My problem, however, isn’t really with Pinchas. Even in my own somewhat zealous youth it was clear to me that he wasn't exactly a character I'd want to imitate. And even a very limited youthful embrace of him can easily be explained away by a more or less understandable mix of youthful fervor and stupidity. The problem, however, is more one of whether the Jewish tradition views him as a hero. Pinchas clearly is a significant Biblical character. At least once a year his story is read. We can't simply read the parasha out loud and when we get to the uncomfortable part mumble the words under our breath, hoping, or hinting, that nobody will hear them.
I find it interesting that Nehama Leibowitz, in her Studies in Bamidbar-Numbers devotes very few pages to Pinchas, as though she'd like to avoid the topic completely. The title of her short chapter on the subject - Coping with zeal - seems to express that. About Pinchas she writes:
In his zeal for his God, he slew a man on the spur of the moment, without trial, or offering previous warning, without legal testimony being heard, and in defiance of all the precedures of judicial examination prescribed by the Torah, which in practice render a conviction well nigh impossible. His deed of summary justice, taking the law into his hands, constituted a dangerous precedent, from the social, moral and educational angle.Leibowitz goes on to note that it's strange that Pinchas should be rewarded for this behavior. She then explains, quoting from Naphtali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, that God's reward to Pinchas:
Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace (Bamidbar - 25,12)shouldn't necessarily be seen as a reward, but as an attempt to calm the heavy heart that his deed must have brought upon him:
The Divine promise of a covenant of peace constitutes rather a guarantee of protection against the inner enemy, lurking inside the zealous perpetrator of the sudden deed, against the inner demoralization that such an act as the killing of a human being, without due process of law is liable to cause.She can't deny that Pinchas has been rewarded for his deed, but she interprets the reward less as a prize than as a positive intervention to help Pinchas overcome what must be a distressed soul.