Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Pinchas 1

good evening we are learning parashat pinhas we're using art scroll hamash we're on page 877. parashat pinchas is continuation of what we just learned in parashat balak where at the end of parasha we learn about the plague that visited the Jewish people because of improper relations between the Jews and the moabite and midianite women and the plague was stopped by pinhas when he killed zimri and Cosby the the the two people who were the most prominent because they did it in the middle of Israelite camp and they did it in the full view of of all the Jewish people um took the mat into his own hands and he realized that zimri cannot be prosecuted by the court and the the law states that a regular Jew not a member of the Court can rise up and kill the Jewish man and the non-jewish woman while they are in the act and as soon as he did it the plague stopped starts in chapter 25 verse 10 Hashem spoke to Moshe Singh pinhas son of elazar son of aharon the kohen turned back my wrath from upon the children of Israel because until now God's Wrath was among the Jews and that is why there was a plague and 24 000 people died until this point when he zealously Avenged my Vengeance among them so I did not consume the children of Israel in my Vengeance if he would not stop and the Jewish people would not do anything about it Hashem would allow the plague to continue and all the Jewish people would be killed God forbid and the verse says when he zealously Avenged my vengeance what does it mean he did it for me he Avenged my Vengeance means that at that time Hashem was not practicing his vengeance usually and bilam knew it there is a time during the day when Hashem judges the world and bilam wanted to find that time and catch the time of judgment and pronounce the curse and at the time of judgment the curse would be more powerful and Hashem said out of love for my children the Jewish people I will not give him an opportunity I will not even judge the world so that even the thoughts of evil belam should not have any effect of course Hashem did not allow bilam to pronounce the curse instead bilan pronounce a blessing however Hashem did not want even the thoughts of bilam to be negative and therefore he said I will not um allow any time of judgment to to be during those days and there were three days when bilan was trying to achieve his goal and for those three days Hashem did not judge the world he did not avenge his vengeance his own Vengeance and therefore when pinhas took the the the Judgment into his own hand Hashem says thank you out of my love for Jewish people I could not punish the Sinners myself you stood up and you did it and that is why the plague stopped because you brought back Justice into the world and now Hashem gives him a reward therefore say behold I give him my Covenant of peace just like he brought peace back to the Jewish people he will receive an eternal peace what does it mean Eternal peace that means that pin has will live forever usually there is a battle between the body and the soul there is no peace as long as we are alive the body wants one thing and the Soul wants another thing however pin has achieved that state of a great Sadiq of Adam before the sin when the the yet when the evil inclination was outside of the body and therefore there was no struggle there was no war between pinchas and his soul and and because of that there is no death just like adamarishon was supposed to live forever until he sinned and the yetzarara became part of him and so pinhas became Eternal how did he do that eventually he turned into and we know went up to heaven alive and he still comes and and visits us um at every circumcision and passata as well as every day he he flies around the world and helps people um and saves them from from any difficulty so that is the Covenant of peace and it shall be for him and his offspring after him a covenant of Eternal priesthood because he took Vengeance for his God and he atoned for the children of Israel again the Covenant of Eternal priesthood is mentioned pinchas and later eleajo or kohanim and he lived forever now the name of the slain is Israelite man who was killed with the midianite woman was zimri son of Salu he was the leader of his father's house of the tribe of Shimon and the name of the killed midianite woman was Cosby daughter of Sur who Sur was the head of the people of he of his father's household in median so we see both of them were descendants of leaders uh zimri was a prince of the tribe of Shimon and Cosby was a daughter of a prince of a midianite tribe and we see that midianites had so much fear and hatred towards the Jewish people that they sacrificed their own daughters and not only the masses but even the leaders even the nobility gave their daughters a a command go and seduce Jewish man and have a forbidden relations with them even though it will be disgraceful for a daughter of a prince to do such a thing they said it's worth it for us in order to cause the Jewish people to sin as well now Hashem gives a command to to the Jewish people to take revenge against the midianites because they cause the Jewish people to sin and uh 24 000 people died Hashem spoke to Moshe saying harass the midianites and smite them for they harassed you through their conspiracy that they conspired against you in a matter of peor and in the matter of Cosby daughter of a leader of Midian their sister who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of peor so Hashem commands Moshe his last mission on Earth and that is to have a war against midianites and to kill them now chapter 26 the new senses now it is the 40th year of the Jewish peoples um travels in the desert they are