פרשת פנחס

Parashat Pinchas: The Second Census and the Order of the Portions

The Interesting Order of the Parsha

Today’s chapter is very interesting with its order. It actually continues with a story about us, and then goes off about something else, and then returns to the story after a long interruption in the parsha and after several portions. It comes back to it in Parashat Matot – “Take vengeance for the children of Israel against the Midianites.”

One could think as if all these portions come in here, it’s right in the middle of the story, in the middle of the time when Midian came with the daughters of Moab to the Jews, at the time that was after their downfall. The command is already stated once even before this, or perhaps there are other reasons why this order appears. There are other events in between that happened to occur at this time.

One must understand the order, but a general principle is: all these things are from the last things that were done before entering the Land of Israel, and also at that time was the incident with the daughters of Moab.

“And it was after the plague” – The Second Counting

Now the verse begins, and one sees something very interesting: “And it was after the plague” is like a beginning in the middle of a verse, but this is clearly as if a continuation – after the plague there was the new statement, the new command to count the Jews, the entire congregation of the children of Israel.

And who are the counters? Moses and Elazar the Priest. Aaron the Priest had already passed away, now Moses and Elazar the Priest are still alive.

So the verse later contrasts very clearly: there are the counts of Moses and Aaron the Priest, the counts of Moses and Elazar the Priest.

– The counts of Moses and Aaron the Priest – these are the counts that we learned at the beginning of the book, the Book of Numbers

– The counts of Moses and Elazar the Priest – these are the counts we have from the plains of Moab

Very similar to what we have with the Torah: we have the Torah from Mount Sinai and the Torah from the plains of Moab, which is Mishneh Torah (Deuteronomy). So there are the counts from Mount Sinai, from the beginning in the wilderness of Sinai, and there are the counts from the plains of Moab.

Three Reasons for the Census

The First Reason: After the Plague

The simple explanation can be that it has to do with the fact that there was a plague – one needs to know how many remained. This is one of the reasons.

The Second Reason: Those Who Go Out to War for the Conquest of the Land

Also it could be, and this is the plain meaning as we will see later, that it has to do with the fact that they are going to enter the Land of Israel – one needs to know those who go out to war. Actually in the beginning this was also the case, but in the meantime there was the problem of the spies, that that generation of men of war did not enter the Land of Israel.

And the second thing, as we learn, there comes a whole matter of the war against Midian, and for the war against Midian they also took people from the masses, and so on. So perhaps for this one also needs to count the people.

The Third Reason: Division of the Land

A third thing is here, as the Torah states in this chapter: “To these the land shall be divided” – according to the families that are counted here, the division of the land also took place, which will be discussed later in various details about this, with the portions of each one and so on.

So this is another third reason, which understandably has to do with the conquest, but it has another reason, that one should know who are the families, each family. Although one must understand, there was a lottery for each family of each tribe, how this worked. In any case, the order of the counts made it possible to organize the inheritance of the land.

The Children of Levi – A Special Accounting

This time the children of Levi are also counted here separately, as they were counted before, because Levi does not go to war, and also Levi has no inheritance in the land, as the Torah also says here.

Notes in the Counts – Dathan and Abiram, Nadab and Abihu, Er and Onan

It’s also an interesting thing that one can notice in the counts, just as the order of so many portions at the end of Numbers here, is that the Torah makes as if notes when it speaks of certain people about the things that happened in the wilderness.

For example, when we come to the children of Reuben, we come to Dathan and Abiram, it says: this is the Dathan and Abiram who “contended against Moses,” it was Korach, and “the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and Korach when the congregation died.”

When counting, it already says as if who it was, and so on, and one should be able to learn here the summary of the whole story, or one wants to as if update the list with the information about what happened to this person in the meantime.

The same thing we already had similar to this earlier with Nadab and Abihu: “And Nadab and Abihu died,” and one doesn’t understand what happened, but one should understand that their inheritance did not remain.

The same thing with Er and Onan by Judah there is a small note: “And Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.”

These are all notes that one needs to know.

Differences Between the First and Second Census

Another major note that one must understand is the relationship of this census and the previous census. The total number is similar, not exactly the same but very similar, but in the details there are very many differences – both in the families that are counted, and in the total number of each tribe that is counted.

These are all things that one can understand that it changed, it was different, after the second generation all these changes occurred. Or it’s even later in wealth there were great differences which family was more important and so on. But this is all part of the things that one must think about when learning this chapter.

So there are several names that are not exactly the same names as stated earlier. This is another thing that one can examine.

The Question of “To the many you shall increase” and “By lot”

Afterward when we come to the portion in the middle in between, very interesting and it fits, because the inheritance was in between the portion of the counts of Israel and the counts of the Levites. It states:

> “To these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. To the many you shall increase their inheritance and to the few you shall diminish their inheritance”

And later it states the counts of the Levites who receive no inheritance.

But it’s very difficult to understand what “to the many you shall increase their inheritance” means – it means whoever has more counted receives more inheritance. It seems apparently that it’s according to the lottery, how can it be according to the lottery to distribute? What is the lottery if there is a law that says whoever has more has more? So apparently one already knows how it should be, one doesn’t need any lottery.

There are many approaches in the commentators how to understand, but this is a somewhat interesting thing that one must understand:

– Why does one need to have “to the many you shall increase their inheritance”? – the simple explanation

– And what is the lottery?

The two laws that are stated here:

1. First the counts

2. Second “but by lot”

And it’s almost clearly implied that with the lottery there is no difference – it states “between the many and the few.” It’s almost an explicit contradiction how the inheritance should work: whether with a lottery “between the many and the few,” or “to the many you shall increase and to the few you shall diminish”?

