Parshah Pinchas Numbers 25:10-30:1 Torah Reading for Week of Jul 6-12, 2014 - Tammuz 8-14, 5774 Pinchas Aliyah Summary General Overview: Phinehas (Pinchas) is rewarded for his bravery. A census of the Israelites is taken. The daughters of Zelophehad successfully argue for a portion in the land of Israel. Joshua is ordained Moses successor. G‑d relays to Moses the details of all the holiday sacrifices. First Aliyah: Last weeks reading concluded with Moabite and Midianite women seducing Jewish men and enticing them to idol worship. At that point, Phinehas unilaterally executed a Jewish leader along with the Midianite princess with whom he was cohabiting. This weeks reading opens with G‑d praising Phinehas, and rewarding his bravery by granting priesthood to him and his descendants. G‑d then commands the Jews to punish the Midianites by hounding and smiting them. The fulfillment of this command is described in next weeks reading. G‑d commands Moses and Elazar the High Priest to conduct a census of all males over the age of twenty. Second Aliyah: The Israelites are counted, and the totals are given for each of the twelve tribes. The grand total of all the tribes combined is 601,730. The tribe of Levi is not included in this census. Third Aliyah: As per G‑ds command, the land of Israel was to be divided amongst all those who were counted in this census. The location of each tribes portion would be determined by lottery. The tribe of Levi is now counted. There were 23,000 Levite males above the age of one month. The daughters of Zelophehad approached Moses and stated that their father had died leaving behind only daughters. They requested to receive their fathers portion in the land of Israel. Moses relayed their request to G‑d. Fourth Aliyah: G‑d agreed to Zelophehads daughters request. Moses is then instructed the laws of inheritance. Included in these laws is a daughters right to her fathers estate if he does not leave any sons. G‑d tells Moses to climb to the top of Mount Abarim from where he would see the Promised Land before he died. Moses asks G‑d to appoint a worthy individual to succeed him. G‑d instructs Moses to endow Joshua with some of his spiritual powers and publicly name him as his successor. Fifth Aliyah: From this point until the end of this weeks reading, the Torah details the various communal sacrifices which were offered in the Tabernacle and Temple at designated times. This section discusses the twice-daily Tamid sacrifice, as well as the additional sacrifices offered on Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh (the first day of the Jewish month). Sixth Aliyah: This section discusses the sacrifices offered on Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. The Torah also discusses some of the laws related to these holidays. Seventh Aliyah: This section discusses the sacrifices offered on the holidays of Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret. Haftorah for Pinchas I Kings Chapter 18 46. And a spirit of strength from the L-rd was with Elijah, and he girded his loins and ran before Ahab until coming to Jezreel. Chapter 19 1. And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and all that he had killed all of the prophets with the sword. 2. Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, So may the gods do and so may they continue unless at this time tomorrow, I will make your life like the life of one of them. 3. And he saw, and he arose and went for his life, and he came to Beer Sheba which belonged to Judah. And he left his servant there. 4. He went to the desert, a distance of one days travel, and he came and sat under a juniper and requested that his soul die, He said, Enough, now L-rd take my soul as I am not better than my forefathers. 5. He lay and slept underneath one juniper, and behold! an angel touched him and said to him: Rise and eat. 6. And he looked, and at his head there was a cake baked on hot coals, and a flask of water. He ate and drank and again he lay down. 7. And the angel of the L-rd returned to him again and touched him and said, Arise and eat as the journey is too much for you. 8. And he arose and ate and drank, and he went with the strength of this meal forty days and forty nights up to the mountain of the L-rd, Horeb. 9. And he came there to the cave, and he lodged there. And behold! The word of the Lord came to him. And He said to him: What are you doing here, Elijah? 10. And he said: I have been zealous for the L-rd, the G-d of Hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant. They have torn down Your altars and they have killed Your prophets by the sword, and I have remained alone, and they seek my life to take it. 11. And He said: Go out and stand in the mountain before the L-rd, Behold! the L-rd passes, and a great and strong wind splitting mountains and shattering boulders before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake-not in the earthquake was the L-rd. 12. After the earthquake fire, not in the fire was the L-rd, and after the fire a still small sound. 13. And as Elijah heard, he wrapped his face in his mantle, and he went out and stood at the entrance to the cave, and behold a voice came to him and said: What are you doing here, Elijah? 14. And he said, I have been zealous for the L-rd, the G-d of Hosts, for the Children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, they have torn down Your altars, and they have killed Your prophets by the sword, and I alone remain, and they seek my soul to take it. 15. And the L-rd said to him: Go, return to your way to the desert of Damascus and you shall come and anoint Hazael to be king over Aram. 16. And Jehu, the son of Nimshi, you shall anoint as king over Israel, and Elisha, the son of Shafat from Abel Meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your stead. 