Unto these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance: to every one shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of him. Notwithstanding the land shall be divided by lot: according to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit. According to the lot shall the possession thereof be divided between many and few.

(Numbers 26:53-56)

 

 

To many thou shalt give the more inheritance

To a tribe with a large population, a larger portion was given, and though the portions were not equal, for everything was according to the size of the tribe, they distributed the portions solely by lot, and the lot was according to the holy spirit, as is explained in Baba Batra (118): "Elazar the Priest wore the Urim and Thumim, and he said according to the holy spirit whether a certain tribe received a certain area, and the tribes wrote twelve slips of paper, and the twelve territories were written on slips of paper, and they were scrambled in an urn, and the prince put his hand in it and took out two slips of paper, one with the name of the tribe and one with the explicit boundaries of the territory, and the lot itself, and he would shout out: "I received by lot a certain boundary for a certain tribe," as it is said, "according to lot," and the land was not divided according to their being one territory superior to another, but an inferior beit kor [a unit of land measurement] was held to be equal to a good beit seah [a unit of land measurement six times larger than a beit kor], everything according to the payment.

(Rashi, Numbers, 26:54).

 

Notwithstanding the land shall be divided by lot - the matter of the lot is because of the good land and the bad land, someone who came to his good land according to the lot he had, and someone who came to bad land according to the lot, they would raise money, and the one who had good land would pay money to the one who had bad land.

(Rabenu Bahya, Numbers 26:25)

 

 

The enigma of pinhas

Mordechai Beck

We are first introduced to Pinhas at his birth:

Elazar, son of Aaron, took to wife a daughter of Putiel , and she bore him a son - Pinhas (Exodus 6:25). Even here, at the very outset of his narrative, there is the stirring of controversy. On the one hand, his genealogy ties Pinhas into the tribe of Levy and more specifically to the family of Aaron the high priest. One could ask for no more... On the other hand the connection to a daughter of Putiel raises issues which the Israelites would later use against him.

In the tradition, Putiel is another name for Jethro the Midianite priest and father-in-law of Moses. This, too, would seem to be a 'kosher' source from which a son of Aaron could take a bride. But the sobriquet Putiel carries with it threatening overtones, linking this side of the family to idolatry. When as a young adult, Pinhas kills Zimri and Cozbi, his detractors mock him - as a man whose forefathers "greased the wheels of the carriages carrying idols and who now has the effrontery to kill a prince of Israel."(Sota 43a and quoted by Rashi on Numbers 25). How therefore was it possible for such a noble, holy person as Elazar to have taken the risk of marrying into such a questionable family?

According to the mystical Rozei Olam it is the sitra achra or Sama'el who persuades Elazar to take the anonymous daughter of Putiel (Jethro) as a wife, from which union comes Pinhas. The same Sama'el, persuaded Aaron's other sons, Nadav and Avihu, not to marry Israelite women since no one was worthy of them. These two brothers were sufficiently persuaded by these specious arguments that they arrogantly turned down offers of marriage and thus fell into the trap that Sama'el had set them, lacking persuasive wives they lost their lives bringing their strange fire to the ark of the Lord. According to this reading, Pinhas is thus a tool used by God to revenge Himself on the subtle Sama'el, thus giving the whole story a far more cosmic resonance as a battle between good and evil.

To return to Pinhas's main narrative, the parsha that is named after him, and upon which his controversial fame rests. It is obvious even here that the issue of genealogy is crucial to his identity. Within a few verses, he is introduced twice in the same format - "Pinhas, son of Elazar, son of Aaron the Priest." (Numbers 25: 7 and 11). To which the Pesikta adds the, maybe obvious, comment: "A righteous person, son of a righteous person, who is also the son of a righteous person." His connection to the tribe of Levi is not mentioned, and this may also be of significance, but neither, too, is his nameless mother.

The incident that projects Pinhas into the limelight appears as a totally spontaneous act by a young and fiery man in protest against what he sees as totally unbecoming behaviour on behalf of some of the Children of Israel. They are in Shittim in the desert when they "begin whoring with the daughters of (nearby) Moab."

