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Parashat Pinchas, July 14, 2012 24 Tamuz, 5772

Dear Talmidot, Parents and Friends –

 

1)         Faculty Dvar Torah – Rav Eitan Mayer

2)         Mazal Tov

3)         Mi SheBerach

           

           

 

 

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Rigidity or Chaos?

Rav Eitan

 

Sefer BeMidbar opened many weeks ago with a census in which the men of fighting age were counted.  This week’s parshah contains a very similar census, and in fact, it refers to the first census and notes that none of the soldiers counted by the first census survived to be counted in the second.

 

The first census was undertaken because Bnei Yisrael were preparing for the imminent conquest of Eretz Cana’an – which never happened.  The second census is undertaken now, a generation later, with the reluctant, fearful fighters of the last generation gone and a new generation ready to make war. 

 

We would expect, then, that these two censuses, which are parallel in purpose and nature, would also sound similar in the text of the Torah – but they don’t.  Two features distinguish them from one another. 

 

In the first census, the Torah uses a very rigid, formalized formula to record the number of soldiers in each of the tribes: “For the children of Re’uven, their descendants by their families, according to fathers’ houses, their count by number of names, by each head, all males from twenty and up, all those who went out to battle; their number, for the tribe of Re’uven was nine and twenty thousand and three hundred.”  This formula, so regimented, uniform and official-sounding, marches through the text twelve times, each repetition like a soldier itself. 

 

On the other hand, in Parshat Pinchas, the formula seems more flexible, informal, even personal: “Re’uven, first-born of Israel: The sons of Re’uven were Chanoch, the Chanochi family; for Palu, the Palu’i family; for Chetzron, the Chetzroni family; for Charmi, the Charmi family.  These are the families of Re’uven, and their number was three and forty thousand, seven hundred and thirty.”  Rather than Parshat BeMidbar’s language of bureaucracy and officialdom, in Parshat Pinchas we have the names of individuals and a powerful emphasis on one word: “family.”

 

The second difference between the censuses: In Parshat BeMidbar, the census is strictly business, with no interruptions for personal notes or stories.  It reads like we would imagine a census should read (if perhaps more repetitively formulaic than a typical census would be – which is a topic for separate analysis).  In Parshat Pinchas, on the other hand, the census pauses again and again to share vignettes about specific personalities.  For example:

 

Re’uven: “The sons of Palu: Eliav.  The sons of Eliav: Nemu’el, Datan, and Aviram – the same Datan and Aviram, members of the council, who fought with Moshe and Aharon with the group of Korach, when they fought against God.  The ground opened its mouth and swallowed them and Korach when his group died, when fire consumed the two hundred fifty men, who became a warning.  But the sons of Korach did not die.”  What does this have to do with the dry business of a census?

 

Yehuda: “The sons of Yehuda were Er and Onan, but Er and Onan died in Eretz Cana’an.  The sons of Yehuda by their families…”  Even if one wanted to suggest that the Datan and Aviram episode above is mentioned because it occurred between the first and second census, and also because it resulted in a certain loss of Re’uven’s soldiers, this answer would not explain the inclusion here of the death of Yehuda’s first sons, which occurred long before the first census, and yet was passed over in the first census.  Why is it noted here?

 

Menasheh: “Tzlofchad, son of Chefer, had no sons, only daughters; their names were Machlah, No’a…”  It’s true that these daughters will play a role in a story to be told later in this parshah, but what justifies including this tidbit in the middle of a census of fighting men?

 

Perhaps the second census is not merely a census, but also a hinted analysis for why the first generation failed – why its census amounted, in the end, to zero.

 

Sefer BeMidbar began “large,” with the project of forming a chaotic group of tribes into the four military wings of a coordinated army, a well-oiled fighting machine prepared for conquest, regimented and buttoned-down.  But imposing order on the chaos proved far more difficult than anticipated – first, there were complaints, never-ending whining and crying about boring food and scarce water.  Then Moshe’s own siblings turned on him with their own complaints.  Then there was the faith-crisis engendered by the spies, whose chilling reports of a carnivorous Land eroded the people’s trust in Hashem’s promises to aid their conquest.  Then Korach joined with Datan and Aviram to lead an open rebellion against both the priesthood (Aharon) and the political leadership (Moshe).  The order crumbled before the galloping chaos, as the façade of regimentation gave way to naked tohu va-vohu.  What went wrong? 

 

Perhaps the message of the second census is that creating order is not merely a bureaucratic task, but also a human task.  You need to focus on the individuals, the families, the personal stories and challenges. 

 

Datan and Aviram, both Re’uvenites, rebelled against the imposed order perhaps because, as the Torah notes in this census, Re’uven was “the first-born of Israel,” but was denied any prominence in the new order.  They felt cheated, but the new order failed to address their feeling of having been utterly passed over.

 

Including the brief mention of Yehuda’s deceased children, the children he bore with a Cana’anite wife, perhaps hints that even when someone rebels against the established order and secedes from it, as Yehuda did when he left his father’s family to live on his own, rehabilitation is possible.  Once Yehuda confronts his challenges and surmounts them, he returns to the established order and then contributes children who become part of the nation’s posterity.

 

Finally, mentioning the daughters of Tzlofchad in the midst of a census is not merely whetting the reader’s appetite for coming attractions; it is demonstrating that these women, individuals who did not fit into the established order (which granted land only to males), were in danger of becoming foes of that order – until the order itself showed flexibility, listened to their story, and granted them what they deserved.  The order which inflexibly failed to respond to Datan and Aviram’s claims learns to respond to similar claims in the next generation, co-opting the potential rebels instead of galvanizing their resentment into rebellion.

 

From the outside, a census can look like it’s just about numbers.  But a census like that lacks a soul, and order without a soul can never appeal to people with souls.  The kind of census we need, the kind of order we need, the kind of communities and nation we need, are the kind which create order by valuing the individual dramas of each person’s life – a process which, rather than erasing people’s individuality by repacing their names and stories with anonymous numbers, listens carefully to their needs and challenges, bestowing order while remaining flexible enough to respond to the unique narrative of each individual.

 

[How’s your summer going?  What are you learning?  How’s davening going?  Drop me a line at emayer@gmail.com]

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

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Mazel Tov!               

 

Hannah Filer(Madricha '11-'12) and Greg Bank

Yhi ratzon shetivnu bayit ne'eman bYisrael

 


 

Weddings

Tovah Weinstein ('09-'10) and Mikey Kook  

Yhi ratzon shetivnu bayit ne'eman bYisrael

 

 

Births

Nomi (Spector) ('05-'06) and Michael Plaut on the birth of their son

Yhi ratzon shetizku lgadlo lTorah lChupa ulMa'asim tovim. Kshem shenichnas lBrit kein yikanes lTorah lChupah ulMa'asim tovim.



Aliyah

Mazal Tov to Dahlia Gold Goldstein ('04-'05) on her Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael! 

 

  
 

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Mi SheBerach List

 

We have started a new list. Please email midmoriah@gmail.com if there is a name you would like to add.  

 

Names added this week:

 

 

 

For complete 5772 list, please go to: http://midreshetmoriah.com/alumnae/?id=464

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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