TORAH SPARKS
Parashat Pinchas
July 8, 2023 | 19 Tammuz 5783
Torah: Numbers 25:10-30:1 Triennial: Numbers 25:10-26:51
Haftorah: Jeremiah 1:1-2:3
The Ideal Woman
Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Parashah
Our parashah opens in the aftermath of the Baal Peor incident. Foreign women caused us to go astray, sexually and after foreign gods, as they often do in the Tanakh. Our parashah then carefully reconstructs the idea of how to be a woman, it builds back the ideal biblical female. We encounter three examples of women in our parashah: Yocheved, Serah, and the sisters Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.
Yocheved and Serah appear in the census in Numbers 26. In a long census list, we get snippets of stories, hints back to the stories we have already told. The lines that die out are mentioned – we read of Nadav and Avihu s deaths again. Yocheved is mentioned as a crucial part of the line of Levi- And the name of Amram s wife was Yocheved, daughter of Levi whom she bore to Levi in Egypt, and she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and Miriam their sister. Yocheved is held up as wife, daughter, and mother. She is important for the relationships she forges. She is also important for her ability to transmit Levi -ness. As we learn in Exodus 6, Yocheved is the aunt of her own husband. She connects her children, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, even more closely to Levi, as she is his daughter while their father, Amram, is Levi s grandson. The mention of Yocheved in the telling of the census reinforces her importance, the importance of daughter becoming mother, of wife to the passing down of tradition.
Daughters as links in the tradition become important again with the sisters Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. The story told of these daughters of Zelophehad demonstrates the ideal woman as someone who speaks out, who defends and leads her family.
It is less clear what Serah is doing in our story. She appears three times in the Tanakh, each time as part of a genealogical list. We meet her first in Genesis 46 in the list of all the descendants of Jacob who accompanied him to Egypt. We read of Asher, son of Jacob, going down with his sons: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah, and their sister Serah. The same verse appears also in Chronicles. The other place she appears is in our parashah. We read, The sons of Asher by their clans. For Imnah, the clan of the Imnite. For Ishvi, the clan of the Ishvite. For Beriah, the clan of the Beriitite. Of the sons of Beriah: for Heber, the clan of the Heberite. For Malchiel, the clan of the Malchielite. And the name of the daughter of Asher was Serah. Each of the sons of Asher mentioned in Genesis gets a whole clan descended from him. The sons carry on their father s legacy by reproduction. Serah, the daughter, does not. We read of her as a sister and as a daughter. We do not read of her as a wife or as a mother. Unlike Yocheved and the five sisters, and unlike most of the men mentioned in the census, she is important for reasons beyond her reproductive capacity or her ability to transmit lineage. The Tanakh does not tell us why she is mentioned. We know only that she seems to have been alive from the time of Jacob s descent to Egypt though the time of the conquest of Canaan, some 430 years.
The midrash fills in details for Serah. There is a vast corpus of midrashic literature on her as an immortal who merits entry of Gan Eden, as the confirmer for the Israelites of Moses s legitimacy, as the one who remembers where Joseph is buried for Moses to carry him to Canaan, as Jacob s emotional support, and as the wise woman who advises one of David s generals. The Pesikta de-Rav Kahana tells the story of her interrupting R. Yochanan in the beit midrash while he was pontificating on what the divided waters of Red Sea looked like. She corrects him, explaining that she actually saw them. The Zohar takes this idea even further, presenting Serah as teacher of Torah to women.
But I enjoy the biblical mystery of Serah. She comes with Yocheved and the five sisters as a corrective to the women of Baal Peor. But she does not dictate correct behavior. She is an ideal biblical woman in that we can play midrash, projecting onto her whatever we want to imagine as an ideal biblical woman.
Youth is Not Always an Advantage
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Haftarah
Meet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah): the prophet of doom, the eyewitness of destruction, the prophet who wanted to be wrong about his message.
This haftarah, read at the opening of the three weeks leading to Tisha B Av, which commemorates the destruction Yirmiyahu warned of, tells of his consecration prophecy. He is told by God that he is a prophet from birth. The terrified Yirmiyahu tells God Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth! (Jer. 1:6) But it is to no avail; prophecy will control his life.
Those words of Yirmiyahu have puzzled the commentaries. How did Yirmiyahu expect this to convince God to let him off? Let us look at two readings by classical commentators.
Rashi understood Yirmiyahu as saying, I am not worthy to reprove them. Moshe reproved them shortly before his death, when he was already esteemed in their eyes through the many miracles that he had performed for them. He had taken them out of Egypt, split the Reed Sea for them, brought down the manna, caused the quails to fly, given them the Torah, brought up the well. I come to reprove them at the beginning of my mission! The comparison with Moshe highlights their similarities: Both refused their mission, and both prophesied for about 40 years. Neither achieved his goal: Moshe did not lead the people he took out of Egypt into the land, Yirmiyahu failed to keep them in the land, witnessing destruction and exile.
Malbim sought to understand Yirmiyahu s words through God s response. From the reply he reconstructed three difficulties that young Yirmiyahu presumably feared when arriving with the kind of messages that we will read in the book. First, as a youth he will not dare approach great people. Second, he is not trained in speech, for that takes a great deal of practice. And finally, the people to whom he is sent will not accept such a rebuke from a youth, they are likely to kill him.