This angers God who tells Moses to command the judges of Israel to kill the leaders of the people who are perpetrating such unholy acts. Yet before this command is acted upon, an anonymous Israelite man jumps in front of Moses' eyes with a Midianite princess by his side - taunting Israel's leader (according to the rabbis) since he himself had taken Zipporah the Midianite as a wife. Confusion breaks out, even Moses is at a loss to know how to act. If he responds with force he will be accused of hypocrisy. In the confusion that follows Pinhas steps forward and takes charge of the situation - slaughtering the man and woman - Zimri and Kozbi with one fell blow - sticking his spear through their sexual parts as they engage in the act of copulation, thus emphasising theatrically the nature of their misbehaviour. To underline the extremity of the act, the sages add the little detail that the two performed the sex act no less than 224 times on the same day. Pinhas waited till they were weak from their exertions (sic.) before plunging his spear into them, by which time they were like watery eggs. (TB. Sanhedrin 82). It is now clearer why the superscription for Pinhas appears as it does - emphasising his 'good' side (Elazar, Aaron) and downplaying the fact that his mother, too, is a Midianite!)

One kabbalistic source observes that Zimri and Kozbi were actually destined for each other since the days of creation. Moses knew this and therefore refrained from acting; Pinhas, younger and less knowledgeable, was unaware of this and was therefore unrestrained in his response. A similar argument is brought forth in relation to David and Batsheva where the Talmud explicitly states that they were destined for each other (TB Sanhedrin 104?) But neither of these sources seem to weight up the moral implication of their claim - suggesting that the players had no choice in their actions, a morally dubious not to say unacceptable position to take.

It may well be argued that Pinhas' real concern was the impact of Zimri's actions on the masses. He was, after all, a tribal prince, and the impassioned love- making was carried out by a public figure in public. The juxtaposition with the outbreak of the plague suggests how easy it had been to influence the 'masses.'

The mystical Asarah Mamorot links the 24,000 Israelites that die as a result of Zimri's flagrant sexual antics to the same number of Shechemites who had been killed following the rape of Dinah (Gen 34). Though where he gets these numbers for the slaughtered men of Shechem is unclear. Indeed the same source claims that the souls of Zimri and Kozbi are the reincarnation of those of Dinah and Shechem ben Hamor . What is easier to accept is a sense of poetic justice at work here in that the perpetrators of the massacre at Shechem are none other than Levy and Simeon. The two major figures involved in the events at Shitim/Ba'al Peor are respectively Pinhas - a Levite, and Zimri a prince of the tribe of Simeon. The theological 'message' would seem fairly transparent - whereas Pinhas had learnt the lesson of his ancestors, his contemporary, Zimri, had not.

Again the mystical literature supplies its own reading of these texts. It is Sama'el - the wicked spirit - who goes to Bila'am and persuades him to entice the men of Israel with the daughters of Moab "since non-Jewish maidens were permitted to them." The argument proffered here is that these non-Jewish women from Moab and Midian were not part of the Canaanite culture. They were thus exempt from the ethnic cleansing that the Israelites were obliged to carry out in the promised land. ('Gali Raziah' quoted in Yalkut Reuveni on Pinhas). Interestingly, and as if is by way of contrast, soon after the Pinchas episode, the parsha the Torah relates the story of the daughters of Zlofchod. These righteous young ladies challenge the halachic norms of their day in order to legitimise their ownership of family property inside the Holy Land, despite the fact that they are 'only' females. Breaking the norms here, however, is done without violence, but with the wisdom and foresight that is apparently lacking in the men of Israel who go whoring after foreign women in an orgy of sexual profligacy

Regarding reactions to Pinhas' murderous deed there is a deep ambivalence not just in the rabbinic commentaries, but even in the Torah itself. God's munificence towards this double murderer - by giving him a double blessing, of everlasting priesthood and peace - could be seen as a last resort defence. Yet tellingly in the same Parsha, named after our hero, the successor of Moses is named. Pinhas, the fiery moralist and champion of God's just ways, is passed over for the more settled Joshua, Moses' faithful servant for 40 years. So, despite lavishing two gifts on the unrepentant Pinhas, when it comes to appointing him to a public position, he is awarded a religious rather than a political position. This is underlined by the inclusion at the end of the parsha of a long list of sacrifices that the priests are to undertake in the course of the religious calendar. If Pinhas is still hot headed and passionate, better let him take out his aggression on dumb animals. Fanaticism, even in the service of a high spiritual ideal, is no way to conduct the business of everyday living.

There is one final aspect of Pinhas' biography which is ingrained in the tradition's literature. Accordingly Pinhas is to be identified with Elijah the prophet. Sources for this startling claim is to be found in a wide variety of texts from the earliest midrashic work - Pirkei De Rabbi Elizer (chap 47) later, more mystical works (Pesikta; Kanfei Yonah part 2 :31; Eseret Ma'amorim, Recanati (Vayesehv), and regular midrash such as Midrash Tanhuma; the Maggid. etc.)