Bamidbar Chapter 25: The Story of Baal Peor and Pinchas

Introduction: Contextual Framework

Bamidbar chapter 25 is a kind of weird chapter. I don’t entirely know how to understand it in the context of the whole book or in the context of what exactly is the story, but I will talk about it and certain ideas of what it might be about.

We’ve understood that this is part of the third part of the book. It’s part of the story of the generation where they’re already close, they’re already sort of circling around Eretz Yisrael. In some other sense, we’re already dealing, as we’ve seen already in the prophecies of Bilam, with all the nations that the people will have to deal with around them. This is also a very important theme in the derashah of Moshe, I think in the beginning of Sefer Devarim, which I’ve been using as a way of interpreting all these stories already.

The Challenge of Neighboring Nations

If you think of it from the perspective of the people living in Eretz Yisrael in Bayis Rishon and Bayis Sheni and whenever, now of course there’s the seven nations—the nations that they have to conquer in order to get to Eretz Yisrael. That’s one subject. That subject is not so much a subject of Eretz Yisrael; it’s a subject of Sefer Yehoshua and so on. But now, even after they solve that problem, or if they don’t solve it, whatever happens with that problem, there’s still all the neighbors, there’s all the nations around and around. So now there’s the question of how to interact, how to deal with all the neighbors around and around.

Of course, Sefer Bereishit already talks about this question. There’s all the stories of Esav and Ishmael and Moav and so on, all these stories of all these nations starting in Sefer Bereishit, and they end up being our neighbors. So we’re not conquering them, but we have the neighbor issue. Sometimes they do start wars with us. We have Amalek, right, which is one problem—they start all this stuff. Sometimes we have to be nice to them. Sometimes they’re stronger than us. Sometimes we’re stronger than them. There’s an imperial power going in one direction or the other and so on. Now one other issue between the nations in between—sometimes they’re not just diplomatically nice, right? Some of the stories we’ve had about Moshe asking Edom, “Could we pass by?” And of course these things will have repercussions or something like symbolic repetitions later when sometimes we need a favor from a neighbor and they’re not letting our airplanes pass by over their airspace or whatever it is. That’s a very similar idea where Moshe is saying, “Here we’re on the way to Israel and we have to get through it. We’re not asking you, we’re not conquering your land, we’re gonna pay you, we’re gonna buy your water,” but sometimes they’re not even agreeing to that.

The Spiritual Threat

Just like there’s all these kind of threats and relations with the neighbors, there’s also spiritual threats. What we know in Tanakh very much as following the ways of the goyim around them, specifically in worshiping avodah zarah. And it seems like this story of Bnei Yisrael and Baal Peor is the most significant story in the Torah and the Chumash which discusses something like that happening, and it also discusses some kind of solution or some kind of protocol-type solution for it and the role of Pinchas, or the role of the kanai [zealot] maybe in general, as solving that problem.

So I think that’s what is going on in this chapter from a broader perspective of what it’s all about. We will describe of course the story. The story of the Eigel [Golden Calf] is about avodah zarah in some sense, but it doesn’t talk about them following the avodah zarah of the nations around them. That’s something that we see a little bit in Sefer Devarim, but mostly about the nations they will come to. Here we see, even after we got rid of that, we’re still going to be left with the avodah zarah of the nations around, and that’s something we find in some sense later in Tanakh more specifically—more stories about that. But this is the primary story, the paradigm story of that in the times of Moshe where something like this happens.

Pesukim 1-2: Israel Strays Toward Baal Peor

So what we have is like this: They stay, they camp, they live, they are in the place called Shittim, and this is this part of Moav. Then the people start to be zoneh, to sort of stray towards the daughters of Moav. Liznot [to stray/prostitute] means to become, to prostitute themselves, or the word zonah, but I think “stray” maybe is a better translation—to Benot Moav [daughters of Moav].

The Mechanism of Spiritual Corruption

Now this, of course, is one of the major ways in which, in a friendly way—in a friendly way—the nations around Israel could cause them to sin, could cause them to stray from the correct path, specifically by intermarriage. We know the story of Shlomo HaMelech criticized for marrying foreign women who caused him to worship others. We know the stories in the times of Ezra and Nechemya with Ezra, with the foreign women causing them to worship avodah zarah and so on. The Torah itself warning against this in Parshat Va’etchanan. So this is the story that talks about this, this is the story that talks about this happening in times of Moshe.

Now exactly what the Torah describes is happening: Vatikrenah lahem lizivcheihen [and they called them to their sacrifices]. This is exactly what happens. They call the people to the sacrifices, or zevach. Zevach always means also not just a sacrifice, it means sacrifice where you eat also, where there’s a party for their gods. And therefore they eat, and therefore they also bow down, because that’s what you do when there’s a sacrifice, when there’s a—maybe zevach should be translated as a festival, a holiday. And therefore Vayitztamed Yisrael el Baal Peor [and Israel became attached to Baal Peor]. Part of Israel become connected, become attached to Baal Peor.

Baal Peor being, as we discussed, Baal is a word that means something like a lord. So Baal Peor is this place where they just were. So Baal Peor—they become attached to this god, this foreign god of Peor.

Pesukim 3-5: Hashem’s Anger and Moshe’s Response

Vayichar af Hashem [and Hashem’s anger burned]. Hashem is very angry. Because Hashem is very angry, what does he do? He deputizes, he sends a message, a messenger to Moshe, and he tells him what to do. He says—so apparently there were the leaders, but now we found out something more important. Not only some asafsuf [rabble], some lower-class people were part of this Baal Peor, now also some leaders, some important people have went along with Baal Peor, and that’s really a problem. And of course this is also prefiguring something we see in Ezra and Nechemya where it’s the important people, the high-class people, the chorim [nobles] and so on, who are marrying, intermarrying with the foreign women and therefore worshipping their gods and so on and so on.

