Pinchas, after whom this Sidra is called, was the son of Ele’azar and the grandson of Aaron. He became famous because he took a heroic action when he assassinated the Prince of the tribe of Shimon, who became involved in a despicable act of idolatrous immorality. He also killed the Midianite woman. His action was public and it took place in the context of the war that the Moabites and Midianites were waging against the Israelites. Through his action, he saved the Israelite nation from complete extermination.
Pinchas took that action all on his own without obtaining prior consent from the leadership of the nation. But, at the beginning of the Sidra, we are told, that God approved of what he had done. We learn that in the face of immorality and idolatry, these no room for any compromise. We come across this uncompromising attitude after the sin of the Golden Calf, which took place immediately after the Exodus. Now, 40 years later, we come across it yet again. After the sin of the Golden Calf, the Levites were instructed by Moses to kill everyone who had been directly involved. They obeyed and killed 3000 people. Now, Pinchas killed two people, in the first instance, but, soon afterwards, he led the nation into a full-scale battle against the Midianites. The Moabites were spared, because the Israelites were specifically commanded not to attack them, because they were the descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew.
Pinchas was rewarded for his action. He was granted a covenant of peace for which there may be two explanations. The first is that he was promised that all the high priests in the future would stem from his family. The second explanation is that he was told that he would also become a priest. Before his heroic act, he was not a priest. Only Aaron and his sons were priests and the intention was that their children would become priests. Pinchas was not amongst them because he had already been born before the anointment of Aaron and his sons.
There is a tradition that the word SHALOM in the third sentence of the Sidra is written with a short VAV. An incident is told about Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, who lived in Jerusalem between the years 1910 to 1995 and was recognised as one of the greatest rabbis of his generation He was once shown a scroll of Torah in which the VAV was written in the normal size. It would have been a simple matter for any scribe to take a blade and scrape off the bottom of the VAV. The trouble was that they couldn’t find any scribe who was prepared to do it on the grounds that there is a view that the word Shalom is also the name of God, which must not be erased. The problem was brought before Rabbi Auerbach. He advised that is scribe should take a quill and ink and make all the other three letters of the word Shalom thicker at the bottom. As a result, the VAV became automatically shorter. The problem was resolved.
Chapter 26 begins with another census, which took place after the plague in which 24,000 people died. The reason for this census was the imminent division of the land amongst the tribes. It is interesting to note the numbers of each of the 12 tribes. It emerges that the largest tribe was Judah which had a population of 76,500. The smallest type was Shimon with a population of 22,200. This was a significant loss from the previous census in which Shimon had a population of 59,300. There is, therefore, a loss of 37,000 which is by far a larger loss than suffered by any other tribe. The commentators assume that the tribe of Shimon lost the vast majority of its people in the plague which had just ended. It was a Prince of Shimon who had been assassinated by Pinchas. From previous episodes we know that there was a tradition of belligerence in this tribe. The founder of the tribe himself, Jacob’s son, had been involved in the killings of all the citizens of Shechem, which Jacob had criticised and never forgave. On his deathbed, Jacob prophesied that the tribe of Shimon would be the smallest tribe and that it would be scattered amongst the other tribes.
In the middle of the account of the census we find a reference to the terrible rebellion by Korach. At the end of this reference there is a very brief verse which reads: “But the sons of Korach did not die.” The comment has been made that the sons of Korach, never die amongst the Jewish people. There are always people who are prepared to start a fight.
The last chapter of the Sidra gives us a full list of the sacrifices that were offered on a daily basis and also the additional sacrifices which were offered on the festivals. This chapter is read more often than any other chapter in the Torah. The relevant section is read, as the portion which is allocated to the Maftir, namely, the person who reads the Haftarah, on every special day; the new moon and all the festivals. These portions are also cited, word for word, in the Musaf Amidah, on Shabbat and festivals. Immediately after the destruction of the Temple, when it became impossible to offer the sacrifices, our rabbis ruled, with great wisdom and foresight, that we must continue to offer up the sacrifices with our lips. Until the destruction of the Temple, the service of God was performed largely through the sacrifices known in Ivrit as AVODAH. After the destruction of the Temple, our prayers replaced the sacrifices as AVODAT HASHEM. Every Amidah which we recite represents an offering of ourselves to the Almighty. It brings us near to Him, just as the sacrifices, called in Hebrew KORBANOT, used to bring us near to Him in days of old. The Hebrew root KRV means to be near. Our constant religious aspiration is to be as near to God as it is humanly possible.