Only You Can Do Your Part

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In this week's parsha, Pinchas, it tells about the aftermath of the story of Zimri, when Pinchas, who was the junior of the group, took action and saved the day.

How do we know that Pinchas was the junior of the group, and wasn't given special attention? The Talmud tells us how Moshe taught the Torah to the Jewish people. First he would teach it to Aaron, then he would teach it to Aaron's sons Elazzar and Ethamar, then he would teach it to the seventy elders, and then he would teach it to all of the Jewish people. And Pinchas got the teaching with all of the Jewish people, he wasn't given special treatment.

And because of his actions he was rewarded to be a Kohen, him and all of his descendants after him, an everlasting reward.

Moshe, Aaron, Elazzar, Ethamar and the seventy elders didn't know what to do, the law slipped their minds, only Pinchas remembered. They said to him, "the reader of the letter should carry it out."

What are we meant to learn from this?

There are things that the leaders of the generation are not going to tell you to do, it doesn't mean that they should not be done. If you see a good thing that is not being done and you can do it, you should. And the reason that greater people aren't doing it, perhaps it is "in order for Pinchas to take the Kohenhood," meaning that it is for you to make a difference, your purpose in the world that you were created for.

Just as physically everyone has his or her part in the world, and "no one can touch the (G-d given) livelihood of his friend," so too, no one can touch the spiritual livelihood of his friend, no one can touch his part in Torah.

His part in Torah doesn't necessarily mean the study of Torah, it means his innovation in Torah, just as the Talmud tells us that Rabbi Akiva taught a law that Moshe didn't know. And it means that no one can do another person's mitzvah, his or her spiritual purpose in the world.

Every person has a unique physical and spiritual mission in the world that only he or she can do and when we do it we refine the  world, making it into a home for Hashem, and that is our part in bringing Moshiach. May he come soon.