TORAH SPARKS ניצוצות תורה
פרשת פינחס
PARASHAT PINHAS
July 16, 2011 – 14 Tammuz 5771 – י"ד תמוז תשע"א
Annual: Numbers 25:10 – 30:1 (Etz Hayim, p. 918; Hertz p. 686)
Triennial: Numbers 25:10 – 26:51 (Etz Hayim, p. 918; Hertz p. 686)
Haftarah: I Kings 18:46 – 19:21 (Etz Hayim, p. 938; Hertz p. 699)
Prepared by Rabbi Joseph Prouser
Baldwin, New York
Our parashah opens with its namesake, Pinchas, receiving a divine reward – a hereditary priesthood and permanent “covenant of peace” – in recognition of his zeal in summarily executing an Israelite man and his Midianite paramour. The brazen couple is named here for the first time – they are Zimri ben Salu and Cozbi bat Zur. Moses is commanded further to harass the Midianites for their deceptive and corrupting influence on the Israelites.
A detailed census of the Israelite population is carried out, to be used in apportioning tribal shares in the Promised Land – a process that is addressed immediately after the census.
Allotting the land properly sparks a moral and legal crisis. Five sisters – the daughters of Zelophehad – approach Moses. They protest the law of inheritance, which provided only for male heirs. Zelophehad left no male heirs, the sisters explain, and his property will be lost, absorbed by the tribe, if his daughters are not permitted to inherit it. Moses seeks divine guidance, and God instructs him to grant the five sisters inheritance rights, further establishing this test case as a binding precedent, showing that in the absence of male heirs, daughters may inherit their father’s property. Beyond the narrow purview of the case, the passage is early confirmation of the need for interpretation and evolution of biblical law, as well as a milestone in the legal enfranchisement of the women of Israel.
Family inheritance matters are followed immediately by the question of succession in national leadership. Moses is informed that he will die in the wilderness before reaching the land of Canaan. He asks God to provide a successor, and so Joshua – “a man of spirit” or “an inspired man”– is appointed.
The rest of parashat Pinchas is devoted to the daily sacrifices, the festival calendar, and the sacrificial offerings associated with all of those sacred
observances. Much of this section is excerpted for public reading as the maftir aliyah on the festivals, holy days, and rosh chodesh. The material should be familiar to regular worshipers. In fact, many congregations leave one Torah scroll always rolled to parashat Pinchas to use on these many liturgical occasions.
Theme #1: “A Peace of My Mind!”
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Pinchas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has
turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in My passion. Say, therefore, ‘I grant him My covenant of peace.’” Numbers 25:10-12
Study: Derash
“Even though zeal is the opposite of peace and may indeed be equated with open
controversy, the Torah says that honest zeal on behalf of a sacred ideal leads to peace.” Rabbi
Meir Eisenstadt, Kotnot Or
“When he beheld the immoral conduct of the Israelite and the Midianite woman, Pinchas could have pointed to Moses, Aaron and the seventy elders and said: ‘If they take no action, why
should I be more zealous than they?’ However, he did not wait to see what they would do, but proceeded to do on his own what he felt had to be done on behalf of the honor of the Lord,
believing that it was his duty to defend the honor of God even if no one else would.” Rabbi
Menachem Asch, Chomat Esh
“Watching Zimri and womanfriend saunter into their tent, the Moses who once slew a slavemaster knows about the option of the spear. He also sees the gash that zealotry can cut in
the order he’s spent a life building, based on judges, rules of evidence, and deliberation, not on revolutionary justice. He senses the precedent an action like Pinhas’ will set, particularly for angry men who confuse hatred of anyone foreign with virtue, or who suppress the passion
Zimri feels by turning it into violence against sinners. Yet Moses knows his camp is turning into chaos. There aren’t any easy answers, and he cries.” Gershom Gorenberg, Opinion Editor, Jerusalem Report
“The way of violence does not lead to liberation or healing but only to renewed decline and enslavement. We must repent and change our ways, whatever will happen now, lest an even greater catastrophe befall us. It is our obligation to elevate the sacred law of life to ensure that
it will not be undermined, that the people as a people protect it from all subverters.” Martin
Buber, condemning the Irgun after the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel
“I think while zealots fast and frown, And fight for two or seven, That there are fifty roads to town and rather more to Heaven.” Samuel Johnson
Questions for Discussion
Scribal tradition dictates that the vav in the word shalom in verse 12 be written in a defective manner – the vertical stroke of the letter should be broken. This seems to offer an implicit indictment of both Pinchas and the covenant with which God rewards him.