The Command for Public Punishment

And he tells Moshe, Kach et kol roshei ha’am [take all the heads of the people], the leaders, the Roshei ha’am, the heads of the people who are connected to Baal Peor, and vehoka otam laHashem neged hashamesh [and hang them up for Hashem before the sun]. This might mean something like kill them, string them out, put them out in front of the sun so they will be killed publicly. That’s the important thing—to be publicly. Neged hashamesh [before/against the sun] always means publicly, something where everyone can see, publicly.

So Hashem is himself giving Moshe the solution—how do you solve this? By publicly punishing, destroying these people who are going with Baal Peor. And that’s what Moshe does. He tells the shoftim [judges]—so of course he can’t tell the leaders himself because these are leaders. He tells the shoftim to kill—each of the shoftim should kill his people who are attached to Baal Peor. So the shoftim, each one has some people under him, maybe like we discussed in Parshat Yitro, right? They started with sarei alafim [officers of thousands] and so on. Each one is charged to take care of the Baal Peor worshipers of his group, of his part.

So maybe if we read like this, we could say that Hashem is telling Moshe to tell the Roshei ha’am, which are the shoftim, to kill the anashim [men]. Maybe that’s one way to read it.

Pesukim 6-8: The Brazen Act and Pinchas’s Response

The Public Defiance

Okay, now there’s a new story, a new part of the story. So now an ish—ish usually means an important person, a high-class person, a person with power—comes and he brings close to his brothers a Midianite woman. So we have talked about Bnot Moav [daughters of Moav]; suddenly there’s also people from Midian there. Apparently these are neighbors, so they’re part of the same sort of group, the same part of people. So it might mean the same area or something like that. And he brings a Midyanit [Midianite woman].

So he’s publicly defying what Moshe said, what Moshe has been trying to get out—the people stop them from going with the Midianite women and stop them from following the Midianist, Bnot Moav, following Baal Peor. He’s very publicly going against this, bringing the Midyanit. And what are they doing? They’re crying petach Ohel Moed [at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting], where they get together for every kind of problem, for everything that’s going on. And it seems like they don’t know what to do—Moshe and the Adat Bnei Yisrael [congregation of Israel], which means usually the leaders, the congregations, the Sanhedrin and other people in charge, don’t know what to do.

Pinchas Stands Up

And this is a situation, a very interesting situation, where Moshe and the people don’t know what to do, and there’s only one person who knows what to do, or it’s not that he knows—he has courage and does what needs to be done.

So Pinchas ben Elazar ben Aharon sees this, and he stands up. This is the only one that stands up. They’re all standing there and crying, and he stands up. He’s part of the congregation, he stands up. He takes a romach [spear], he takes a spear. He comes, he chases—not clear what that means—el hakubah [to the tent/chamber], the tent or wherever they were, and he stabs them both, the man and the woman.

So again, kubah might mean—might be a word that has a double meaning. Might be also from the same shoresh [root]. It’s interesting we had in the same pasuk just the previous parsha, right, kava [curse], which means a curse. So maybe kubah might mean something like the place from where she’s cursed, or her private places, where we might call that way.

Pesukim 9-13: Pinchas’s Decisive Action and Reward

And this is a situation, a very interesting situation, where the people don’t know what to do, and there’s only one person who knows what to do, and does what needs to be done. So Pinchas, son of Elazar, son of Aharon, sees this, and he stands up, he’s the only one that stands up. They’re all standing there and crying, and he stands up, he’s part of the congregation, and he stands up, he takes a romach [spear], he comes, he chases — it’s not clear what that means — it means something like the tent, or wherever they were, and he stabs them, both the man and the woman, al-kubasa.

So again, al-kubasa might be a word that has a double meaning. It might be also from the same *shoresh* [root]. Interesting, we had in the same passage, the previous *shoresh* k-v-h, right, which means a curse, so maybe it might mean something like the place from where she’s cursed, or her private places, which might call that way.

The Plague Revealed

And that solves the problem, but now we discover that there was a plague, 24,000 people died, and apparently that’s why they were crying, and that’s also the charon af Hashem [God’s burning anger]. Of course, like Hashem, whenever it says, it doesn’t just mean Hashem is sitting in his house or something, I’m ruining it, it means that something bad is happening, and that’s what is ascribed to Hashem. Charon af Hashem — it means there was a plague already.

The Courage Required to Act Against the Elite

Now this story of this ish Yisrael [Israelite man], bringing the Midianite, is apparently just one example of the people, maybe the rashei ha’am [heads of the people], who are going to Baal Peor, who need to be killed, but it’s very hard. You need courage to go against someone important, against a high class person, against an elite person — it’s not a simple thing. And Pinchas was of course also an elite, he’s the son of Aharon, son of Elazar, so the grandson of Aharon. He had the courage, he takes the initiative to do that, and he kills these people that need to be killed, and that stops the charon af Hashem, and that stops the magefah [plague], and he was the only one who was able to do this.

Pinchas’s Reward: The Covenant of Peace and Eternal Priesthood

And for this, he gets a prize. And it’s very interesting that Parashat Pinchas stops the story here, and ends here, but really the chapter is in this case right — this is where, this is all one long story. And Hashem tells Moshe, Pinchas has brought back, taken away my anger from the people, by angering my anger — he’s been angry for me, he does what I did — and because of him, only because of him, were the rest of the people saved, so the magefah stopped, because of him.

