Parshat Pinchas – Shabbat Mevarchim

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Parshat Pinchas is the second longest sedra in the Torah and second longest in the Book of Bamidbar (Parshat Naso is the longest).

Actually, that depends how you compare sedras. Pinchas is written on 280 lines in a Sefer Torah and has 168 pesukim, earning its second-place ranking. But with 1,887 words, it drops to 9th place! A significant drop which is due to the fact that Pinchas’s pesukim are relatively short – specifically, with an average of 11.2 words per pasuk, there are only five sedras with shorter pesukim. (The Torah’s average is 13.7, with 79,976 words in the Torah’s 5,846 pesukim.)

Yet Pinchas’s 7,853 letters raises it to 4th largest sedra, letter-wise, because its words average to be the longest in the Torah. How many letters per word? Go figure. (Actually, that’s exactly what I did.)

As for mitzvot, Parshat Pinchas contains 6 of the 613 mitzvot, all positive. It is one of only six sedras that have only positive mitzvot.

If Parshat Bamidbar showed why the Book of Bamidbar is called the Book of Numbers, then Parshat Pinchas confirms that name. This sedra contains the census of the members of the new generation – the people who will be entering Eretz Yisrael. Let’s compare the numbers from the census taken of the men from the age of 20 who came out of Egypt with the results of this new census. (Actually, the official purpose of this count was for the battle against Midyan.) Remember, the only two individuals who are counted both times are Yehoshua and Kalev. (And according to a tradition we have that approximately 15,000 men of Dor HaMidbar did not die in the final year of wandering, the number of overlaps jumps dramatically. But we’ll stick with the p’shat, the straightforward reading of the verses.)

Let’s look at the two countings, side by side:

 

Allow me to point out a number of things:

In 40 years (actually, 39 years between the censuses), the adult male population declined slightly. We can intuit that the overall population grew significantly.

The tribe of Menashe increased most significantly (+63%). Asher and Binyamin, and Yissachar too, increased significantly. Menashe’s increase allowed them to have good numbers on both sides of the Jordan River – being the only tribe to dwell on both sides of the river.

Efrayim’s decrease was significant, probably due to their defeat in a battle the Torah itself does not recount, but other sources do.

Most striking is Shimon’s drop (-62.6%), largely due to the fact that most of those who were struck down by the plague recounted at the end of last week’s sedra were from Shevet Shimon.

 

What’s In A Name?

Out of the Torah’s 54 sedras, how many are named for people? Noach, Yitro, Korach, Balak, Pinchas – and let’s add Chayei Sara to the list. And focus on the name of this week’s sedra: Pinchas. My name, too (although I spell it without the yud, and I’m not a Kohen). And also my father-in-law’s name (with the yud and he was a Kohen).

Most English speakers pronounce the name PIN-chas. However, that pronunciation is incorrect (or rather, inaccurate) in two ways: The first syllable is Pi, not Pin, because the chirik under the pei followed by yud is a major vowel and usually stands on its own. The sh’va under the nun that follows is a sh’va na, which begins the second syllable, N’chas. Furthermore, the accent is on the second (last) syllable, not the first one. So: Pi-N’CHAS, not PIN-chas.

English-speakers and others do the accent-shift on many names. Take this as informational, not a push to change the way we say the names.

For example, we say AV-raham, YITZ-chak, and YA-akov. In my opinion, that’s okay when you are using the name in regular conversation. But in davening and Torah reading, care should be taken to accent the names (and all words) correctly. Our Avot are avra-HAM, yitz-CHAK, and ya-AKOV. Same thing for yo-SEIF, mo-SHE, and so on. Not all names work this way. Some are actually pronounced Mil’eil, with the accent on the next-to-the-last syllable – NO-ach, for example.

Speaking of Noach, here is a riddle: Where do we find him in Parshat Pinchas?

Actually, there are two answers. In the teiva. A play on words, because teiva is the ark, but it also means word. You can find Noach (i.e., the letters nunchet) in the word Pinchas.

The second answer is a groaner. In Parshat Pinchas, we are introduced to the five daughters of Tz’lofchad – Machla, Noa, Chogla, Milka, and Tirtza. Their father had no sons, only daughters. Which means that they had no ach (no brother!). Told you it was a groaner. But try the riddle at your Shabbat table. See how it goes.

A brief word or two about Rosh Chodesh bentching.

First of all, Rosh Chodesh Av is always one day in our fixed calendar, because Tammuz has 29 days.

Rosh Chodesh Av will be (next) Shabbat Kodesh. And we announce the month as Menachem Av, even though the first 10 days of the month are usually referred to as Av, with the Menachem Av becoming the month’s name from afternoon of the 10th – the day after Tisha B’Av – through the 30th of the month.

Because the Mishna tells us that as Av enters, we diminish in joy, there were suggestions that we should not announce the Rosh Chodesh of Av in advance. It comes when it comes, but why joyously announce it? But we do bench Rosh Chodesh Av, because Mevarchim is more than an announcement – it invokes blessings from G-d for the coming month. It is hard to find a month that need’s Hashem’s blessing more than Av.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov.


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Phil Chernofsky was the founding editor of the popular weekly Torah Tidbits, published by the OU Israel Center, where he served as educational director for 38 years. He now maintains PhiloTorah (philotorah.co) and gives Zoom shiurim. Before his aliyah in 1981, Phil taught limudei kodesh, math, science, and computers. He can be reached at [email protected].