In this week's parashah, we read of the rewards given to Pinhas for his heroic act, standing up for Hashem's honor. Pinhas acted entirely לשם שמיים - for the sake of Hashem - and out of deep love for the Jewish People. He could not bear to see them suffering and distancing themselves from Hashem. Pinhas brought peace between Hashem and His nation, and he was thus rewarded with a ברית שלום - a "covenant of peace."
Pinhas acted despite the risk to his life. The Midrash relates that thousands of people from the tribe of Shimon waited outside the tent to kill him, but Hashem performed twelve different miracles to protect him. The Rabbis teach us that when a person acts with mesirut nefesh - willing to sacrifice for Hashem or for the Jewish Nation - then he earns protection for himself and for the entire nation. This is why the plague stopped once Pinhas committed his act. Thousands of lives were spared. This is the power of a single man's actions.
We should never feel discouraged by obstacles. The greater the hurdle we need to overcome to do the right thing, the greater our reward. Sometimes we know what the right thing is, but it seems too difficult for us, and we are afraid. Our job is to try our hardest, and Hashem will then come and provide the assistance we need. לפום צערא אגרא - the harder we try, the greater the rewards. When we are willing to make sacrifices and give of ourselves to help others, then we receive great assistance from Hashem.
A story is told of a Jewish man who worked in a sewing factory in the 1930s, a time when it was very difficult for Jews to find jobs which allowed them to take off on Shabbat. Many Jews were fired every Friday after informing their boss they would not be arriving for work on Saturday. This man, however, was fortunate to find a job in a sewing factory that closed on Shabbat. He did his work well and was eventually promoted to a managerial position.
The man was pained by the sight of fellow Jews who had no work and no money with which to support their families. Upon assuming the position of manager, he went around to the men in the synagogue asking if their wives knew how to sew, and inviting those who did to work in his factory. In just a few days, he hired five women.
His boss angrily approached him and said, "What are you doing? You know we can't afford to hire all these workers, and there isn't enough work for them."
"Don't worry," the man said. "It will work out."
"If by the end of the month we don't have enough business for these workers, then I am firing both them and you."
"Great," the man thought to himself. "Now I have a few more weeks so I can continue hiring and helping more people." He kept hiring. Towards the end of the month, the company received the largest order - by far - that it had ever received. Each and every worker which this manager hired was needed to fill the order. This proved to be the turning point for the company, and it took off and became very big. This man ended up making a lot of money.
Many years later, after this man retired, he happened to meet the person from the other company who had placed that very large order.
"Why did you place such a large order?" he asked. "We were such a small company at the time."
"The word on the street was that your factory was hiring like crazy," the other man explained. "I figured that my competitors were all buying from you, and I wanted to keep the edge over them, so I bought even more."
We know, however, that the company's success was because of this man's mesirut nefesh. He was willing to risk his own job to help others, and so Hashem came and assisted him in ways which he could have never imagined.