And therefore he gets his reward: give him my covenant of peace. Now what is this covenant of peace? I think it explains itself, what is that, that will be for him, this covenant will be for him, a covenant of kehunah [priesthood]. So in other words, Pinchas will be inheriting the kehunah from his father, Elazar, who got it from Aharon.

The Question of Priestly Succession

This of course is a big question here, because it seems like, we already know that Aharon gets the kehunah, and is giving it to his children, but it seems like, there’s different ways of understanding this, but it seems like, at least from this story, it seems like the question of succession after Elazar, we already know that Elazar will succeed in the Aharon, we learned that before, but it seems like the question after that was not solved, or maybe at least there might be several different children of Elazar, and maybe not all of them, but from Pinchas, I take this initiative, got this reward of becoming the kohen [priest], and forever his family.

And just because he, because he did his anger, he took the initiative of fulfilling God’s anger, of doing, and by that, saving the rest of the people from being destroyed. So that’s the story of Pinchas.

The Delayed Identification of the Victims

The end of this chapter is just giving a note of the name of the people that he died and were killed, and that shows us what was the courage of Pinchas, what wasn’t said before. It’s interesting, and this is a specific style that the *pesukim* [verses] do sometimes, they give a story anonymously, and then they say who that was. It might be deliberate, like Pinchas didn’t really [know] who they were, he just did it, because these are some people doing, causing damage to everyone else, right, and he’s going to take the initiative and do that.

But in the end we get this note. Of course we have already Pinchas’ name, we know exactly who he is. We get also the note of who this is: the ish Yisrael was Zimri ben Salu [Zimri son of Salu], he is the nasi [prince/leader] of the shevet [tribe], he’s the leader of the beit av [father’s house] — it might not be the whole Shevet Shimon [tribe of Shimon], but a beit av, we discussed one family, one group of families of Shevet Shimon — so it was an important person.

And the woman who was killed from Midian, she, her name was Kozbi bat Tzur [Kozbi daughter of Tzur], which was, and this Tzur, her father Tzur, we’ll see later, we’ll find him, meet him later, also in the story of the war with Midian. He is rosh shema beit av [head of a father’s house], he is also the leader, the head of a family in Midian. So both of these, on both sides, these were high-class people, and Pinchas, he did what had to be done, even for that.

The Command Against Midian: A Strategic and Spiritual Threat

And now, we have a mitzvah from Hashem, and this shows us also that this whole story — I’ve made an audio on the command of Midian, the mitzvah, of course it’s interrupted by the census in the next chapter — but this shows us that this whole story is not like I said, it’s a spiritual story, but it has, obviously has some kind of meaning here, it obviously has some kind of, we’ll say national or military meaning.

Because obviously when people get involved with other people, then maybe they find out the espionage, they find out what’s going on, or somehow they are able to control you, they are able to subjugate you. And therefore Hashem tells Moshe, I am the way to make enemies out of them, so find a way to make enemies of them. Why? Because they are enemies, they are hurting you, they are fighting with you, with their thoughts, or like plans, or like espionage plans, and with Kazbi, the daughter of nesi Midian [prince of Midian], their sister, who was killed in the day of the magefah [plague] be-Peor [at Peor].

So we see that this whole thing with nesi Midian was not so innocent, maybe it was like a honeypot plan, but in any case, it was something. It’s usually interpreted as just like a spiritual plan, they wanted to make us worship avodah zarah [idolatry], but I think that there’s also some material aspect of this, and that was like their plan. They got the nasi, and then they become friends with him, and somehow they subvert the people by that. And Hashem says we realize that, and Pinchas helped us, and therefore we’re going to go fight with the Midian. That will happen in later chapters, since there’s going to be a stop for other things in the next chapter.

Bamidbar Chapter 26: The Second Census in Preparation for Entering Eretz Yisrael

The Purpose and Context of the Second Census

We’re reading Bamidbar chapter 26. This chapter is the census, the Pekudim [countings], of all the tribes, all the Shvatim [tribes], in preparation for going to Eretz Yisrael, for the war to conquer Eretz Yisrael, and for dividing the land of Eretz Yisrael, as is explicit in the end of this chapter, that Hashem says to these the land should be divided. So we understand that the main point of this census was to divide the land according to this census.

As we’ve discussed, the whole of Sefer Bamidbar, called Chumash HaPekudim [the Book of Numbers], in some sense surrounds this census. There was a census already mentioned in the beginning of the book, right? And the main point of this census happening again, as is explained explicitly here, is that the plan changed in between, as we’ve discussed in Parshas Shlach, Korach, and so on.

The Changed Generation and Leadership

The first census was of the Bnei Yisrael, the Yotzei Eretz Mitzrayim [those who left Egypt], as is mentioned here in the beginning — these were the tribes, the counts of the people going out of Mitzrayim, whose plan was to march through the desert directly to Eretz Canaan and get there. That plan didn’t work out, the generation changed, even the leaders changed, right?

Moshe is still doing this census, as we’ve been noticing in the third part of Sefer Bamidbar, a certain part of the preparation for conquering the land was done through Moshe himself. In the next chapters, we’re going to have him giving over this leadership to Yehoshua, but still a major part of the preparations are done. But the leadership besides him — Miriam already died, Aharon already died, and it was changed here. Aharon, for his son Elazar, is doing his part in the census. Aharon also apparently had a big part in organizing the people, and here it’s already not Aharon, it’s Elazar doing it.

The makeup of the people changed — these are different people, and they’re even organized slightly differently, they’re not all the same families, they’re not all the same. Some families became bigger, some families became smaller, some groups became different, so they had to redo the census in order to match the situation in the new generation that is going to go to Eretz Yisrael. So that’s the main point of this census.

