Making It To The Top Together

Parshas Pinchas

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B``H

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I would like to dedicate this week’s article to our fellow Jews and the other victims who died in the horrific building collapse in Florida. I’m offering my sincerest condolences to the families of those that perished and am praying that through some miracle they find some more survivors.

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About eighty percent of people climbing Mount Everest take a rest at the shelter where it’s hard to miss the dead body of a person lying there curled in the limestone alcove cave (at 27, 900 feet.)

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Although the body has never been officially identified, he is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber who died on Mount Everest while attempting to reach its summit. He was wearing green Koflach mountaineering boots. But most who have encountered him on the main Northeast ridge route of Mount Everest, know him only as, “Green Boots.” Since 1996, his body, located not far from Mount Everest’s summit, has served as a grim trail marker for those seeking to conquer the world’s highest mountain from its North Face. It has been said that the reason Green Boots and his two teammates died was that some of the other climbers were only focused on their own drive to reach the peak, and callously ignored their signs of distress.

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In the last week’s Parsha, the head of the tribe of Shimon Zimri asks Moshe Rabbenu what is the difference between him taking a woman from Midian and Moshe taking a wife from Midian. Even though the answer was obvious to him, Moshe Rabbenu’s mind went temporarily blank.

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Pinchus reminds Moshe of the answer that the difference was that Moshe took his wife Tziporah before giving the Torah, and she converted to Judaism. Now that it was after the giving of the Torah, it states clearly that if a Jewish male has relations with a woman from Midian, the law is that he should be put to death. Moshe instructs Pinchus to carry out the mission since Hashem conveyed the answer to him. Pinchus then kills Zimri and Kuzbi, the princess of Midian, with a spear in such a fashion that showed the Jewish people that their leader was caught in an immoral act punishable by death.

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In this week`s Parsha, Parshas Pinchus, Hashem tells Moshe and Elazar to count the Jewish population after twenty-four thousand Jews died in the pandemic.

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In the commentary, Rashi gives two reasons why the Jews were counted at this point in history. The first answer is just like a shepherd who finds that wolves have infiltrated and attacked his herd, counts his herd after the damage was done, Moshe also counts his nation after the lethal pandemic subsided. The other answer is that when Moshe started his leadership forty years earlier, he counted his population. Now that he is about to give over the leadership responsibilities to Yehoshua, he counted once again.

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The Lubavitcher Rebby has a beautiful in-depth essay on this. However, I would like to focus on one small part of the essay.

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The Rebby explains that Moshe felt responsible for the pandemic that killed twenty-four thousand people. Since he forgot the answer to Zimri`s question, that terrible error in judgement certainly sealed the fate of the Jewish people, which led to fueling the pandemic. He was concerned that out of his uncertainty of the law, this breached a hole in the spiritual security of the Jewish nation, allowing for wolves to enter into the camp in the form of attractive idol worshiping Midianite women.

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Minutes before the Jewish people were to enter the promised land, twenty-four thousand lost their lives. He knew how each and every Jewish neshama (soul and spirit) is so dear to Hashem and felt sorrowful that this had happened on his watch.

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The Rebby goes on to explain that the “intermarriage sin” was the worst sin, since the children born into these relationships were no longer considered Jewish.

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As we know, the burial spot of Moshe Rabbenu is not known to mankind. Chassidus explains that the reason is that every time a Jewish person learns Toras Moshe, he is bringing a piece of Moshe Rabbenu into his life. So Moshe Rabbenu is buried in each and of every one of us.

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For over three-thousand years, our ancestors suffered through the worst hardships of this bitter exile, yet somehow found a way to endure and carry on with the unyielding persistence of the Jewish people, yet now the chain was forever broken, minutes before the final redemption.

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We must not serve G-d in a lifestyle perceived to others as burdensome.

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We must live our Yidishkite (Jewish life) with pride and joy. Learn Torah as a GPS blueprint for how to live our lives as well as benefit from its intellectual offerings. Fill our hearts with overflowing love and positive, optimistic energy. Perform acts of kindness that attract our brothers and sisters, instead of distancing themselves from us.

We must not be like the Mount Everest climbers who traveled with Green Boots, and only concerned themselves with winning and their own success. We have a responsibility to be constantly on the lookout for how we can lift up the struggling Jew and make sure that he gets whatever assistance we can offer, to reach his or her unique potential.

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Have a wonderful Shabbos.

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Yitzchok Friedman?