What is the source of this connection? Both are cohanim , both waged a war against God's enemies in public and with no thought for their own safety (in Midrashic texts, for example, the whole tribe of Simeon gang up on Pinchas but he lies his way out of their hands). For the more kabbalistic oriented texts, Elijah is no less than the transmigration of Pinhas' soul.

Nevertheless the sages remain generally deeply puzzled by the violence - even if God gives Pinhas his blessing. Is it for this reason that they attach Pinhas's biography to that of Elijah who is (among other things) the harbinger of the Messiah. Only when this apocalyptical event occurs will it be possible to resolve - if this is the right word - the seemingly impossible contradictions thrown up by our protagonist. Until that time the tensions between idealism and morality on the one hand, and violence and destruction on the other - must remain an indissoluble mix.

It might be, too, that this parsha is generally read at the beginning of the Three Weeks from 17^th Tammuz to 9^th of Av, when according to the Talmud Jewish violence, too, brings about the disaster of the destruction of the Temples (Gittin 66 and passim). It is a wise leader who is able to discern which problems may be solved in this world and which are better left to the Higher Powers.

Mordechai Beck is a Jerusalem based artist and writer.

 

 

Say, therefore, i will grant him my pact of peace.

(bamidbar 25: 11)

 

 My Pact of Peace - Reward or Safeguard Against Psychological Damage?

As reward for pacifying God's wrath and anger, He blessed him with the quality of peacefulness, i.e., that he not be strict or upset. This was necessary because the act committed by Pinhas, of killing someone, naturally leaves a strong emotional impression, but since it was performed for the sake of Heaven, he received the blessing that he always be calm and peaceful, and that this matter [of having killed] should not affect his heart.

(Ha-Amek Davar 25:12)

 

The act of killing a human being in the name of religious zeal can make a person indifferent to killing. That is why Pinhas required a special blessing from God, so that his zealous deed performed for the sake of Heaven would not change him into a wicked person. The boundary between shedding blood for the sake of Heaven and blood-shed for the satisfaction of human drives can become blurred... Both Pinhas andEliyahu acted out of devotion to God, and not out of the hatred of sinners. A person who is zealous for God because he hates sinners does not genuinely serve God; rather he is motivated by his drives and urges and a quest for self-satisfaction. There is no service of God in that - rather it is a case of self-deception.

(Y. Leibowitz: Sheva Shanim Shel Sihot al Parashat Ha-Shavua, pg. 730)

 

The regular burnt offering instituted at mount sinai - an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the lord.

 (B'midbar 28:2-6)

 

Pleasing odor, nachat ruach, the will of the lord

"A pleasing odor" - Nachat ruach (Nachat Ruach can be translated as 'satisfaction', 'gratification', 'tranquillity', 'serene spirit', 'pleasure') - pleasure - for me, for I spoke and my will was executed.

(Rashi, Bemidbar 28:8)

 

"Then Noach built an altar to the Lord and, taking of every clean animal and of every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the reyach nichoach [pleasing odor] , and the Lord said to Himself: Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man's mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.

(Bereishit 8:20-21)

 

'Reyach nichoach' does not mean "pleasant odor" but rather: the satisfaction of the request and aspirations of the other.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, Bereishit 8:21)

 

"What need have I of all your sacrifices? says the Lord. I am sated with burnt offerings of rams and suet of fatlings, and blood of bulls; I have no delight in lambs and he-goats. That you come to appear before Me - who asked that of you? Trample My courts no more; Bringing oblations is futile, incense is offensive to Me. New moon and Sabbath, proclaiming of solemnities, assemblies with iniquity, I cannot abide."

(Isaiah 1:11-13)

 

"What need have I of all your sacrifices" - Said Rabbi Elazar: Prayer is superior to all offerings, for it is written "What need have I of all your sacrifices" and it is written, "And when you lift up your hands... Though you pray at length, I will not listen." Said Rabbi Yochanan: Any cohen who has killed someone shall not lift his arms [to bless], as is written, "Your hands are stained with blood."

(Yalkut Shimoni, Isaiah 247:387)

 

Five events occurred to our ancestors on the 17^th of Tammuz and five on the 9^th of Ab - on the 17^th of Tammuz the tablets were smashed and the regular tammid offering was cancelled and the city was invaded and Apostomos burnt the Torah and stood an idol in the sanctuary.

(Mishna, Taanit 4:1)

 

 

 

 

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