about to enter the land of Israel after this last battle so they need to do a census number one to see how many soldiers they have so that they can divide them and fight the war and number two to see who will receive a portion in the land so it was after the plague which is another reason for doing a census because Hashem wants to see how many Jewish people are left alive Hashem spoke to Moshe and to al-azar son of Arona Cohen because Aron himself already passed away in of the month that we will enter very soon and now elazar replaced him as the kohen gadol and Hashem said to them take a census of the entire assembly of the children of Israel from 20 years of age and up according to their father's household all who go out to the legion or in Israel all to all who are able to fight a war for between 20 and 60 years old spoke to the Jewish people in the plains of Moab by the Jordan River near opposite of saying from 20 years of age and up as hashemet commanded Moshe and the children of Israel who were coming out of the land of Egypt and now the Torah gives us again um short description of each of the tribes with some Main Events and then it gives us the total number of people first comes ruvin the firstborn of Israel it lists his children and some grandchildren and the total number of people is 43 730. next comes Shimon and the total number for Shimon is surprisingly very little only 22 and 200 and the commentators say that such a drastic change from what Shimon used to be and now shows us the majority of the people that died in the plague uh due to the sin with the daughters of Midian were from the tribes of Shimon just as their leader zimri who was involved in this sin he um caused many Shimon Knights to do the sin as well and therefore majority of two of the 24 000 people died from the tribe of Shimon um now next comes God and the total number of his families were was forty thousand five hundred again we're counting menth between 20 and 60. however those men are married with Children and therefore these numbers represent number of families so you have to multiply that number by um however family members they are your husband wife plus a few children anywhere between four five to ten fifteen maybe more so let's say on average families 10 people so if we come to the number of six hundred thousand uh man between 20 and 60 which are 600 000 families you can expect there to be between three to six million Jewish people next comes Yehuda the largest tribe and Yehuda has 76 and 500. next comes is the second largest tribe 64 300. next comes the volume 60 500. and then minashe and the frying now we have to remember that Minaj in the frame were once part of the same tribe of yourself and therefore if we add them together they will actually be the largest tribe and if someone asks you which of the brothers had the largest number of descendants it's not going to be Yehuda rather yourself because minashe had 52 700 descendants and Ephraim had 32 500 together they were over 85 000 families Yehuda was next with only 76 000. and then the tribe of binyamin 45 600 binyamin used to be one of the smallest tribes if not the smallest now they are no longer the smallest next comes the tribe of Don 64 400 a hundred people more than the tribe of yisakhari Sahara was 64 300 done is 64 400. and uh don surprisingly only had one son so all these 64 000 families were descended from one son of Don then comes a share 53 400 and finally comes naftali 45 400. and the total is given in verse 51. these are the countings of the sons of Israel six hundred and one thousand seven hundred and thirty and surprisingly the number is very similar to all the other uh times Jewish people were counted when they left the Egypt after the golden calf again in um this week's Parsha and uh it should be surprising not because they remain the same but rather why didn't they grow and we know that unfortunately throughout the 40 years that the Jewish people traveled in the desert they lost 600 000 men all the Jewish people who were between the ages of 20 and 60 years old that left Egypt all of them died besides the tribe of alivi and now really we see the Jewish people did grow so much plus the most recent loss of 24 000 people and still they have 600 000 people families so that means there was a tremendous birth rate and in those 40 years all the people that died and was everybody they were replenished now [Applause] after we do the census now we give the portions of land to each family verse 52 Hashem spoke to Moshe saying to these shall the land be divided as inheritance according to the number of names for the numerous one you shall increase its inheritance and for the fewer one you shall lessen the inheritance each one according to his count shall his inheritance be given the inheritance was given by lot where the name of the tribe was written on a piece of parchment and so for 12 tribes and boundaries of each piece of land was described on another piece of parchment 12 of them and both of them were mixed and put in two different boxes and they would go into both boxes and take out one parchment and one parchment said the name of the tribe another parchment said which land he gets and they would pair it up and give it to that tribe and miraculously whatever piece of land that God prepared for that tribe came out each time 12 times in a row the correct name of the tribe with the correct boundary was uh Chosen and that was done in order to show people that Moshe is not the one picking and choosing who to give which land and maybe he's giving his friends a better plots rather this division is done by God himself and then further each tribe divided the land among um [Music] larger families of lots and then each one of them