Therefore, say: Behold, I give to him (Pinchas) My covenant of peace. (Bamidbar 25:12)

Hashem said: “It is deserving that Pinchas should get rewarded, therefore I will give him my covenant of peace. (Medrash Rabbah 21:1)

The Medrash makes a point of telling us that Pinchas deserved a reward for doing a mitzvah. But doesn’t a person always receive a reward when he does a mitzvah? Why did Chazal find it necessary to tell us that Pinchas deserved a reward?

I once saw an answer to this question by the Chida, who explained that the rewards of mitzvos are given in the next world, and not in this world. So why was it that Pinchas was given a reward in this world by becoming a kohen? The Chida explained that since Pinchas is the same person as Eliyahu Hanavi, and Eliyahu never died, his reward (the Kehuna) must be given in this world.

However, I saw a different approach that I would like to share with you. Imagine a parent who tells his child, “I want you to eat this ice cream sundae NOW” and the child proceeds to devour the ice cream with relish. The child then turns to the parent and asks, “When I go to the next world, will I be given a large reward because I listened to you and finished the entire sundae?” Obviously, the true answer is that the reward would be small, for the child would have devoured that ice cream sundae even without being commanded by his parent.

There are people who normally enjoy doing mitzvos. Does this mean that the righteous people who get the most enjoyment from the performance of mitzvos should get a lesser reward because of that enjoyment they received from doing the mitzvah? As the saying goes, the reward is based on the pain (lefum tzar agra). In the case of Pinchas, when he saw the desecration of G-d’s name, he was pained to the point that he understood that he must respond by killing the two perpetrators. Pinchas did not relish this mitzvah; on the contrary he was repulsed by being forced into this situation. Given a choice, Pinchas probably would rather have avoided both the action and the reward. Because of that attitude, his reward was increased, and it is with exact judgement that he was given the reward.

I was once leaving my home in Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem and I picked up a trempist. He got into the car and announced, “I can’t understand it! Giving a ride is such an easy mitzvah to do, and there is such a great reward for it. How come no one picked me up until now?” I challenged this stranger with the following argument: “What you are saying cannot be true. Either it is an important challenge for the person, but then the yetzer hara puts up a strong resistance to doing it, or it is an easy mitzvah for this person, in which case there will be very little resistance to it. However, there are no mitzvahs that really change a person, that are also EASY for that person to do.”

When one has that urge to do a mitzvah and his yetzer hara tells him that it is just not worth it, the argument to respond with is: Precisely because of the difficulty involved in the mitzvah, makes this the time to cash in and take advantage of the opportunity.