Parshat Pinhas
The Torah means many things to many people. Some Jews accept it as the literal words of God and instruction for daily living; some accept its moral precepts while taking its ritual commands as advisory; some see it as a ‘snapshot’ of Jewish history at a particular time, but which has become the starting point for everything that would follow. Many other meanings and approaches are also possible: the books of the Torah have taken on entirely different meanings to faiths outside of Judaism.
The Torah’s influence on human attitudes and beliefs is incalculable. Moreover, the Torah’s words have had a tremendous effect in the realm of human behaviors. We could point to many passages, but there is one verse in particular that deserves our attention this week in parshat Pinhas. It reads: “As a regular burnt offering every day, two yearling lambs without blemish; you shall offer one lamb in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight.” This seems innocent enough; the parshah contains a long list of the sacrifices that were offered in the mishkan (tabernacle) to God. But this single verse would end up affecting the behavior of every Jew who ever prayed the morning service (shakharit) or the afternoon service (minhah). Two dramatic changes in Jewish life in the first century elevated this verse above others in terms of its practical effects: Fixed prayer replaced sacrifice and prayer became normative for everyone.
The morning and afternoon prayer services replaced the shakharit and minhah sacrifices, first when the Temple was still standing and then continuing, after it fell, until our own time. There are Jews who pray three times a day, those who never pray, and every imaginable stage in between. What they all share is the knowledge of this verse, or at least the act that it would come to signify: Prayer to God at fixed times. You can feel good, bad or otherwise about that act, but its effect on uncountable lives is real and meaningful. No matter what kind of Jews we are or how we understand the origins of the practice, we recognize the centrality of Jewish prayer in Jewish history. And it all came to be on account of two lambs each day.
Shabbat Shalom,
