|
PINCHAS:
IS HE A MURDERER OR A SAVIOR?
Immediately following the murder of Zimri ben Salu, one of the princes of
the Shimonite tribe and Cazbi bat Tzur, the daughter of the Midianite king
by Pinchas, the plague, that we suffered due to our sexual debauchery, in
the name of Ba’al Peor, stopped.
Was this a coincidence, and the 24,000 people who died were all the
people involved in this heinous act or rather was Pinchas’ act of
zealousness the very thing that stopped the plague?
Bottom line, is Pinchas the son of Elazer and grandson of Aharon a
murderer or savior? Some have
leveled criticism against Pinchas stating, “Who does he think he is?
After all, his maternal grandfather fattened cows for idol worship.
How could such a person decide that he will take the law into his
own hands and kill a prince of Israel?
Talk about audacity!” Well,
to those detractors, Hashem had the answer for them.
Hashem has commanded Moshe to award Pinchas for his zealousness
with the title of kohain and it will be his family’s eternal heritage.
Now you may be asking why Hashem needed to do this, seeing as
Pinchas is a descendant of Aharon Hakohen and should, by rights, already
have that title, seeing as it is an inheritance of lineage.
Moshe answered that by explaining that “since Pinchas was already
born at the time of consecration he was not included in that line.
But now that he has shown himself worthy of the title kohain, which
merely means
servant of
Hashem, he, too, will be included in this elite group.”
|
OPPRESS THE
MIDIANITES!
Those present at today’s news conference were presented with a
surprising decision…namely, we are to continually oppress and kill the
Midianites for entrapping us in the sin of Ba’al Peor.
The obvious question is why this law doesn’t apply to the
Moabites too. After all, they are the ones who asked the Midianites for
advice as to how to destroy us. Furthermore,
they hired Bilaam to curse us. It
seems that they are much more deserving of this type of punishment.
Moshe responded to this criticism when he explained, “The reason
that Moab was not included in this call for oppression and warfare is
because Moab had a reason to worry. We were encamped at their borders and they feared that we
would invade. Their actions,
while clearly done out of hatred of our people, was also done out of fear,
and therefore doesn’t merit such a great punishment.
The Midianites, on the other hand, acted solely out of hatred for
us. They had nothing to do with this fight and came out of left field in
order to engage us in this destructive activity.
They demonstrated their intense hatred when king Tzur sent his own
daughter, Cazbi, out as a prostitute in order to entrap our men. They followed Bilaam’s advice, even though his track record
for effectiveness was zero for three.
Imagine, he proved to be a 3-time loser and yet their intense
hatred
drove them to follow his advice.
That’s why we must continually afflict and attack them.”
|
WOMEN
WANT LAND!
While it is well known that the land will be divided by the male
heirs, what happens if the father only had daughters?
Does that land allotment get swallowed up by the distant male heirs
or does it fall to the daughters? This
was the question that Tzelophchads’ daughters put to Moshe and the Beit
Din (Court.) Machlah, Noa,
Chaglah, Milcah, and Tirtzah individually went to Moshe, Elazer and the
entire Beit Din and respectfully presented their case.
It was fascinating to watch these 5 righteous women working the room,
as it were, each presenting their case.
They claimed that since their father, who was not part of Korach’s
rebellion and therefore did not forfeit his apportioned land, died, on his
own accord, without any male heirs. Therefore
the land should default to them. If
this wouldn’t work, then their mother should be engaged in yibum-
levirate marriage—and the son from that union would thus inherit the land
in their father’s name. For
why should his land portion and name be wiped out from the annals of Jewish
history? Moshe perplexed
by the question presented the case before Hashem.
Hashem agreed with Tzelophchad’s daughter and they will inherit
their father’s portion. Furthermore, the rule of inheritance will be as
follows: If the father doesn’t have sons, it will fall to his daughters,
if no daughters, to his brothers and if no brothers to his cousins.
|
