B"H

Wednesday, Tammuz 20, 5781 / June 30, 2021

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families of the Surfside tragedy in Florida. I am at a loss for words… Only G-d can find the proper words of comfort and the miracle we are all waiting for.

This week’s Parsha is Pinchas. Pinchas was the son of Elazar who was the son of Aaron, the High Priest. It was through Pinchas’ courageous action of killing one of the leaders of the tribe of Shimon for his immoral relations with a Midyonite woman, that a plague, which took the lives of 24,000 Jews, stopped. As a reward, G-d gave Pinchas and his descendants G-d’s covenant of Shalom-peace.

The covenant of Peace which G-d gave to Pinchas was that from then on, he became a Kohen. Although his father and grandfather were Kohanim, Pinchas himself was not a Kohen until this time.

In this Parsha we read about the counting of the Jewish people before going into the Promised Land. It is the fourth time in the Torah that the Jewish people are counted. The first was when they left Egypt. The second time was after they sinned with the Golden Calf. The third counting was after they built the Tabernacle.  In this Parsha, is the fourth count.

All the men over the age of 20 were counted. In each of the four counts there were at least 600,000 men over the age of 20.

The first three counts took place approximately within the first year after the Exodus. This last count took place 39 years later, at the end of their 40 years in the desert, as they were getting ready to go into The Promised Land.

Every counting had to do with a special event which warranted the counting. The first one was when they left Egypt. This was to show that although Jacob came to Egypt, 210 years earlier, with only 70 people, by the time of the Exodus they were six hundred thousand men, plus women and children.

The second count was after they sinned with the Golden Calf, when many of them died. G-d commanded Moshe to count the people to know how many were left. The third counting was after the Mishkan (Tabernacle) was erected and G-d rested His glory on the people, He told Moshe to count them again. Between the second count and the third was about a half year. The fourth counting, in this week’s Parsha, was after a plague killed 24,000 people.

Q. G-d knew their numbers without counting them, why did He command Moshe to count them?

A. Our sages tell us that all these counts were to show and express G-d’s love for His people.

Our sages explain this with the following parable: A shepherd was attending to his master’s flock, when a pack of wolves attacked and ate many of the sheep. After the attack, the owner told the shepherd to count how many sheep were saved. This is because the owner loves and cares for his sheep. Each and everyone is precious to him. So too, G-d’s instruction to Moshe to count the Jewish people was to demonstrate and express His great love for His people.

HAVE A VERY GOOD, HAPPY, HEALTHY AND SUCCESSFUL DAY