41: Pinchas
Parsha Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-30:1)
TLDR:
Pinchas, as you might recall from last week’s parsha, spears a couple while they are having sex. Somewhat ironically, God makes a covenant of peace with him.
The two people Pinchas kills were respective leaders in their community - a “prince” and “princess”, making the killing all the more symbolic of the wariness of inter-tribe relations.
God tells Eleazar (who has filled in for Aaron) to run another census since the army is encamped outside Jericho and preparing to invade Canaan. The total count comes to just north of 600k people. The Torah notes that only Josh and Caleb have survived 40 years of the desert wanderings.
The daughters of Zelophehad, who are the only surviving children of their father, come before Moses and Eleazar and ask why they should not receive a land holding (i.e. inheritance)? Hence Moses establishes the rules of inheritance; land first goes to sons, then daughters, brothers, uncles, and the closest remaining kin thereafter.
The episode not only highlights the concern with woman rights (progressive for the time), but also with the issue of clan rights. Say a woman marries outside her tribe. Does that mean the inheritance subsequently falls to the other clan? The issue of federated states and central control extends far into the past!
God tells Moses to go to Mount Abarim where he will die. Before that, Moses appoints Joshua as the new leader of the community “so that the Lord’s community will not be like a flock that has no shepherd.”
Leaving Moses’ pending death as a cliffhanger, the Torah shifts to a long interlude about sacrifices and holidays (Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succoth, and Shemini ‘Atseret).
Question:
It’s fitting that the census bookends the start and end of the desert travels, but the juxtaposition of Moses’ pending death and the other stories is perplexing. We go from Pinchas’ killings, to the census, to a seemingly random inheritance question, to the critical leadership handoff from Moses to Joshua, to a review of the holidays. What logic is there in the ordering of the stories?
Moses directs God to appoint his successor. What does his request say about his own self-awareness?