This week’s portion Parshat Pinchas picks up after Pinchas executes a Jewish leader and the Midianite princess with whom he was sinning.  The story continues this week with G-d rewarding Pinchas’ bravery by granting him and his descendants priesthood, after which Pinchas is commanded to punish and smite the Midianites.  The Aliyah ends with instructions to carry out a census.

 

The census, conducted on males over 20, determines there are 601,730 males, not including the Levites who were not included in the original count.  The land of Israel is then divided by Tribe and their determined locations are selected by a lottery.  Eventually the Levites are added to the census which adds 23,000 people, although, in this case, all males over one month old are counted.  The land grants lead to one of the more well-known stories of this portion.  The daughters of Zelephehad approach Moses to address the fact that their father passed away without any sons.  “Why should our father's name be eliminated from his family because he had no son? Give us a portion along with our father's brothers." 

 

Moses relayed this message to G-d who declared, “Zelophehad's daughters speak justly. You shall certainly give them a portion of inheritance along with their father's brothers, and you shall transfer their father's inheritance to them.”  He subsequently outlines a series of instructions for handling various inheritance scenarios.  Immediately thereafter he instructs Moses to climb Mt. Abarim so he will be able to see the Promised Land before passing away.  Once there, Moses asks G-d to appoint a new leader “so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd” and G-d tells him to select Joshua the son of Nun.  The rest of the portion speaks in detail and at length about multiple communal sacrifices.

 

There is a LOT going on here.  So much so, that most of the commentary I read began with a disclaimer that the author would not be able to do the entire portion justice in the allotted time or space.   Not one to challenge the wisdom of our forefathers and mothers, I am going to focus on only one element of the story, the transition of leadership.  Not, however, in the context of our upcoming elections, which will no doubt dominate D’var Torahs and sermons all over North America this week.  

 

Moses recognizes that there has to be a succession plan.Progress would not continue nor would the mission succeed, without leadership.  This idea is central to the entire concept of National Young Leadership Cabinet as laid out by the Founder, Rabbi Herbert Friedman.  In his book Roots of the Future, Rabbi Herbert Friedman says the following, “the idea grew from a feeling I had at the end of the 1950s that a new generation of leaders would have to be created to replace those I had first met more than a decade earlier.”  

 

It is apropos, perhaps, that this portion coincides with the final National Young Leadership Cabinet Shabbat for me and the rest of the super fantastic class of 2011.  Like dozens of classes before us, we will transfer the responsibility and honor of leadership to the next group of young leaders while accepting the challenge and honor of whatever awaits us.