From Chabad.org – Pinchas in a Nutshell
Numbers 25:10–30:1
The name of the Parshah, “Pinchas,” refers to Phineas, who zealously avenged G‑d’s name.
Aaron’s grandson Pinchas is rewarded for his act of zealotry in (constructivly pointing out the flaws of) the Simeonite prince Zimri and the Midianite princess who was his paramour: G‑d grants him a covenant of peace and the priesthood.
A census of the people counts 601,730 men between the ages of twenty and sixty. Moses is instructed on how the Land is to be divided by lottery among the tribes and families of Israel. The five daughters of Tzelafchad petition Moses that they be granted the portion of the land belonging to their father, who died without sons; G‑d accepts their claim and incorporates it into the Torah’s laws of inheritance.
Moses empowers Joshua to succeed him and lead the people into the Land of Israel.
The Parshah concludes with a detailed list of the daily offerings, 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.
Messages from the underground
1
Hillel the scribe and Phaedrus the apothecary are camped out just at the back side of the army’s offensive.
Why are you here? I’m surprised they even let you come near the danger.
Yes, things have become rather delicate these days.
So you are writing the book again.
Yeah. We are writing history again. But this Pinchas business maybe isn’t such a bad thing.
We are talking straight corruption. Do you know something we don’t know?
Yeah. He’s on our side.
Wait, the guy who just murdered two people was a vegan?
That’s right. It was a righteous kill. They were selling the women in the street. They abused children. They were the most maggot infested fools and these two idiots, the midianites, they profited from the misery. The more people cried to get out of the slums, the more garbage they fed them. It was pure cruelty.
A righteous kill.
I think the we are walking a fine line here. I’ve got the boss thinking hard about getting off the meat. I have been talking to him and talking to him. This whole assassination business needed to get spun. It never is anything we get to talk about out in the open. But I think we’re moving in the right direction.
Oh my God. Hillel. You made this happen.
Do you think me a terrible person?
An eye for an eye. The only way to deal with murderers is to murder them.
I hope it works this way. I’m not eating any meat and I really don’t like being so much of an influence. But if I can make some good thing happen, I will. And if I can stop suffering by taking action, I must do what I must do.
Well, there’s no use crying over spilled medianites. You feel like getting high?
More than life itself.
2
600,000.
Yep. 40 years of effort and we are right back where we were when we started. I told you that keeping track of the breeding was more important than keeping track of sexual habits. Education, education, education.
I have to agree with you, Hillel. That was probably the greatest series of articles you wrote.
I didn’t think I was hurting anybody. I mean, the idea should be to demystisize sex rather than keeping it a dirty secret. Or have it always be apart of this marriage / divorce bullshit. Roping people into unhappy relationships just to see what kind of mischief happens to them is a good way to keep people down. Anything that keeps people down is what they love to do. We stay where we are. No one grows. That’s how they thrive.
It’s all about the meat business. Totally.
That definitely has a lot to do with it. But having a one in and one out policy meant that people generally cared about the children we made. Not having it be a violent thing but more of a right of passage for young people who wanted to make babies with particular partners. The people thought it was a good idea. The children know we just want to meet them and get to know them and know that they are good people. It’s the correct way. Everybody raises the children and this gives everybody a lot of hope. Yeah, just get the sex stuff out in the open and talk about how life affects the community. Wisest thing we ever did.
Well yeah. Congratulations on that. But none of that matters anymore. Now we are being used as weapons of war. I feel so claustrophobic. I can’t stand it.
I know what you mean. I’ve got him thinking at least. I can’t stop him. I know I can’t stop him. I can’t kill him and I can’t stop him. But I can keep pushing. Who is stronger the water or the rock?
Yeah. And you’re talking about the guy who just beats the water out of the rocks with a stick. I understand. These are dark days. I hate being meat. I was so enjoying being a good human being. Gosh we had so much fun.
Yeah. I’m nostalgic too. That was 40 amazing years.
Every year was like the best year. Just the hopes of the agriculture alone.
We were really worshiping God.
Yes, my friend. It doesn’t matter what Moses wants in his book or what political intrigues we have to create. We really did have 40 beautiful years.
And it meant nothing. Like all the boys who die in these stupid wars. Just a moment of life, just a small flicker of the candle and then poof. Someone killed them and now they are dead. We just agree to murder each other for no other reason than the pleasure of the son of a bitch who sits in the chair.
Yes. I definitely think we should smoke some more.
We can make a prayer for the giver of all things.
Maybe we can pray for the end of the taker of all things.
3
Well, that was interesting.
I’ll bet it was. I only have one question. He knows absolutely who you are. He knew that you had your hand in this. Did he say anything to you?
It’s really hard to say, Phae. It’s like he’s not really there.
What are you talking about? He’s making war decisions.
