Following his failed attempt to put a curse upon Klal-Yisroel, Bilam counseled Balak to implement a cunning plot he had devised to induce Klal-Yisroel to sin so as to draw Hashem’s wrath upon it. Balak and Midian acted upon Bilam’s advice. They sent their young women to seduce the Jewish men. They enticed these latter to be intimate with them and to do avoda zara. While many Jewish men were guilty of falling prey to the Midianite women, the most notorious case was that of Zimri, one of the leaders of a tribe, who was publicly intimate with Cozbi, a Midianite princess. This act of Zimri’s indeed provoked Hashem’s wrath and caused a deadly plague to befall Am-Yisroel. Upon witnessing this public desecration, Pinchas acted quickly and with deadly zeal, piercing both Zimri and Cozbi with a single throw of his spear, causing Hashem’s wrath to subside.

At the beginning of this week’s Sedra Hashem commands Am-Yisroel to take revenge against the Midianim. Hashem specifies two reasons for this: 1) because they caused Am-Yisroel to commit idolatry, and 2) because of Cozbi and her involvement in Baal Peor (the avoda zara). The obvious question is: why was Cozbi singled out as being a second cause? Why wasn’t she included in the first?

Cozbi was an important princess. She wasn’t a simple commoner or even ordinary nobility. She was used in order to target the elite of Am-Yisroel. The sin of idolatry and the prohibition of being intimate with a gentile woman are the same for leaders and commoners alike. However, the magnitude of the sin is very different. Zimri may have acted similarly to other Jews and they were all lured into sinning in the same way. Midian was being punished not for any sin per se, but for the fact that they caused Am-Yisroel to sin. When one is being punished for a sin, the sin is what is taken into account. When one is being punished for causing a sin to be committed, the effect is what is taken into account.

` Cozbi had a much more powerful impact than any of the other Medianite women; her causing the sin is therefore especially singled out.

There are multiple lessons to be learned. Perhaps the most obvious is that of cause and effect. In a cause-and-effect situation, there is no knowing how great the impact of a particular act will be, nor on whom/what that impact will materialize. Thus having influence carries with it the possibility of an immeasurable impact. Another important lesson is that even great people can be negatively influenced if enough pressure is used. Zimri was not intimate with just anyone. It took a prominent princess for him to succumb to sin, but in the end he did sin gravely.

While even leaders cannot be expected to be perfect, they nonetheless must take heed from Zimri. No amount of pressure is an excuse great enough to sin, especially since the influence leaders have means that their immoral and illicit behavior can have an impact far beyond the sin itself.