17. And it will be, those who escape the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill, and those who escape the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. 18. And I will leave over in Israel seven thousand, all the knees that did not kneel to the Baal and every mouth that did not kiss him. 19. And he went from there, and he found Elisha, the son of Shafat, as he was plowing; twelve yoke were before him and he was with the twelfth, and Elijah went over to him and threw his mantle over him. 20. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said: Let me, please, kiss my father and my mother, and I will go after you, and he said to him, Go, return, for what have I done to you? 21. And he returned from after him, and he took the yoke of oxen and slaughtered them, and with the gear of the oxen he cooked the meat for them, and he gave the people and they ate, and he rose and followed Elijah and ministered to him. Learning & Values » Parshah (Weekly Torah) » Bamidbar - Numbers » Pinchas » Chassidic Masters The Zealot Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Courtesy of MeaningfulLife  G‑d spoke to Moses, saying: “Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron the kohen, turned away My wrath from the children of Israel with his zealotry for My sake . . . Therefore . . . I shall grant him My covenant of peace . . .” Numbers 25:11–12 Pinchas’s deed evokes many associations—courage, decisiveness and religious passion are several that come to mind—but peace hardly seems one of them. Pinchas, after all, killed two people. True, what he did was condoned by Torah law, and his doing so saved many lives; still, one does not usually think of homicide as a peaceful act. As the Torah tells it (see Numbers 25; Rashi ibid.; Talmud, Sanhedrin 81b–82b and 106a), the wicked prophet Balaam, having failed to undermine the people of Israel’s special relationship with G‑d by harping on their past sins, had an idea. “Their G‑d abhors promiscuity,” he said to Balak, the Moabite king who had hired him to place a curse on Israel. Corrupt them with the daughters of your realm, and you will provoke His wrath upon them. This time Balaam succeeded. Many Jews, particularly from the tribe of Simeon, were enticed by the Midianite harlots who descended upon the Israelite camp in the Shittim valley, and were even induced to serve Baal Peor, the pagan god of their consorts. When tribunals were set up by Moses to try and punish the idolaters, Zimri, the leader of Simeon, sought to legitimize his tribe’s sins by publicly taking a Midianite woman into his tent, before the eyes of Moses and the eyes of the entire community of Israel. Moses and the nation’s elders were at a loss as of what to do. Torah law does not provide for any conventional, court-induced punishment for such an offender. There is a law that gives license for “zealots to smite him,” but this provision eluded Moses and the entire Jewish leadership. Only Pinchas remembered it, and had the fortitude to carry it through. He killed Zimri and the Midianite woman, stopping a plague that had begun to rage as the result of G‑d’s wrath against His people. The Grandfather Issue The Talmud, referring to G‑d’s opening words to Moses quoted above, asks: The Torah has already told us who Pinchas is, back in the sixth chapter of Exodus and again, but a few short verses before, in Numbers 25:7. Why does the Torah again refer to him as “Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron?” Rashi, quoting the Talmud and Midrash, explains: Because the tribes of Israel were mocking him, saying: Have you seen this son of the fattener, whose mother’s father fattened calves for idolatrous sacrifices, and now he goes and kills a prince in Israel?! Therefore, G‑d traced his lineage to Aaron. (Pinchas’s maternal grandfather was Jethro, who prior to his conversion to Judaism was a pagan priest.) This explanation, however, seems to raise more questions than it answers: a) What set “the tribes of Israel” against Pinchas? The animosity of one tribe, the tribe of Simeon, would be understandable: he killed their leader and put an end to their pagan orgy. But why was he condemned by the entire community of Israel, most of whom were outraged by Zimri’s act and were doubtless grateful for Pinchas’s stopping the plague? b) Of what possible relevance is Jethro’s past? If Pinchas acted wrongly, then he is guilty of much worse than having a grandfather who fattened calves for slaughter. “Murderer” would be a more apt epithet than “fattener’s grandson.” And if it was acknowledged that killing Zimri was the right thing to do, why was the young hero and savior of his people being mocked? c) If, for whatever reason, Pinchas is to be faulted because of Jethro’s idolatrous past, why dwell on the fact that he “fattened calves for slaughter”? What about the fact that he was a pagan priest who (as the Midrash tells us) had served every idol in the world? d) Whatever the complaint against Pinchas was, how is it refuted by the fact that he was Aaron’s grandson? Who Is a Zealot? The nature of Zimri’s crime made his killing an extremely sensitive moral issue. On the one hand, the Torah deems what he did deserving of death. On the other hand, it does not entrust the carrying out of the sentence to the normal judiciary process, ruling instead that “zealots should smite him.” Who, then, qualifies as a zealot? When a sentence is carried out after the due process of a trial and conviction, there is less of a need to dwell on the motives of the judges and executioner: they’re going by the book, and we can check their behavior against the book. But the motives of the zealot who takes unilateral action are extremely important, for his very qualifications as a zealot hinge upon the question of what exactly prompted him to do what he did. Is he truly motivated to “still G‑d’s wrath,” or has he found a holy outlet for his individual aggression? Is his act truly