Let s look at God s answer. First God responds, you shall go to all to whom I send you (1:7). Yirmiyahu is not speaking for himself, he is a spokesperson for God. Then God says, whatever I command you, you shall speak. God will put His words in Yirmiyahu s mouth, as He demonstrates by touching Yirmiyahu s mouth (v. 9). Yirmiyahu is not expected to be an orator, the speech is already composed. Finally, God promises do not fear before them, for I am with you to deliver you, (v. 8) addressing the very real risk that Yirmiyahu s life will be in jeopardy. Whether such a promise is reassuring is debatable, but it will prove necessary.
So opens a prophetic career of 40 years in one of the most turbulent periods of Jewish history. And while his efforts failed to prevent the exile, Yirmiyahu should be partially credited with laying the groundwork for the idea of a future return to Jerusalem. He prophesied with fury, but also provided hope.
Hearing the Temple
Rabbi Joshua Kulp
The Halakhah in the Parashah
When the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 C.E., the Jewish people lost their most valuable place of ritual. Through the sacrifices offered in the Temple, the libations, the incense, the menorah, the singing of the Levites and other such features of the Temple which were enjoyed by all senses, sight, smell, hearing, tasting and probably by touch as well, Jews came to experience the Divine. The synagogue is not such a place. Our synagogues are at times visually beautiful, but not always, nor do they have to be. The only food that we eat as a mitzvah anymore is matzah so much for taste! The smell of a synagogue well if you re deep into a three-day Yom Tov, that might not be your favorite experience. Taste that s for the kiddush after. But there is one sensual ritual that remains, hearing, and the greatest example (and one of the few examples) of a mitzvah performed by our ears, is the shofar. Along with the lulav, the shofar is one of two Temple rituals that survived the sacrilege and traveled with us to this day. And that tells us something about Judaism.
The Torah refers to the first day of the seventh month (which has been called Rosh Hashanah since antiquity) either as The day of Teruah (Numbers 29:1) or A remembrance of Teruah (Leviticus 23:24). Most of the rituals in these two chapters were performed only in a Temple. And indeed, there are hints that originally the shofar might not have been a ritual obligatory on individuals. Philo of Alexandria writes in The Special Laws 2:188, Immediately after comes the festival of the sacred new moon; in which it is the custom to play the shofar (or trumpet) in the Temple at the same moment that the sacrifices are offered. From which practice this is called the true Feast of Shofarot (Trumpets). It seems that to Philo the shofar is not sounded outside the Temple. Such an opinion is even attributed to the rabbinic sages R. Shimon ben Yohai in the Yerushalmi (Rosh Hashanah 4a): R. Shimon ben Yohai taught: [In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts. You shall not work at your occupations;] and you shall bring an offering by fire to God. (Leviticus 25:25):–in a place where the sacrifices are offered. RSBY connects the second half of the couplet with the first. The shofar is sounded only where the sacrifices are offered. Were this to have been the final decision, we would not be hearing the shofar today.
But, in the end, the shofar is not a sacrifice. It is a mitzvah that can be performed without a Temple and without an altar. And as such, it became a mitzvah incumbent upon all Jews, whether they are in the Temple, in synagogue, or even staying at home. The rabbis read Numbers 29:1, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion . You shall observe it as a day when the horn is sounded not in connection with the following verse which is about sacrifices, but as a mitzvah to be observed by all for all time with or without sacrifices. This is a critical transfer of what was probably a Temple ritual into a home ritual, and in many ways it may have saved Rosh Hashanah.
This shift from Temple ritual to a ritual for all individual Jews can be seen in an interesting dispute about the blessing over this mitzvah. Today, we conceive of the mitzvah to be hearing the voice of the shofar and our blessing is to hear the voice of the Shofar. Individuals need not blow a shofar in order to fulfill their mitzvah; they need to hear the shofar. However, the earliest known testimony about this blessing, found in the Sheiltot of Rav Ahai Gaon, a tenth-century Babylonian composition, refers to the blessing as to blow the shofar. The issue continued to be debated by the geonim, with people taking both sides on the issue.
A couple of centuries later, the Rambam himself was asked about this blessing and responded in the following way:
What is the difference between [blessing] to hear the voice of the shofar and on blowing the shofar ?
The answer is that there is a big difference. For the commandment obligates us not to blow the shofar, but rather to hear the blast. If the mitzvah had been to sound the blast, each and every individual would be obligated to sound it, just as every individual is obligated to sit in a sukkah and take a lulav. And one who hears the shofar but did not sound it, would not have fulfilled his obligation But this is not true, rather the mitzvah is to hear, and not to sound. And the only reason we sound the shofar, is to hear and we should bless to hear the sound of the shofar and not on the sounding of the shofar.
This mitzvah continued to be debated in the medieval period, with important poskim coming down on both sides (see the Rosh, Rosh Hashanah 4:10). Eventually, the decision was made that the blessing should be to hear the sound of the shofar and that is what all Jews recite to this day (Shulkhan Aruch, Orah Hayyim, 585:2).
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Judaism does not place a premium on the beauty of the synagogue. We do not look at the hands of the kohanim when they bless us. Through the mitzvah of the shofar, performed by hearing and not blasting, we learn which of the five senses Judaism does place an emphasis on hearing. Shema, Hear, O Israel, is our most famous prayer. We have not created batei k nesset and batei midrash in order to see God. We have created them in order to hear and listen to the words of God as they have been brought down to us throughout the generations and as they are created in our own times. The shofar is our reminder on the first day of the year of this value to emphasize listening, to emphasize deeper hearing, so that God s voice can reverberate in our minds and souls throughout the rest of the year.