Well that’s what I’m talking about. Healthy people don’t make war decisions. Healthy people make peace decisions. This whole thing is stupid. Nobody wants this.
Yes but it’s happening. We are all counted. They know how many of us are here and they know how many men. We might as well wear ear tags. We are no better than animals. They can come get us anytime they want.
Yes but we got reparations. At least we get land grants. As a minimum we get individual plots. We can have gardens. When we finish killing, we can have gardens.
Yeah, nice compromise. We all have a portion of land coming to us. A million years after the fact and after we were already in place, now we have the privilege of taking over a new parcel of land and making it ours. Great. We are the forest service to the world.
Listen, at least we got something for our service.
We don’t need it. We didn’t need the war. We didn’t need anything. We don’t need these gifts.
I know it. I know it. He threw me a bone. Like I’m a dog.
Any prayer he’s going to stop eating meat?
Son, when you are at that level, you have no idea the depth of the debauchery.
Pure narcissism.
And get this. We hit him up with a problem that was best solved by counting the numbers and making the adjustment and the old man disappeared without giving any answer.
What are you talking about?
He was given a question and he just walked out of the meeting.
I don’t understand.
Well, he mumbled something about talking to God. But he never came back. That’s what I’m trying to say. He said he couldn’t make the decision without talking to God, he walked out of the tent and he never came back.
Who is God this week? Is it something to smoke or something to put up his nose?
I think he’s sick. In fact, I think he’s been sick this entire time.
Like telling people to go fight and kill and rip each other apart? That sounds pretty sick to me. To ignore everything we built for 40 years pretty much means the eyes are dim. When it comes to actually running the government, he can’t even answer the slightest question without going for narcotics. He’s been getting away with murder.
Not every time.
It’s a really strange thing. He’s the same as us. He is only flesh and blood. But All he does is drugs. Everything he does is for his pleasure. And now he’s destroying us again and all for nothing. He is so blood drenched that he can’t make any more decisions unless there’s blood on them. How much coke is he doing?
A lot.
Yeah, I hear you. Nostalgia for the days when all we had was the burning bush.
Yeah. And I got one more tidbit to ruin your night. He never had any intention of explaining thou shalt not kill. The whole thing of tapping the lord’s words out in stone so they would last a million years was just a setup. The punchline was that he could smash them to rubble in one second. The punch line was of course that we’re not quitting meat.
Insanity.
And the disease will be passed on through the millennia.
4
Well, that does it. The old man is gone.
Moses is dead?
He’s not dead. He has stepped down. He appointed a woman.
You’re joking.
Well not really. He picked Joshua the stonemason. But It seems Joshua the stonemason doesn’t really talk for himself. He is kind of at the disposal of some mystery woman. She is taking over now but we don’t really know who she is. The old man didn’t say a word. We all knew he loved Joshua. We knew the whole time. But now the story is coming out. It was not Joshua who wanted to make war. It was not Joshua who wanted to take power when the old man died. All of this activity was from the capricious mind of Joshua’s mystery woman.
You know, women who prefer women really make me crazy sometimes. All of this nonsense about relevance of life. If you didn’t want babies, you didn’t want relevance. It’s as simple as that.
Yeah. Well, for whatever it’s worth, women have the vote and can own land. Women have equal rights now.
Then this entire thing wasn’t about eating meat?
It is and it was. People get really stupid when they eat meat. That’s the whole point. Meat keeps the population lobotomized. The women understand this. The women though exactly who we are as men. So, it’s logical. If we’re going to live in a world of power, the women want some too. They are tired of being slaves of slaves.
That’s the way it works. When they want us to be slow and stupid, they feed us meat. Whoever does the cooking controls everything.
Sure. 40 years of Utopian living and they just flip a switch and within a short time, we are stupid enough and they send us to war.
Well, somebody flipped the switch. When Miriam died, so did Moses’s 40 years of peace. Our mystery woman is the one who got in there and put barbecue back on the menu. Find that woman, and you find the real power behind the war.
And at that moment, we have the appearance of Eva.
Good evening boys. So the woman is always the bad guy. Pretty traditional male thinking.
Eva!
I see you’ve been talking about me. Something about power behind the power? Well, officially women are people now. We are no longer slaves. Any questions? Commentary?
First of all, give credit where credit is due. I never said my wife was a nobody. I just said that it was miserable having her for a wife.
Hillel, I have always loved you exactly as much as you love me.
But why? Why did you do this? You didn’t need the power. Nobody needed anything. Why did you have to make this bloody stupid war?
Men make war. Women are smarter. I just got us some respect. In order to get the vote, I needed to get the book open. I needed a war so we had a reason to write again.
But we didn’t need it? Everyone was happy. We were all working and our society was functioning. We made the desert bloom! Why? Why did you need to do this?
We needed it in writing.
Wow. The Torah has been hijacked by a woman.
