📋 Shiur Overview
The Second Census and the Inheritance of the Land – Parashat Pinchas
The Census and Its Context
In Parashat Pinchas comes the second census of the Jewish people “acharei hamageifah” – after the plague of Baal Peor. The order of the portions is noteworthy: the incident with Midian and the daughters of Moab is interrupted, and only in Parashat Matot (“nekom nikmat bnei Yisrael mei’eit haMidyanim”) does one return to it. In the meantime, matters are inserted that relate to the final preparations for entering Eretz Yisrael. The contrast between pekudei Moshe v’Aharon (the first census in Midbar Sinai) and pekudei Moshe v’Elazar haKohen (the second census in arvot Moav) reflects the parallel between Torat Har Sinai and Mishneh Torah. Three reasons for the census: (1) after the plague one needs to know how many Jews remain; (2) one needs to know the yotzei tzava for the conquest of the land and milchemet Midyan; (3) according to the families is established the chalukot ha’aretz (division of the land).
Notes in the List and Bnei Levi
The Torah inserts notes when counting certain families: by bnei Reuven are mentioned Datan v’Aviram and the incident of Korach, by bnei Levi – Nadav v’Avihu, and by Yehudah – Er v’Onan. This serves as a summary of the incidents or as an “update” of the list. Bnei Levi are counted separately, because they don’t go to war and don’t receive any inheritance in the land. The total of both censuses is similar, but in the details – both in the families and in the numbers of each tribe – there are great differences, which reflects the change of generations.
The Question in the Division of the Land: Lottery vs. Larav Tarbeh
A strong kushya (difficulty) in the portion: it states “larav tarbeh nachalato v’lam’at tam’it nachalato” – a larger tribe receives more land – but it also states “ach b’goral yechalek et ha’aretz” and “bein rav lam’at“, which implies that the lottery makes no distinction between large and small. This is almost an explicit stirah (contradiction): if “larav tarbeh” already determines how much each receives, why does one need a lottery? There are various approaches in the mefarshim (commentators) as to how to understand the interplay of the two principles, but this remains an open question for one to examine.
📝 Full Transcript
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”?