an act of peace, driven by the desire to reconcile an errant people with their G‑d, or is it an act of violence, made kosher by the assumption of the label “zealot”? The true zealot is an utterly selfless individual—one who is concerned only about the relationship between G‑d and His people, with no thought for his own feelings on the matter. The moment his personal prejudices and inclinations are involved, he ceases to be a zealot. (This may be why the law that “zealots smite him” falls under the unique legal category of halachah v’ein morin kein, “a law that is not instructed”: if a would-be zealot comes to the court and inquires if he is permitted to kill the transgressor, he is not given license to do so (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Forbidden Relations, 12:5). Indeed, the very fact that he has come to ask disqualifies him—someone who needs to ensure, in advance, that he is backed by the court is no zealot. The true zealot has no thought for himself: not of his feelings on the matter, not of his personal safety, not even of the moral and spiritual implications of his act on his own self—he doesn’t even care if what he is doing is legal or not. He is simply determined to put an end to a situation that incurs the divine wrath against Israel.) Aaron’s Grandson According to this, the questions posed above answer each other. The tribes of Israel knew that the case of Zimri warranted the law that “zealots smite him.” But they were skeptical of Pinchas’s motivations. Why is it, they asked, that no one—not Moses, not the elders, nor anyone in the entire leadership of Israel—was moved to assume the role of zealot, save for Pinchas, “the youngest of the band”? Was Pinchas the most caring and selfless one of them all? Far more likely, said they, that what we have here is an angry young man who thinks he found a Torah-sanctioned outlet for his aggression. A bit of digging around in the skeletons of Pinchas’s family closet only reinforced their initial doubts. Of course, they said. Look at his grandfather! Few professions are as inhumane as the fattening of calves for slaughter. The fact of Jethro’s idolatry is not what is relevant here, but his nature and personality. Pinchas, the “tribes of Israel” reasoned, must have inherited his grandfather’s natural cruelty, and proceeded to clothe it in the holy vestments of zealotry. So G‑d explicitly attached Pinchas’s name to Aaron, the gentlest and most peace-loving man that Israel knew. Aaron, the “lover of peace and pursuer of peace, one who loves humanity and brings them close to Torah.” In character and temperament, G‑d was attesting, Pinchas takes after his other grandfather, Aaron. Not only is he not inclined to violence—it is the very antithesis of his natural temperament. Pinchas is a man of peace, who did what he did with the sole aim of “turning away My wrath from the children of Israel.” Two Hypocrites This also explains the significance of another statement by Rashi. After emphasizing that Pinchas was Aaron’s grandson, the Torah writes: “The name of the smitten Israelite, who was smitten with the Midianite, was Zimri the son of Salu, a tribal prince of the Simeonites.” On which Rashi comments, “On the same occasion that the righteous one’s lineage was cited in praise, the wicked ones lineage was cited in detriment.” But what detriment is there in Zimri’s being a Simeonite prince? Those who looked with a negative eye on Pinchas’s motives saw his cruelty even more strongly underscored when contrasted with the motives of the man he killed. Pinchas slew a man while that man was engaged in an act of love; Pinchas was giving vent to his own violent passions, while Zimri acted out of a selfless concern for his constituents, putting his own life on the line (for surely he knew that some zealot might take it upon himself to kill him) to save his tribe through his bold attempt to legitimize their sins. If Pinchas did the right thing—these critics were saying—he did it for all the wrong reasons, while Zimri might have done a wrong thing, but was motivated by an altruistic love for his people. G‑d, who knows the heart of every man, spoke to dispel this distorted picture. Pinchas, He attested, inherited the peace-loving nature of his grandfather, while Zimri was every inch a descendant of Simeon, whom Jacob rebuked for his heated and violent nature. (“Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce,” said Jacob of Shimon and Levi, rebuking them for the massacre of Shechem and their plot against Joseph, “and their wrath, for it was cruel”—Genesis 49:5.) Indeed, the Talmud describes a hypocrite as one who “does the deeds of Zimri, and asks to be rewarded like Pinchas.” Zimri’s kindness was the ultimate hypocrisy: instead of fulfilling his role as the leader of his people by prevailing upon them to cease the behavior that was destroying them, he pursued the fulfillment of his own passions without regard to the terrible consequences to their spiritual and physical wellbeing—all the while disguising his act as selfless and self-sacrificial. In contrast, Pinchas’s deed was “hypocritical” in the positive sense: ostensibly violent and cruel, but in truth a selfless act of peace. BASED ON THE TEACHINGS OF THE LUBAVITCHER REBBE Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson; adapted by Yanki Tauber. Originally published in Week in Review. Republished with the permission of MeaningfulLife. If you wish to republish this article in a periodical, book, or website, please email permissions@meaningfullife. More from Lubavitcher Rebbe; adapted Yanki Tauber | RSS © Copyright, all rights reserved. If you enjoyed this article, we encourage you to distribute it further, provided that you comply with Chabad.orgs copyright policy.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 02:46:41 +0000
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