Pinchas: Anniversary

 Pinchas: succession

 Pinchas deals with succession.  What is inherited: the Promised land, divided according to the ancestors that ascended from Egypt.  It is the foreign Yichus that determines status.  And surprise, surprise .. women COUNT! The daughters of Zelafchad stand up for their rights and get a share. 

 

What is earned? leadership.  Pinchas is let into the Kahuna by the back door of merit.  Joshua is the surprise choice to succeed Moshe ( usurping  Moshe's son and Elazar and Pinchas)  

 

Moshe asks that the Aydah of Gd not be like sheep without a shepherd. What does that mean?  Sheep without a shepherd don't know where to graze.  They graze wherever there is grass.  They borrow from any  culture  that is around them.  The shepherd keeps the sheep within the confines of the law, he does not let them steal from other cultures ( unless the necessity is dire, life or death)

 

The parsha ends with the daily, weekly, monthly and annual cycle of animal sacrifices.  There is constancy: the seasons remain the same, the species of the sacrificed animals remain the same; and there is change, the individuals ( animals, people), the years, the circumstances are all different.

 

 The more things change...  

 

 

last years Pinchas DT:http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=d4hmw97_234df6tqvc5&hl=en