The Placement of the Census in the Narrative

Location and Timing

The location of it sort of makes sense to be in this last part of the book, which is already in Arvos Moav [the plains of Moav], as we saw in Parshas Chukas, we already arrived to Arvos Moav, that’s where the whole story of Balak happened, and apparently that’s also where the whole tragedy of Bnos Moav happened. So in some sense, this is the right location for it to be, although particularly within the stories there is some disconnect.

The Narrative Interruption

We’ve had in the previous chapter the story of Bnos Moav, which was some kind of tragedy, something happened badly, and we even had Hashem telling Moshe to take revenge on Moav, on Midyan — which seems to have something to do, might be the same people, or might have been some kind of coalition where everyone played their part and didn’t entirely say who they were — and then the story stops and goes to this Pekudim [census].

Of course, one understanding of this would be that since they have to organize an army to do that, of course, there were some wars already. Moshe already did in Parshas Chukas wars, and those maybe were not as organized, or maybe were done somehow with Moshe directly with his charisma leading it, but now we have to do it in an organized way.

The Transition of Military Leadership

Moshe won’t do it, as we’ll see in Parshas Matos when we actually get to the war. Moshe didn’t go to that war at all, he sent Elazar, Elazar and Pinchas to do it, so we see very clearly this is already Moshe handing over the leadership, the military leadership of the people to the next generation. Therefore, before that, we need to have some kind of census to find out who’s going and how is it going to work.

But also there might be other reasons for deliberately cutting up the story with this census in the middle. I don’t have a clear explanation for it, but right now this is what I’m thinking, that this is the meaning. And as we’ll see there’s some stories that happened because of the census — we have the story of Bnos Tzelafchad, then there’s some, there’s other mitzvos that are somehow coming here, the whole story of the mitzvah of musafim [additional offerings] in the next chapters, but also very importantly the Moshe giving over his leadership to Yehoshua, and that seems to be part of this story.

Like I’m saying, the next wars that are going to happen are not even going to be directly done through Moshe, so there’s like an intermediate stage. The previous wars with Sichon and Og and all of that Moshe himself led, in the same way that he led the wars with Amalek — Amalek already had Yehoshua in some sense, but anyways — and now he’s going to give it over. So there’s this new census going to the next generation, and this is where the census is put.

There might be also like literary reasons that cut up the story of the war, you know, we have a nice, we have this tragic loss of Zimri and Pinchas and all of that, so maybe we don’t want to continue to dwell on that, so we move on to something different, something more happy. But that’s the basic point.

The Supplementary Nature of Sefer Bamidbar

Now, this Sefer, as we said, the whole book is called Book of Numbers after these two censuses mentioned in the beginning and at the end of the book in some sense, and we’ve been discussing that the whole book of Bamidbar is in some way supplementary to the Sefer Vayikra, supplementary to the Sefer Shemos, and these censuses also have something supplementary in them.

Adding Detail and Structure

In other words they’re adding a lot of detail and a lot of sort of putting things in place, connecting different threads of the story into one structure. One of the main structures which the Torah uses when it tries to give an overarching structure of everything is these genealogies, these censuses, these lists. Just like there’s a chronological order, there’s also like a toledos [genealogical] order, the order of who begat who and who is the child of who and who belongs to — that’s just one of the main ways in which the world is organized in the Torah, how the Torah organizes the world.

And just like in the rest of Bamidbar, it’s adding all kinds of details and putting them in the right place — we’ll see a very nice example of this in the Parsha of the musafim, of the musafim in the next chapters. Here also, the census — firstly in Sefer Shemos, we already had numbers of people, right, 600,000 people and so on, but we had some fragmentary reports of exactly how there were 600,000 and so on, but there was never a full accounting of it. Here’s where we get the full accounting.

The Most Complete Census

And the most full accounting we ever get is in the second census, the census of Parshas Pinchas, the census of chapter 26, is the most full census of the people. It gives us not only the exact name of each of the tribes and their amount of people that they had, but also the families. These families were mentioned already in Sefer Shemos, and in some of them, and also in Parshas Bamidbar, but they didn’t say lemishpachotam [according to their families], they didn’t have the amount of detail.

Although in some sense it’s just adding a word — it’s okay, lemishpachotam, this family, mishpachas [the family of], has such and such, as we’ll see inside — that means that this is a level of organization, this is a level of social structure. It doesn’t just mean it’s not just adding a word. And that’s something that of course the people in the land were organized in these clans, in these families, in these groups, so that’s some information that we didn’t have before.

Genealogical Notes

And as we’ll see also, part of the supplementary nature is, it gives us these notes on every time there’s someone mentioned who played a part in a previous story, or in a future story, it gives us a note, okay this is that person. And those notes I think also have some genealogical meaning as we’ll see when we go through them.

Reading Through the Census Text

So that’s enough for a preface to the story, we’re going to read it, or go through it quickly, it’s a long chapter, a lot of pesukim [verses].

The Opening: After the Plague

It starts, Vayehi acharei hamageifa [And it was after the plague] — of course there’s an interestingly split, the parasha splits here in the middle of a pasuk, but in some sense this belongs to the earlier story, but it’s for sure the beginning of this pasuk.

Vayehi acharei hamageifa [And it was after the plague], and Hashem tells Moshe and Elazar, count, take up the heads, count the heads of the congregation, of the people, again from 20 years old, kol yotzei tzava [all who go out to the army] of each family, each clan, who will go to the army. As we said that shows us that this is mainly a military census.