Notwithstanding the commentaries cited here, what does this graphic scribal custom have to teach us about peace achieved through zealotry and religious violence?
Where indeed was Moses as Pinchas took matters into his own hands? (Where was he
morally? Spiritually? We know that physically he was at the entrance to the tent of meeting!) Did Moses approve? Disapprove? Turn a blind eye in tacit support? Was he paralyzed by indecision in a situation of such moral complexity and spiritual consequence? How might Moses have displayed effective leadership, consistent with his prophetic mission, during this crisis?
What do we make of the fact that Pinchas’ violent zeal for God’s honor is followed so soon by a rethinking of Divine law (indeed, by a dramatic change in that law) in the case of
Zelophehad’s daughters?
How would Rabbi Asch and Gershom Gorenberg advise Jews today to respond to existential crises facing our people and congregations? To the crises facing the state of Israel?
Imagine Martin Buber debating Pinchas’ relative virtues with the author of the Kotnot Or. (Their debate would be in German.) Rabbi Eisenstadt was a rosh yeshiva in Worms until 1701,
when the French conquered the city. Buber resigned from the University of Frankfort am Main
when Hitler came to power, and he moved to Jerusalem in 1938. How might their personal experiences have affected their reading of parashat Pinchas?
When is religious zeal an admirable and constructive quality? When does the lack of passion for religious principle amount to a sinful abdication of personal responsibility? How do we find the proper balance between passionate commitment and moral relativism and apathy?
Theme #2: “Estate of Flux”
“Moses brought their case before the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘The plea of the
daughters of Zelophehad is just; you should give them a
hereditary holding among their father’s kinsman; transfer their father’s share to them.’”
Numbers 27:7
Study: Derash
“This section of the chapter is a good example of a law embedded in a narrative, or a
narrative created for the sake of a law. It also has the effect of showing that the divine promise of land is about to be fulfilled, that all the tribes must be included in the process, and that the
growing biblical tradition allows for reinterpretation.” Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses
“The daughters of Zelophehad are barred by law from inheriting. They appeal outside of the law, upon the simple human merits of the case. Inherent in their plea is the understanding that
codified law exists only as an attempt to provide justice and mercy; that as a human construct it must be imperfect; and that a system which does not allow final appeal (to that human impulse
which gave rise to the code) is an abomination. Moses realized that he was unable, in conscience, to perform as ordered, and he brought his problem to God.” David Mamet
“An elegant message of the hopeful possibilities for successful and comfortable change.
There is also a message here, both for the members of the community and for communal leaders, in how to act responsibly and effectively. The sisters are appropriately respectful and outspoken in redressing a lack in the legal system they otherwise affirm. Their plea is not considered threatening in any way. In turn, their leader and the tradition itself show them respect… Like the Israelites in the desert, we are a generation in transition. Numbers provides us with models of appropriate behavior, for leaders and laypeople, in overcoming those fears and making gradual changes, to take us step by step to a better place. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with where we are. It is not a holding station, but a place of growth and, if we make it so, a place of civility.” Ora Horn Prouser
I would ask your attention and exhibit for your imitation, the faith which these five young women, the daughters of Zelophehad, possessed with regard to the promised inheritance. They had not seen the promised land, yet, being persuaded that it was somewhere and the children of Israel would have it in due time, their anxiety was lest they, having no brothers, should be forgotten in the distribution and so should lose their rights. They were anxious about an inheritance which they had never seen with their eyes, and therein I hold them up to the imitation of this present assembly. There is an inheritance that is far better than the land of Canaan. Oh, that we all believed in it and longed for it! It is an inheritance, however, which mortal eye has not seen, and the sounds whereof mortal ear has not heard. It is a city whose streets are gold, but none of us have ever trodden them. Never has traveler to that country came back to tell us of its glories. There the music never ceases; no discord ever mingles in it; it is sublime, but no member of the heavenly choir has ever come to write out for us the celestial score.” Charles H. Spurgeon, 19th century British Evangelical
“I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” Susan B. Anthony
Questions for Discussion
David Mamet and Susan B. Anthony both suggest that departure from law and authority
ultimately can be in the service of God and the law itself. When is change a sign not of strength, but of doctrinal chaos?
