Parsha Points

Parashat Pinhas begins with the denouement of the story that ended last week’s Parsha, the murder of an Israelite who was caught in flagrante delicto with a Midianite woman, after the Israelites had been enticed by the Midianite women to worship their god, Baal Peor. Our Parasha begins with God telling Moses that the action of Pinhas to murder the Israelite man had assuaged God’s anger at the apostacy of the Israelites and as a reward, God would enter into an eternal covenant with Pinhas and his descendants, all of whom would become Priests forever.

Moses is then told to instruct the people to harass the Midianites on account of their seducing the Israelites to worship their god, Baal Pe’or, and ultimately, to attack them as the Israelites continued their trek to the land of Israel. Then Moses and Pinhas were instructed to repeat the census that Moses and Aaron had done a generation before, once again to ascertain the number of Israelite men who were of military age, as the Israelites completed their march through the wilderness and after they would cross the Jordan to take possession of the Land of Canaan.

The two central stories of the Parashah concern continuity. The first concerns the five daughters of Tzelophad, a member of the tribe of Menashe. In his day, property passed exclusively from father to son, but not to a person’s daughters. The daughters of Tzelophad presented Moses with a dilemma. What would become of their father’s property after their father died? Would their family’s property merely be distributed among the territory of the other eleven tribes?

Moses was stymied. This was a first for him. Moses asked for time to consult God. God immediately saw the inequity of the situation. The tribe of Menashe would potentially be deprived of property for no other reason than that Tzelophad did not have any sons. God immediately decided in favor of

the daughters of Tzelophad. The property would remain within the tribal territory of Menashe, provided that each of the daughters would marry within their own tribe of Menashe. Not only was this a clear-cut decision in favor of endogamous marriage; it also preserved the territorial integrity of the tribe of Menashe. Territorial integrity was enshrined as a principle of tribal integrity and tribal continuity. No longer would there be a concern that tribal lands would shift from tribe to tribe. Furthermore, this divine move to allow daughters to inherit their fathers became a first nod to instituting laws that recognized the equality of women and men in ancient Israel religion and law.

The second story tells us that God Instructs Moses to climb Mount Abarim and survey the land of Israel, that he himself, alone from among all the Israelites, would not enter. Again, continuity is the central theme of the story. Moses had been destined to lead the people to the Land of Israel, but apparently not into the Land of Israel. But just as God had selected Moses for his task, now God instructs Moses to appoint Joshua to be his successor to lead the Israelites across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land and there, to settle each of the twelve tribes on their allotted land holdings. The Torah specifies that the appointment be done publicly, in the presence of the entire community. The Torah further specifies that Moses would transfer his authority to Joshua by placing his hands on Joshua. This laying on of hands, called Semikhah in Hebrew, became the original way that rabbinic authority was transferred from one rabbinic leader to one or more of his students. The term Semikhah continues to be used to this day as the formal designation of rabbinic ordination.

By transferring his authority to lead the Israelites into the Land of Israel in a public ceremony, Moses assured that the continuity of divinely sanctioned leadership would continue for yet one more generation, long enough to establish the Israelites in their land. Sadly, after the death of Joshua, the initial national unity disintegrated and not until the Davidic monarchy 200 years later, would there be a unified hereditary monarchy that would last for another 400 years. But the spirit of tribal independence that manifested itself after the death of Joshua remained active until the

Assyrians conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE. The unified Davidic monarchy, built on the model of hereditary succession, would only end with conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.

Parshat Pinhas ends with a detailed description of the additional sacrifices that were offered originally in the portable wilderness Sanctuary and later in the two Jerusalem Temples. Reciting the details of these sacrifices has become the core of the Musaf Amidah for Shabbat and all the biblical festivals after the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Rabbi Lionel Moses