The Command and Its Parallel to the First Census

And they do that, they speak — Moshe and Elazar, they speak to the people in this place, to show us that this is the census of the land of Israel, they’re going to be counted from the 20 years and up, as Hashem told Moshe and the people who were going out of Egypt. So this is parallelism, just like then they were counted because they were planning to go directly to Eretz Canaan, now they’re being counted again when they’re finally doing it again.

The Tribe of Reuven

And here we have the report of the actual census, starting with Reuven, who gets a note that he is the bechor [firstborn], he is the firstborn of Israel, and that probably means that in some sense Reuven, the Shevet [tribe] of Reuven was still the bechor. In other places we know it says that his bechorah [birthright] was lost, here it doesn’t seem to say that, seems like he still has some bechorah, he’s counted first.

The Four Families of Reuven

And it gives us the four families who are children of Reuven. So this is not just a list of how many children the person Reuven had, but the four families that of course did ascribe themselves to these four children of Reuven. But it’s something new — there could be a child of Reuven that didn’t make a family, and then he would just be part of another brother that had a family, as it says explicitly in Divrei Hayamim [Chronicles] and other places about certain families that that happened to.

So when it says and so on for all four families, it’s not just repeating the same information twice. What it’s saying is that Chanoch had a family called HaChanochi, and there’s this family which had a certain plot in a place where they live, and so on. So that’s the point of this.

Great-Grandchildren and Sub-Clans

And also the grandchildren — these are grandchildren of Yaakov, Chanoch the son of Reuven, the son of Yaakov. Some of the great-grandchildren are mentioned also, and that’s also probably because those great-grandchildren had some kind of power, some kind of clan, some kind of family for themselves.

So we get their count, 43,730.

The Note About Dathan and Aviram

And now we get some grandchildren. Palu had a son, Eliav, Eliav had these three children, Nemuel, Dathan and Aviram. Now we get a note, but I think that this note is not only — so we got to Dathan and Aviram because we’ve heard of Dathan and Aviram in Parshas Korach, it said over there who they were, and Dathan and Aviram, the children of Reuven. But here we get exactly who they were.

The Genealogical Significance

But I think also probably means that they had some power, they had some role, these Dathan and Aviram, because sometimes the next generation of the family also creates its own family or its own subgroup within the family.

So we get this note that these are Dathan and Aviram who fought with Moshe and Aharon in Korach, and they were lost, the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and Korach. So in other words, although for a time Dathan and Aviram had their own power, their own family, now that they were swallowed out, and therefore they had no descendants, they had no families, and so now there’s nobody that ascribes themselves to the family of Dathan and Aviram, which they could have been if not for that. And at the same time 250 [people perished]…

The Tribe of Yehuda

Now for Yehuda, we also get this note. Yehuda is an important family — of course we’ll know later Yehuda is the family from which we have Malchus [kingship], Beis David [the House of David], and so on. So this is actually a story of Yehuda’s two sons, but also of the potential families that were not to be.

Yehuda’s two sons, Er and Onan, who died in Eretz Canaan before this whole story happened — so there’s no families from them. Then after, Yehuda had turned out to have three families: Shelah, Peretz, and Zerach. We know the stories of their births specifically in Parshas Bereishis, in Parshas Vayeshev. And then two of Peretz’s children — so great-grandchildren of Yaakov — also created families: Chetzron and Chamul. As we saw, sometimes the next generation also creates a family, and that’s why Yehuda was in the shivtei Yehuda [tribes of Yehuda], one of the bigger tribes, and that’s why the next generation also gets split into more families.

In total: 76,500 people.

The Tribe of Yissachar

Then we have Yissachar with four families: Tola, Puvah, Yashiv, Shimron.

In total: 64,300 people.

The Tribe of Zevulun

We have Zevulun with three families: Sered, Elon, and Yachlel.

In total: 60,500 people.

The Tribe of Yosef: Menashe and Ephraim

We have Yosef divided into two tribes: Menashe and Ephraim. So again, Yosef was bigger, so he divided into two tribes already in the first generation, and each one of those had children.

Menashe

Menashe had Machir, and even his son had another family — Gilad. And then the family of Gilad — so there’s the family of Machir and the family of Gilad, which are not the same. In other words, Gilad is him and his children, and everyone else would be belonging to the family of Machir. And Gilad himself divides into a bunch of families: Iezer, Chelek, Asriel, Shechem, Shemida, and Chefer.

And here we have one more note of one of the children of Chefer, who maybe made — some of them, maybe even his children, his daughters — made families for themselves. Tzelophechad, the son of Chefer, the son of Gilad, the son of Machir, the son of Menashe, had no boys, only girls, and they all had their names here: Machlah, Noah, Choglah, Milcah, and Tirtzah. There are five names, and we’ll see later in the next chapter what happened. And obviously these daughters were important in the sense of not just specific individuals who inherited some land, but apparently they created families also.

So these are the families of Menashe. In total there’s 52,700 people.

Ephraim

Ephraim — we have their families also. Some of their grandchildren became families. This is Shutelach, Becher, and Tachan. And Shutelach himself had a son or a family after him, Eran.

In total there’s 32,500 people in Ephraim.

The Tribe of Binyamin

Then we have Binyamin with his families: Bela, Ashbel, Achiram, Shephupham, Chupham. And Bela himself had two families divided into Ard and Naaman.

In total: 45,600 people — people meaning warriors, right? Yes, that’s right.

The Tribe of Dan

Then we have Dan with one family, Shucham.

In total: 64,400 people.

It’s interesting that Dan had so many people but only one family. It’s one of the interesting things Hashem had done in general. We could calculate like which ones, how many people there is per family — some of them have bigger families, some are smaller.