What can I say? I’m ambitious.
More like carnivorous.
Well, I’d love to stand around and chat but I think I’ll go hang out and see what Joshua has going on for the evening. Ciao boys.
And with that, she was gone.
5
Oh I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Did you see what they did? Did you see what they did?
I heard about it.
They gave away the grazing rights to our wheat fields! They gave the bloody herdsmen the right to graze our wheat fields! Why?
How do I stop it. It’s all meat. 40 years ago, he left us to make our own decisions and and we did fine without him and without animals. 40 years of peace wasted and now because he only wants war, now it has to be meat. They are not even giving us a choice anymore.
Why? Everything bad comes from meat. Every disease, every foolish decision, every thing we do badly comes from meat. Why?
The fix was in from the start. He wasn’t helping us. He was gathering a flock for himself so he could rule.
He should have stuck with goats. He was better with goats. The Egyptian doesn’t know the difference between people and goats. All he wants is more meat. Wait. You told me he’s not even there. You don’t actually know it’s him talking, right? He is not dictating the book anymore, right?
No. No, actually no. Nobody has seen Moses. All of this is filtered through Joshua’s spokesman.
It’s a press release.
Yeah. I didn’t actually see or hear Moses. I cannot say for sure that this is his decision. No one is really taking responsibility for this. Not even the woman’s coalition although it’s impossible to get them off of milk. I just don’t think they know what they are doing. This is a bad choice.
What are we going to do about it?
Well I’ll tell you one thing that I’m not going to do. I’m not going to let them advertise meat on the pages of our newspaper. I will never do that. I will never make that compromise. We are clear thinkers regardless of this life and death power our idiot leadership loves to play with. We are with the people which means it’s not our job to drive the world insane.
6
Well they got you. You don’t have to print any advertising for the meat business. But you do have to give the schedule for feasts and fasts.
I don’t really want to talk about this, Phaedrus. You break your back for 40 bloody years trying to build up a nice garden to live in only to have some narcissist announce his presence with authority.
Maybe we can tell people the truth. The people can’t eat meat. Leadership is corrupt. They’re all drug addicts. They are all insane with power. People can’t live like this. If you have neighbors all around touching you everyday, you can’t live flagrantly. It may work for some rich guy but it doesn’t work in the proletariat. Drunken belligerence where people are paddocked together is carnage. The corruption of the government is endless and will never not be endless. That’s what we got out of the book and that’s what we get out of this portion of the book.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I don’t know about you but I won’t get fooled again.
I’m so tired of having to make these compromises.
I have a question. What happens when the old man dies? Will you continue writing the book for Joshua or will we close it once and for all?
I thought we closed it once and for all 40 years ago. I don’t understand any of this.
7
Later that evening, Hillel the scribe, Phaedrus the apothecary and six or seven members of the Female Empowerment League were all clumped closely together in the sweat lodge. The females were mostly participatory rather than conversational so the dialogue is simply between the men.
When your wife gives a gift, sometimes it’s not so bad.
No, in the moment it’s not so bad.
I think I have never been with so many women at one time.
No. Neither have I. How many women have you been with at one time?
Usually two.
Usually?
They come in pairs. What can I say? I am an apothecary. You can’t start picking which one you like and which one you don’t like. That meat business ploy never works. Either we all win as a team or we all lose as a team.
Really? Yeah. Cool. You have a lot more experience than I do.
No. I don’t believe it. You sleep with women.
Well yes. Sometimes. I’m always on the periphery of the party. I’m not really an a-lister.
Don’t you ever get penmanship groupies?
Sometimes but rarely.
You never got over Eva.
It’s not so simple as you think. It’s a matter of giving my word. I said that I would do this and I believed my word meant something. I have always thought words mean something. This is eventually why I ended up scribe. They’ve always known. They say I’m a real Jew. I get it. That’s why they gave me the job.
And your penmanship.
My penmanship is the best.
They always want the best of the best. So what do you think about our party here tonight? Look what happened? We gave them some respect and now it’s raining women.
Women are people. To me, they have always been people and they can do what they like.
You are a philosopher. I am an apothecary. Women like me more.
Yes. And tonight I am your friend so your women like me too.
Poor Hillel. The world is made of women and he has none of it.
I think it’s about being a vegan. There’s too much meat in the world. I don’t need a woman to be a piece of meat. I need a woman to be a woman in the same way that I am a man.
Elusive. Too abstract from me. Look at us. Tonight we are Pharaohs. Are you at least having a little fun now?
I don’t know if I would say fun. But I have been more miserable. I’m not in horrible pain here at this party.
Well then cheers to you my friend. Here is Cheers to all of us who end up doing shitty jobs because we have no damn choice. Even if we know better, we don’t have any choice what gets written in the book.
Thanks to God, the maker of all things.