divided it between individuals now verse 57 count of the Levites again we're counting the Levites these are the countings of the Levites according to their families are the three families of the Levites and their children are listed and they were counted as the verse 62 says their counts were um 23 000 every male from one month of age and above unlike the Jewish people who are counted from 20 to 60 the Levites were counted from one month old babies and up their lower boundary was not 20 years but 30 days and their upper boundary did not exist at all and even though many more Levites were counted in this census still the total number is only 23 000. the the tribe of Levy was the smallest and one of the reasons was because they were not subjugated in Egypt and therefore they did not receive the special blessing um that the rest of the Jewish people received who were slaves and the second reason was because they were so close to the mishkan and They Carried the Arona kodesh and other holy utensils that that closeness to kedusha had a negative effect on their birth rate how is that possible and that is because uh the closer you are to God the closer you are to holiness the more dangerous it is why because Hashem judges you with more precision just like if you are climbing higher and high on the leather the higher you climb the more scary it gets the more dangerous it becomes if you fall and the winds are stronger and so that is what happens when a person is climbing up on the ladder of spirituality the higher you climb the harsher the tests become and because of that the the Levites did not grow as fast some of them died even though there was no decree against them however they died of natural causes because they were close to Hashem now as a summary in verse 63 the Torah says these are the ones counted by Moshe and al-azhar the coin who counted the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan River near yerijo and of these there was no man of those counted by Moshe and haronak the kohen who counted the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai during the first year when the Jewish people um encamped by harsinai for Hashem had said of them they will surely die in the wilderness and not a man was left of them except for khalev Son of ifune and yahushua Son of noon okay let me mute everyone okay now we'll continue chapter 27 the daughters of silafhad son of heifer son of gilad son of Mahir son of minase Daughters of a man whose name was he was a great great grandson of minashe they came to Moshe and these are the names of his daughters mahla Noah hogla milka tirza Five Daughters of silovad they stood before Moshe and before elazar de Cohen and before the leaders of the entire assembly at the entrance of the to the tent of meaning same our father died in the wilderness so they are orphans they don't have a father what did why did they come to Moshe so first they say he died of his own sin he was not among the Jewish people who rebelled against God his own private sin and he had no Sons but only daughters five daughters and no Sons so what's their question why should the name of our father be omitted from among his family because he had no son why will his name be omitted because the inheritance is given to the boys what if there are no boys only daughters what happens then that's their question oh give us a possession among our father's brothers and they said perhaps the Torah would allow if there are no Sons to give the inheritance of the land to the daughters and Moshe brought their claim before Hashem and now we have brief laws of inheritance in verse 6 Hashem said to Moshe is saying the daughters of tsilofhad speak properly you shall surely give them a possession of inheritance among the brothers of their father together with their uncles They will receive the portion that belongs to their father and you shall cause the inheritance of their father to pass over to them that's in their case from here we learn as the verse 8 says if a man will die and he has no son you shall cause his inheritance to pass over to his daughter what if he has no daughter you shall give his inheritance to his brothers what if he has no brothers you shall give his inheritance to the Brothers of his father his uncles if there are no uncles Brothers of his father you shall give his inheritance to his relative who is closest to him of his family and he shall inherit it and so on it it continues to the next in line next in line this shall be for the children of Israel as a decree of Justice as Hashem command and Moshe so again briefly if there are both sons and daughters The Inheritance goes to the sons the father can give gifts in his lifetime to the daughters as much as he wants as long as some thing is left for the sons but after his death the regular inheritance goes to the sons boys if he only has daughters and no Sons then daughters receive the whole inheritance what if the man had no children then it goes to his father if his father already passed away then he goes to his Brothers his own Brothers what if his father did not have any other Sons or the the they died then the inheritance goes to the uncles and if there are no uncles because his grandfather also didn't have any sons then it continues further in line to the great uncle's great great uncles and so on and so forth and eventually every Jew will find a relative because we are all relatives all the way to yakovina now since Hashem commanded motion to do the last battle and after the battle against midianites Moshi is supposed to die Hashem is allowing him to see the land of Israel before he dies verse 12 Hashem said to Moshe go up to this mountain of avarim and see the land that I have given to the children of Israel