Do you ever get the sense that you’re in the wrong life? Not dramatically wrong — not a crisis — but just… off. Like the job you’re in, the path you’re on, the way you spend your days doesn’t quite fit who you really are. There’s a restlessness underneath everything, and you can’t put your finger on it.
Parshas Pinchas has something to say about that feeling. And it’s not what you’d expect.
Two Chapters That Belong Together
The parsha picks up where Balak left off. The Midianites had seduced Bnei Yisrael into sin — immorality and idol worship — and a devastating plague followed. Pinchas acted decisively, the plague stopped, and Hashem told Moshe: “Tzror es haMidyanim” — which Rashi translates as “make enemies of the Midianites.” Treat them as adversaries. Then smite them.
Right after that, the Torah shifts gears entirely. A new census. The division of Eretz Yisrael by lots. Each tribe, each family, getting its designated portion of the Land.
On the surface these seem like two unrelated topics stitched together. But Rabbi Mordechai Miller zt”l, in his Shabbos Shiurim, offers a remarkable explanation of why they’re not just connected — they’re sequential. You can’t get to the second chapter until you’ve dealt with the first.
A Portion That’s Yours Alone
The Tanya teaches something striking about the way Eretz Yisrael was divided. It was done by lottery — by goral. And a lottery, by its nature, is super-rational. It’s above reason. You don’t pick your lot. It’s given to you. You don’t argue the case. The lot falls where it falls.
But here’s the thing. It wasn’t random. It was super-rational; beyond human logic; a mystical declaration. Hashem used a mechanism that was above human reasoning to teach us that the portion each person was given was perfectly matched to his neshamah.
For instance, Zevulun got near the coastline. Why? Because they were merchants at heart — in their soul, in their essence. Others got fertile farmland because they were farmers deep down, not just by trade but by nature. The lottery confirmed on the outside what was already true on the inside. Each neshamah was formed in a way that naturally connected it to its specific portion of land. There’s no arguing.
The Sefas Emes explains that this principle goes well beyond real estate — every Jew has his chelek not only in Eretz Yisrael, but in Olam Haba and in Torah.
The Gemara says: “Ein adam lomed Torah ela mimakom she’libo chafetz — a person only truly learns Torah in the area his heart desires” (Avodah Zarah 19a). Some people naturally gravitate toward halachah, some aggadita, some lomdus, some pashut pshat. There’s a part of Torah — a sugya, a sefer, an approach to learning — that speaks to your neshamah in a way nothing else does. That’s your chelek in Torah. When you find it, learning comes alive.
And Rabbi Mordechai Miller writes, it extends to parnassah too. The Gemara in Berachos (43b) says Hashem has made each person’s profession beautiful in his eyes. Even the sanitation worker can tell himself, “I finish early, get paid well, get good benefits and I’m doing a real service. Without me, the streets would be filthy and nobody would be happy.”
Every honest profession has a beauty built into it — but specifically for the person who holds it.
So the land (in this world and the next), Torah, parnassah — each person has a portion with his name on it. And when he finds it, there’s a sense of menuchah, a settledness. You fit.
The problem is that so many people feel so unhappy in these areas — in Torah, in work, in marriage, in life. Sometimes all of them. What happened to the idea that Hashem designed the system so that every person has a perfect match?
The Distorting Glass
This is where the first chapter of the parsha comes back.
“Tzror es haMidyanim.” The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh reads this as something far more than a military command. The Midyanim represent the yetzer hara — the part of you that desires sin. And this is why the Torah puts these two topics in sequence. First deal with the Midyanim — the yetzer hara within you. Then you can receive your portion.
As the Ohr Hachaim puts it: “Make enemies of the Midianites, and then smite them — Declare open war on the true foe in your soul, your yetzer hara. Impress on your consciousness your hatred of and revulsion from sin—then you will be able to see clearly and vanquish it.”
The yetzer hara doesn’t just tempt you to do the wrong thing. It distorts your ability to know what the right thing is. It scrambles the signal between your neshamah and your life.
Two Kinds of Unhappiness
There are actually two basic kinds of unhappiness it creates.
The first is when a person chooses the wrong path — the wrong job, the wrong direction — because the yetzer hara has numbed his ability to know himself. He doesn’t even realize he’s in the wrong place. He just knows something feels off. Since he’s disconnected from his own essence, he can’t find the portion that was made for him.
The second is almost the opposite. He’s in the right place — the right career, the right community, the right learning, the right marriage — but he lacks the ability to be happy with his lot. The beauty that Hashem built into his profession, his chelek in Torah, his place in life — it’s all there, but the yetzer hara has fogged up the glass. He can’t see it.
There are many young men — and adults — who aren’t into their learning. Learning is the most wonderful thing in the world. There’s nothing like it. But the yetzer hara numbs the feeling, the beauty, the love of it. Everyone can find his place in learning and experience that pleasure. But sin blocks the connection. It puts static on the line between your neshamah and the Torah that was meant to light it up.
That’s the message of the sequence. First “Tzror es haMidyanim” — go to war with the yetzer hara, the Midyanim inside you. Treat it as an enemy, not a neutral. And then — then you’re ready to receive your portion.
Seeing Clearly
Most of us walk around with some version of that fog. Maybe it’s not a dramatic sin — maybe it’s just the low-level pull of distraction, comfort, or the thousand small compromises that accumulate over a life. But each one adds another layer of cloudiness to the glass.
None of this means the answer is instant or simple. Fighting the yetzer hara is the work of a lifetime. As Rav Avigdor Miller once told an older man who complained that he still had to battle his yetzer hara, “Don’t worry – the first 120 years are the hardest.”
Despite that, the parsha is telling us something encouraging — the portion exists. Your chelek in Torah is real. Your place in the world is real. The fit between your neshamah and your life is not a fantasy — it was designed before you were born.
The restlessness you feel? It doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong life. It means something is blocking your ability to see the life you’re already in.
The portion is yours. You just have to clear the glass.
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