The Torah lavishes praise on Pinehas who took the law into his own hand: And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Phinehas turned away My wrath from the Israelites when he zealously acted for My zeal in their midst. The Talmud Yerushalmi balances this spectacular endorsement of vigilante behavior by seeing it as a response

One of God’s names is El and in declining to curse the Jewish people, Bilam says What can I curse that El has not cursed, and what can I doom that the LORD has not doomed? The Midrash explains that God connected His name with the Jewish people: Isra-El. Bilam was telling Balak that because

And the people incited against God and against Moses: “...we loathe the wretched bread.” And the LORD sent against the people the viper-serpents, and they bit the people...There is karma in the universe and what we do always comes back to bite - or comfort us. The snake incited Eve and Adam and therefore when

Korah challenged the leadership of Moshe and his horrible fate is seared into our collective memory:...the ground that was under them split apart, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households and every human being that was Korah’s, and all the possessions. Why did the ground swallow Korah’s possessions? Perhaps material