning for the Holy Temple, which begin with the Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, observed this year on July 6th.