The Tribe of Asher

Okay, Asher with his children: Imnah, Ishvah, Beriah. And Beriah himself, his two children: Chever and Malchiel. Malchiel divided into families. And Asher’s daughter Serach — apparently she’s mentioned here not just to tell us that Asher had a daughter. Probably many of the children of Yaakov had daughters. The point is that this Serach apparently created some kind of family separately or had some name for herself. A name always usually means like you leave a family, you leave some inheritance that belongs to you.

Total of Asher is 53,400.

The Tribe of Naftali

Then we have Naftali with families: Yachtze’el, Guni, Yetzer, and Shillem.

In total: 45,400 people.

Total Count and the Mitzvah of Land Division

And we have the total count of all the people: 600,000 — 601,730.

And we have the point of all of this. The point of all of this is another mitzvah: לאלה תחלק הארץ [La’eleh techalek ha’aretz — To these you should divide the land]. You should divide, you should separate the land. The mitzvah בשמות [b’shemos — by the count of names]. Shemos I think means the named people, as we have anshei shem [people of renown]. Anshei shem means people who have a family who’s named after them. So mitzvah shemos means each family — like Shechem, Asriel, and so on — they get some inheritance, some nachalah [portion].

And then it says you should give the greater one a greater nachalah and the smaller one a smaller nachalah. איש לפי פקודיו [Ish lefi pekudav — Each according to his count].

Now there’s a question here asked usually: Is it according to people or according to families? And if it’s just according to people, then what’s the point of the families? But of course the family is a kind of like governmental or organizational unit, and therefore a bigger family who has more people gets a bigger part in the land. But that doesn’t mean that it’s given to the individuals — it’s given still to the shevet [tribe], to the family.

And then one more part of the way how to divide it: בגורל [b’goral — by lot]. Which would be divided by a goral. אל משפחותם בין רב למעט [El mishpechotam bein rav lim’at — To their families, between the many and the few].

And there’s some people that think that there’s a contradiction here, because if it’s a goral, then it means that sometimes the larger people would get the smaller land or so on, if it’s just a goral, a lot that divides it. But I think what it literally means is that the goral only decides where you should get. Of course there’s — in some sense, and sometimes these things are probably very complicated because in our land, the carrying capacity of a land is not entirely like — it doesn’t work entirely with square feet or square kilometers. It depends on many variables. So some of these variables, since there’s no other fair way to divide, then would be by lots. So that’s what it’s saying. And some in the end, and therefore you can’t complain like it was a goral and that’s who won. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some logic to before you make the goral to how you divide it and so on. And probably the details are not discussed here, but I think that’s the logical solution for this problem.

The Census of Levi

And now after we have the census of all the people, we have the census of Levi and his families. And it’s very nice that here the division of the land was had before that, as we’ll say in the end of the story of Levi, because Levi did not inherit in the land. He had his own cities, as we’ll learn, but Levi does not take a part in the land, and therefore his census is separate and said after.

And Levi of course had three main families: Gershon, Kehas, and Merari. And these families themselves had families to themselves, right? So Levi has — so first the person describes all the total families of Levi. In other words, the total, the lowest level families in total are five families: Livni, Chevroni, Machli, Mushi, and Korchi. So there’s some missing here, as Rashi notes. There’s some unclarity what happened. Like I said, things change sometimes.

And then it goes back to describe specific genealogies within Levi. So it talks about the Kehas having Amram with his wife Yocheved and their three children: Aharon, Moshe, and Miriam. Aharon having four children: Nadav, Avihu, Elazar, and Itamar. And of course Nadav and Avihu died, as we’ve learned in Parshas Shemini — they brought foreign fire, strange fire for Hashem, therefore they died. And therefore, otherwise obviously Nadav and Avihu don’t leave families. Elazar and Itamar have families.

In total in Levi there is — sorry, 23,000 people. And these are counted not from 20, as the people that go in the army are counted, but from 30 years old, because they are not counted the lowest part. They are not counted, and also they didn’t go to conquer. They’re not part of the army because they did not have inheritance. So you know, it goes both ways — you don’t fight, you don’t get the land. They have their other jobs, as we’ve discussed in the beginning of this book. That’s a big part.

And of course that’s why this — the note here, I think that’s why — that’s the basic reason why Levi is shorter here. It doesn’t give a lot of the details because we already know that this book talks about that at length already.

Conclusion: The New Generation

And here we have the final, the ending of this census, of this chapter. These are the census who counted the people, as we’ve already said in the beginning. And there was not one man in this from the first census of Moshe and Aharon, which was the Midbar Sinai [Wilderness of Sinai], as they went out of Mitzrayim [Egypt]. So in a different location.

And why? As Hashem told them that they will die in the desert, as He told them in Parashas Shlach. So all of them died. So that’s where two — of course Moshe himself also will die in the desert, so he is not in the list. And we’ll see in the next chapters what happened because Moshe died.

So that’s the end of this chapter.

Chapter 27: The Daughters of Tzlofchad and the Transfer of Leadership to Yehoshua

Two Distinct Topics in One Chapter

Today’s chapter is composed of two parts that have no connection to each other. The first part actually belongs as a continuation to the previous chapter, and afterwards there is a new topic that relates to the story of Moshe transferring the kingship, the leadership, the governance of the kingdom to Yehoshua.

The Story of the Daughters of Tzlofchad

The Background

The first matter is the well-known story of the daughters of Tzlofchad, and this will be a continuation of what we had here regarding the division of the land, where it says “la’eleh techalek ha’aretz” and so forth. There are no details written, but one must understand that it was according to the number of names of the male children, just as those who were counted in the census.

