Divine and Human Partnership – Pinchas 5784

If you were to visit me in my office (which you’re all cordially invited to do – preferably by appointment), you’ll see on the wall my teudat smicha – my ordination document. In quite flowery language in Hebrew and English, it declares in so many words that due to my years of study and familiarity with Torah and key concepts of Jewish law, that I am fit to serve as a rabbi for those who will come to rely upon me.

As part of my last semester of rabbinical school, my cohort and I actually had several sessions of learning with our teacher Rabbi Daniel Klein, learning the background sources which are alluded to in the document itself. One of those key sources is found in our parsha this week, and it’s among the most touching verses, to me, found in the whole Torah. In fact, it’s engraved on a plaque in the entrance above our front door. Moshe is commanded to ascend Mount Abarim and view the land that G-d promised the Israelites that he himself will not enter, and then die just as his brother Aaron did. After hearing G-d’s instructions, Moshe responds:

יִפְקֹ֣ד יְהֹוָ֔ה אֱלֹהֵ֥י הָרוּחֹ֖ת לְכׇל־בָּשָׂ֑ר אִ֖ישׁ עַל־הָעֵדָֽה׃

אֲשֶׁר־יֵצֵ֣א לִפְנֵיהֶ֗ם וַאֲשֶׁ֤ר יָבֹא֙ לִפְנֵיהֶ֔ם וַאֲשֶׁ֥ר יוֹצִיאֵ֖ם וַאֲשֶׁ֣ר יְבִיאֵ֑ם וְלֹ֤א תִהְיֶה֙ עֲדַ֣ת יְהֹוָ֔ה כַּצֹּ֕אן אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֵין־לָהֶ֖ם רֹעֶֽה׃

“Let the LORD, Source of the breath of all flesh, appoint someone over the community

who shall go out before them and come in before them, and who shall take them out and bring them in, so that the LORD’s community may not be like sheep that have no shepherd.”

G-d, taking the next step, instructs Moses to single out Joshua ben Nun, and commission him by laying his hands upon him and imbuing him with his authority. Thus a new link is added to the chain of leadership, so that the people need not be, as the Torah teaches, “sheep that have no shepherd”. 

There are many layers to this text, but I want to place it in context with what happens directly before it. Before Moses is told to pass the mantle of leadership to Joshua, the five daughters of Zelophehad come to him. Their father died in the wilderness without leaving any male heirs, and they are worried about his name being lost to his clan. As a way to avoid this, they ask Moses if they themselves may inherit their father’s property. They pointedly tell Moses that “he was not one of Korah’s faction” (Numbers 27:3) who rebelled against him and Aaron, perhaps in order to bolster their case. 

It’s striking to note that although Moshe’s been the leader of the Israelites for 40 years, he doesn’t have an immediate answer. Instead of answering immediately, the text states that “Moses brought their case before the LORD”. The commentary in our Etz Hayim humash states that Moshe does this “not because he didn’t know the law, but because he could no longer trust himself to be impartial after being told ‘our father was on your side during the rebellion’” (page 926). 

After decades of leading the people through episodes of divine revelation and human complaint, Moshe still needs reassurance that the decision he feels in his kishkes is the correct one. On his own, he doesn’t know just what to say. Perhaps on one level we shouldn’t be surprised: Moses has described himself multiple times as being “slow of speech and heavy of tongue” (see Exodus 4:10 for one example). 

However, by inquiring about the case of the daughters of Zelophehad with the LORD, a new law emerges as a product of the partnership between the divine and the human. G-d says, “The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just: you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them” (27:7). Furthermore, the Torah stipulates that if any man has no sons, his daughters inherit his property. If he has no daughters, then his brothers inherit. If no brothers, then his property passes to his father’s brothers. If his father has no brothers, then it goes simply to the next of kin- the closest living relative. 

Moshe’s not being one hundred percent sure of his answer in this text calls to mind a lesson from one of my teachers. My teacher Rabbi Shayna Rhodes repeatedly taught my colleagues and myself to never be afraid to say the words “I don’t know” to a question, especially one that is asked by those whom we serve in our respective communities. Even to questions we are sure we know the answer to, it is always helpful to review. 

Judaism, as we know, places great value on lifelong education- even on those topics which we’ve ostensibly mastered. In Pirkei Avot, the “Chapters of the Fathers” in the Mishnah which contain so much wisdom, we are exhorted to “aseh l’cha rav”- “make for yourself a teacher.” Even those topics with which we are intimately familiar should be periodically reviewed and “checked up on” for its own sake. Even the most learned rabbis, who have been steeped their whole lives in Torah, Talmud, halakha, kabbalah and other genres of the Jewish bookshelf, always review what they have learned. 

The idea of Torah lishma– learning for learning’s sake- is one that is near and dear to me personally, and to our tradition. My most rewarding times of Jewish learning have been with my hevrutot, my study partners, both when we learn new material and when we review what we’ve learned. Rare is the time when reviewing even the most basic halakhot that I don’t gain some new insight about it from my hevrutah. 

In this way, then, we each become the other’s “shepherd”- helping to guide us through tricky concepts and texts, providing reassurance, and keeping us on the path of the just so that we may better understand and plumb both Torah that is known, and Torah that is yet to be revealed. 

Just as Moses’ care for the Israelites is couched in terms of a shepherd/flock relationship, so too are we for each other. We each have the capacity to be both a shepherd and a member of a flock, helping to lovingly guide others while being open to guidance ourselves. Moshe appoints Joshua as the next leader, the “shepherd”, who will bring the people into the promised land and help them fulfill their divine destiny. 

Psalm 23, one of the most beautiful and moving passages in the whole Tanakh states: 

 יְהֹוָ֥ה רֹ֝עִ֗י לֹ֣א אֶחְסָֽר׃ בִּנְא֣וֹת דֶּ֭שֶׁא יַרְבִּיצֵ֑נִי עַל־מֵ֖י מְנֻח֣וֹת יְנַהֲלֵֽנִי׃ נַפְשִׁ֥י יְשׁוֹבֵ֑ב יַֽנְחֵ֥נִי בְמַעְגְּלֵי־צֶ֝֗דֶק לְמַ֣עַן שְׁמֽוֹ׃ 

“The LORD is my shephard, I shall not lack. He makes me lie down in green pastures, leads me beside calm waters. He renews my life; guides me in paths of righteousness, as befits his name.”

May we all be open to being shepherded by those who merit through their actions to do so, trusting that both their guidance and the comfort of Torah- the partnership of human and divine- continue to lead us down righteous paths, to green pastures and calm waters.