First, a personal comment: It's fascinating how a person's life experience shape them.... As I sit here in the great backwoods of Maine and read about the Israelites in the Wilderness, I realize that my view of a a wilderness is very different from where they were. I need to remind myself that the Israelites are not in a seemingly endless pine forest with numerous lakes ;-) but somewhere hotter and drier.
Pinchas has never been an easy parsha for me, as the whole zealotry/fanaticism mode of viewing the world is not how this shy introvert functions. Most commentary also seems to focus on the issues of Pinchas's zealotry and the incongruity of his peaceful reward.
But I'm going to focus my attention on a couple other bits of commentary on the parsha that caught my eye.