Parshat Pinchas  (2nd triennial year, Numbers, 26:52  - 28:15)

Since today (Thurs) was the 17th of Tammuz, a fast day, we are entering into the "three week" period, leading up to Tisha B'Av, the saddest and most mournful day of the entire Jewish year. Please put  Wednesday night, July 29, on your calendar. That is the evening we read (together) the book of Eicha (Lamentations) and begin the 25  hour fast. We will also be reading / performing a scripted program  for Eicha. Don't miss out.

Back to this Shabbat. Our Torah reading this week is parshat Pinchas  (2nd triennial year, Numbers, 26:52  - 28:15).

We read that God commands Moses to count all the people for purposes of assigning land apportionments that they will inherit when the  Israelites conquer the territory. But remember, the Levites won't  inherit land, so it must be for some other reason that their tribe is  enumerated. The Torah is completely ambiguous about them: is their landlessness a reward or a perk of being the priestly tribe, or is it  a necessary stricture, seeing as how they were a hotheaded group  (Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron, has just killed two annoying people  by skewering them; the Levites were the only ones who followed Moses'  lead in putting to death every person who had celebrated the golden calf, not forgetting the violence they also perpetrated in Genesis by  destroying the city of Shechem).

Without coming down on either side, explicitly, Moses (God's  representative) must nonetheless get his people ready to move  directly over the Jordan river into their land grants. The sense of  discipline and driven-ness are quite palpable in these sections of  the Torah. I many ways, these readings have done more to shape  Judaism into the legal or halachic system we know than any other  text, which has - in turn - developed the peculiar nature of Judaism  as we know it.

Finally, our reading concludes with a description of sacrifices that  are brought on Shabbat and on the appearance of the new moon (Rosh  Chodesh) as wonderfully savory food offerings to God.

Shabbat Shalom
R' David Bockman