Now there was a Jew named Tzlofchad, he is naturally counted among the families, there is a family of Tzlofchad, meaning the son of the family of Chefer is Tzlofchad, and it even states there his daughters are counted. It appears to state there the reason why it’s written there, specifically because there will be a story about them in the next section, “lo hayu lo banim ki im banot,” and the names of his daughters.

The Claim of the Daughters of Tzlofchad

Vatikravnah – they came with a claim. That is the meaning of the word “vatikravnah,” because “vata’amodnah lifnei Moshe” – this is a way of saying, they filed a “motion,” as we say today in court, “lifnei Moshe v’lifnei Elazar v’lifnei hanesi’im v’chol ha’edah.”

And what do they say? That their father died in the desert, not with the congregation of Korach, he simply died in the desert with his own sins, but the difference between him and all other fathers is, he didn’t have a son, they have no brothers. So who will receive the inheritance?

And an interesting thing emerges, that essentially the families were the first generation, the generation that left Egypt who were supposed to inherit, and their children would receive. And now they say there is no one to inherit, because they are only daughters.

Moshe Goes to the Almighty

And Moshe goes to the Almighty. It’s an interesting thing that there is no halacha. One might think it relates later to the matter of “nevuah shel Moshe” etc., but “vayakrev Moshe et mishpatan lifnei Hashem”. He comes with a question. How does one go before Hashem? How exactly does one go before Hashem? Moshe Rabbeinu knew how, and perhaps later we will learn other things that existed before this.

The Answer of the Holy One, Blessed Be He

And what does the Almighty say? Yes, the daughters of Tzlofchad are right, one must indeed give them “betoch achei avihem,” they should be with their father’s just like their uncles.

And this is not just a law for today, this is an eternal law, as He states “v’zot livnei Yisrael chukat mishpat”.

The Laws of Inheritance

And He goes through all the rules. Essentially, this is the only place where laws of inheritance are stated at all. Until now it was just passed down orally, when a question arose they had to work out all the laws of inheritance, and especially what happens when someone has no heirs.

So the Torah goes through, on the contrary, let’s say the rules:

– First to inherit is the son

– And if there is no son there is a daughter

– And if there is no daughter there are brothers

– And if there are no brothers there are the father’s brothers

The entire order of inheritance as it should be. And this is an eternal chukat mishpat, so that one should know the law.

Later we will see that another problem arose, that now the daughters of Tzlofchad will subsequently marry other men, so there is another parsha that will come later, it’s actually a continuation that should have been here.

The Transfer of Leadership to Yehoshua

The Command to Moshe

But now we move on to another story, which is essentially the end of the story of the desert.

The Almighty tells Moshe Rabbeinu, “Go up to Har Ha’avarim, you can see the Land of Israel, but you will not enter there because of the incident at Mei Merivah.” And this is essentially, we mainly know the story from the end of Parshat V’zot Haberacha, where it states again that this happened, but here it’s speaking about being still in the middle of the desert and needing to reach the end, and this is the main command that is stated.

Moshe’s Request

And what does Moshe say? “Vayedaber Moshe el Hashem leimor”. This is an interesting verse, we have seen the Megaleh Amukot says this formulation, the entire Torah is “vayedaber Hashem el Moshe,” here is the only place “vayedaber Moshe el Hashem leimor.”

And what does Moshe say? What will be with the people? “Yifkod Hashem Elokei haruchot l’chol basar”, similar to the language he used in Parshat Beha’alotcha, where it also states the matter of who will be the leaders and so forth.

And the people need to have “ish al ha’edah asher yetzei lifneihem va’asher yavo lifneihem”, and they should not be “k’tzon asher ein lahem ro’eh”. One must clarify exactly what his request is, what is he lacking?

The Appointment of Yehoshua

And the Almighty tells Moshe, “True, take Yehoshua bin Nun.” What is he? “Ish asher ruach bo”. These are the qualifications that Yehoshua has, whatever that means.

And what will you do to him? You will give him semicha, “v’samachta et yadcha alav”. And another interesting thing, you will establish him “lifnei Elazar hakohen v’lifnei kol ha’edah”. What is the meaning here of Elazar the kohen? And kol ha’edah we understand.

And you will give him “mehodecha”, meaning from your power, from your beauty, from your divine presence, whatever it is. And “l’ma’an yishme’u kol adat bnei Yisrael”, he will be your successor.

The Difference Between Moshe and Yehoshua

V’lifnei Elazar hakohen ya’amod, and yet he says one should not take it like Moshe and Aharon stood. V’sha’al lo b’mishpat ha’urim, meaning, it appears that Moshe Rabbeinu was a prophet, he could speak to the Almighty directly, as we see “vayikra el Moshe vayedaber Hashem eilav me’ohel mo’ed,” as was spoken in the previous parsha.

Not so with Yehoshua, perhaps he was also a prophet, but not necessarily a prophet, he had to go, if he wanted to know what the Almighty wanted, he had to go to the kohen, to Elazar the kohen, and he would tell him through the Urim V’Tumim, that is the meaning of “v’sha’al lo,” if he needed prophecy, holy prophecy, he could know what to do.

But the main thing, according to the simple meaning, as the plain meaning is, this refers to war, he should go lead the people, the simple leading in and out of war, and so forth.

Moshe’s Fulfillment

And so Moshe does, this is the fulfillment, the Almighty, Moshe fulfills, “vaya’as ka’asher tzivah Hashem”, he takes Yehoshua and he establishes him before Elazar, “vayismoch et yado alav ka’asher diber Hashem b’yad Moshe”.