Welcome to our second Wiggity Wednesday! This week’s Torah portion is Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-20:1). In this portion there are three main stories. The first story is about the grandson of Aaron, Pinchas. He is rewarded for killing a Jewish prince, Zimri, and a non-Jewish princess. Pinchas killed Zimri and the princess because Zimri, who was a Jew, had a relationship with a non-Jewish princess. Even though Adonai told Pinchas to kill Zimri, it was a very dangerous thing for Pinchas to do. Zimri was a leader, and his tribe could have harmed Pinchas for what he did. Nobody expected Pinchas to risk his life but he did that when he killed Zimri. But Pinchas was only thinking about what Adonai told him to do, which was more than anyone would have expected. Adonai was pleased with Pinchas and to reward him, Adonai made him a high priest. The second section is about the divisions of the Land of Israel. Everyone had to be counted, but only the men between ages 20 and 60 were counted, not the women or children or the elderly. Moses was instructed about how the Land was to be divided up between the tribes and families of Israel. In this week’s Torah portion, a man named Zelophehad from the tribe of Menasha was instructed. He had five daughters and they are upset because when he dies they were not going to inherit any land. The daughters of Zelophehad ask Moses is they would be granted the land belonging to their father, who died without any sons. The daughters wanted to carry on their father’s name in the Land of Israel. Moses thinks this is a reasonable request and asks Adonai if he could give land to the daughters and Adonai agrees. After the daughters asked, the laws in the Torah were even changed so that daughters in the future would be able to inherit land. The last story of this week’s Torah portion is about Moses trying to find a new leader for the people of Israel. Adonai tells Moses that Joshua should take the place of Moses and lead the people into the Land of Israel. Moses did as Adonai told him and blessed Joshua to be the leader of the Jewish people. The Torah portion concludes with a detailed list of the daily sacrifices, and the additional offerings brought on Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh (first of the month), and the festivals of Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret. This week we have the wonderful village of Ohalim hosting Shabbat! After an exciting round of voting, they decided on the theme, “Take a Chance, You May Advance!” We have over half of the village signed up to help lead services, and everyone is involved in one of our amazing Shabbat committees. Our decorations committee has made signs and dice for all of the tables, our pageant committee is in the process of writing a skit about campers taking over being the director of camp, the song committee is eagerly awaiting their shining moment on Friday night, the dance committee has an amazing routine choreographed by our dance specialist Stephanie, our creative writing committee has all written beautiful pieces about taking a chance, and the havdalah committee is eagerly awaiting sharing all of their beautiful voices with us as they lead us to the close of Shabbat. We are anxiously awaiting Shabbat this week and can’t wait to see all of the amazing attributes that Ohalim has to share with us!
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 20:57:13 +0000
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