Professor Horn Prouser depicts the change precipitated by Zelophehad’s daughters as demonstrating the strength of the legal system and as a model for our own relationship to the
law. What specific factors in the sisters’ appeal to Moses justified the change? How are they an apt model for us and our congregations and movement?
In his sermon, Charles Spurgeon heaps ample praise on Zelophehad’s daughters; they
become models of faith itself – strength of conviction worthy of eternal reward beyond our
imagining. How might Spurgeon’s homily speak directly
to twenty-first century Jews (rather than his 19th-century Baptist
listeners!!)?What is the ultimate goal of Zelophehad’s daughters? Equal
opportunity? Filial devotion to their father and his legacy? Material gain and
independence?
God instructs Moses to effect a change in what was ostensibly divine law, which nevertheless failed explicitly to anticipate the scenario being addressed. What theological and halachic significance is communicated by this case and by the process by which it was adjudicated?
Historic Note
In parashat Pinchas, read on July 16, 2011, we read of five sisters, the daughters of
Zelophehad, who petition Moses for the right to inherit their late father’s property because he left no male heirs. Moses, after seeking divine guidance, rules that they may indeed inherit, thus preserving their father’s estate and marking an important new legal enfranchisement for
Israelite women: “The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is right!” On July 16, 1994, the Broadway show The Sisters Rosenzweig closed after 556 performances at New York’s Barrymore Theater. According to one reviewer, the production, nominated for 1993’s Tony
Award for best play, “is held together by the richly woven dialogue of three Jewish-American sisters pushing against the boundaries of their own lives in order to define themselves. Consequently, they do come to a point of resolution in their struggles, sometimes raising their
voices in protest to be heard, at other times speaking softly in an attempt to hear themselves.”
Halachah L’Maaseh
Parashat Pinchas includes a comprehensive schedule of the festival calendar: the pilgrimage
festivals, Rosh HaShanah (which is as yet unnamed in the Torah), Yom Kippur, Shabbat, and rosh chodesh. In a 2005 responsum, Rabbi Diana Villa discusses how early we may begin Shabbat or holy days. That is, at what hour on the eve of these sacred times is it permissible to welcome the holy day and recite the evening service that inaugurates it? This question is especially important in the summer, when days are long and sunset is late in the evening. This issue is magnified depending on the latitude, and the consequently varying time of sunset. While Jewish holy days theoretically begin at nightfall, the period of twilight (bein ha- shmashot) – that is, between sunset and nightfall – is also treated as part of the sacred time. Furthermore, an additional period is included in order to “add from the profane to the holy” – thus the customary 18 minutes before Shabbat when candle-lighting customarily is scheduled. For those who wish to welcome Shabbat and the festivals still earlier, it is possible to do so as early as “plag ha-minchah” – an hour and a quarter before sunset. These are “proportional” hours, each defined as one-twelfth of the period between sunrise and sunset – and so, longer “hours” (well over 60 minutes long) come with the summer! The one exception to this “early onset” principle is the eve of Shavuot: we do not begin earlier than sunset, in order to fulfill the biblical requirement of “seven complete weeks” of the omer, counted from Pesach. (See Rabbi Diana Villa, “Ask the Rabbi” #70; Mishnah Berurah, Orach Chaim
260:2, 494:1; Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 267:2, Rema on 261:2)