Rabbi Yonason Johnson is the Rosh Kollel of Kollel Menachem Lubavitch in Melbourne and Director of Adult Education of the Yeshivah Centre.

Anyone looking at the surface of the opening of this week’s Parsha, would see Zimri as a poor innocent civilian and Pinchas as a violent aggressor. Pinchas was a zealot out for blood who took the law into his own hands; a man of war and violence. This is how the Tribe of Shimon viewed him.

But in truth it was the actions of Zimri that were evil and brought a plague upon the Jewish people. Pinchas with his zealotry ended the plague and brought peace to the Jewish people.

The Seder Hadoros writes that Pinchas was a reincarnation of our forefather Yitzchak. This is alluded to in the shared Gematria of their names פינחס and יצחק (208). Zimri was a reincarnation of the soul of Esav.

Esav was the embodiment of evil. He engaged in murder, rape and idolatry, even attempting to kill his own brother Yaakov. Yitzchak should have killed Esav to put an end to his evil, like the law of the Ben Sorrer Umoreh requires.

But Yitzchak’s love blinded him to Esav’s evil. His misplaced compassion, pacifism and failure to take action, allowed Esav’s evil to promulgate. Esav became the father of Edom, the nations of the world who are the source of the scourge of antisemitism, a hatred, that has caused so much innocent Jewish blood to be spilled throughout the centuries.

When Zimri as a Gilgul, failed to rectify the sins of Esav, continuing in his evil and sinful ways, Pinchas as the Gilgul of Yitzchak took action and in doing so rectified in part, the failure of Yitzchak.

Taking a different approach, the Kabbalistic texts teach that Zimri was a reincarnation of Shechem and Kozbi was a reincarnation of Dinah. When Yaakov returned to Eretz Yisrael, Shechem abducted and molested his daughter Dinah. This sin was repeated when Zimri took Kozbi for immoral purposes.

This episode too illustrates the harm caused by misplaced compassion, that would allow evil to flourish. Hearing that their sister Dinah had been violated, her brothers Shimon and Levi were enraged. They schemed to take revenge and invaded Shechem, killing not only Shechem, but all men of military age. These men, too, were guilty for supporting Shechem’s actions and failing to bring him to justice.

But Yaakov was upset with his son’s actions, fearing that their reprisal would anger the inhabitants of the land, causing them to turn on him. Shimon and Levi responded “shall he treat our sister like a harlot?”. In the face of the horrific violation of their sister and the need to protect her, there was no place for consideration of what the surrounding nations will say or what may result. The evil must be punished and the message heard clearly that “such a thing shall not be done”, to ensure that it never happens again.

Like Shimon and Levi before him, Pinchas acted with courage and Mesirat Nefesh to fight evil. He did not worry about reprisal or care if he were labelled a murderer. He knew that the evil embodied in Zimri must be uprooted to bring peace to his people.

The lesson from the above is only too relevant to the war that Israel is waging against Hamas.

On Shemini Atzeres, the barbaric Hamas terrorists murdered our brothers and sisters and violated them in the most horrific manner, embracing and glorifying the evil ways of Esav and Shechem.

There are those like Yaakov, who fear that the nations of the world will turn against us and Israel will become a pariah if we fight back with strength against those who attack us. They fear that a strong response will lose us the support of our allies or bring international condemnation or broadening of the conflict. In the name of peace and love of humanity, they call for restraint, proportionality and ceasefire.

But far from bringing peace, their pacifism and misplaced compassion for evildoers of the worst kind, would only reward terror, encourage and embolden the enemies of Israel and allow Hamas to regroup and continue to be a threat to our sisters and brothers.

As a people, we desire peace more than anything. We do not want and did not ask for this war. But when we have a murderous, evil population committing such atrocities against our people, the words of Shimon and Levi ring in our ears and pulse in our veins, “should they treat our sister like a harlot?”

Like Levi and Shimon, we are fighting a just war, to eradicate terrorists; murderers and rapists and those who aided and supported them in their heinous crimes against humanity. And just as Yaakov’s fears of what the other nations will do was just a perceived fear that never materialised, we will see that the threats of delegitimisation are just a bluff and should not be given credibility by allowing it to blind our decisions.

Far from bringing war and being labelled as a man of violence, Pinchas was rewarded with a covenant of peace - because fighting to eradicate evil is the only path to real and lasting peace and security.

שלום has the same Gematria as זהו משיח, “this is Moshiach”. Moshiach will bring peace to world through the final and ultimate eradication of evil. Then “nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore”.