Pinchas 2008

Parshas Pinchas/xjbhp xjbhp ,arp (41st Parsha of 54 sections of the Torah) By Rabbi Avraham David, great grandson of the Strettyner Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Langner Numerical Interpretation of Torah with aid of Gematria. Bible Code. Questions/Comments 908-907-0953. online at www.codeoftheheart.com ©2008 Dvar Torah 5768 “Study Gematria and Sharpen Your Mind” The Power of Prayer In this week’s Parsha, we learn that God gave Pinchas the covenant of peace for avenging God’s wrath of the sin of Zimri with Cozbi. On the surface level, it was like a daring act. Pinchas lances Zimri and Cozbi without any resistance. But it was not really the physical force that made him successful but it was the power of his prayer to God. As we note in our prayers, God fights our wars (see Exodus 15:3 ). We have to go back to Exodus to see where Pinchas aquired his special connection to God through prayer. The Torah says, ojbhp ,t uk sk,u vatk uk kthyup ,ubcn uk jek irvt ic rzgktu ….. “Eliezer the son of Ahraon took one of the daughters of Putiel as a wife for himself and she bore him Pinchas”(Exodus 6:25) The first letters spell the word palul, which means to pray. We find this word in the Sifrei Devarim Piska 26 where it says the following: v kt kkp,tu uf y ohrcs oa rntba kukp ,treb, it is called Palul, as it says in Deuteronomy Chapter 9, Sentence 26, “And I prayed to God.” In fact, King David mentioned about Pinchas’s power of prayer when he said the following at Psalms 106:30, vpdn rmg,u kkphu xjbhp snghu,“Pinchas stood up and executed justice(prayed as translated by Targum) and the plague stopped”. Moreover, with this power of prayer we see the link between Pinchas and Eliyahu. According to the Baal Haturim, Eliyahu is a reincarnation of Pinchas. Our sages have connected the two based on the terminology of kenaoui (zealot) in our Parsha and the term kenaoui in the Haftorah in which we read that Eliyahu was also jealous for the sake of God. With the aid of the codes, we see that Eilyahu is also connected through the aid of prayer. Remember, it was Eliyahu’s prayers to God that brought God’s fires to earth that licked the water and burnt the sacrifices on Mount carmel in the vicinity of Haifa approximately 3000 years ago. This event proved to the idol worshippers of Baal that they were a fraud and that Eliyahu represented the truth as God answered his prayers. We see an allusion to Eliyahu’s connection to prayer with the aid of the atbash code. The reverse gematria of uvhkt , Eliyahu is 630. Another phrase with the same Gematria can be found in just last week’s Parsha where the Torah says , ‘v kt kkp,v lcu (against you) ,Pray to God…(Numbers 21:7). This teaches us that Eliyahu and Pinchas were connected by their unique abilities to pray to God. Let’s analyze the meaning of prayer. The word for prayer is vkp, Tefilah. The center letters of this word is kp pei- lamed, which stands for vp peh, the mouth and ck leib, the heart. This teaches us that prayer is a service of the mouth and heart (mind-according to Rabbi Avigdor Miller). Moreover, if we reverse (atbash code) peh –lamed, we have uf caf- vav which is the Gematria of 26. which stands for God’s name in mercy. Hence when we pray we generate God’s mercy on us.

We need as much mercy as possible as Israel is now threatened by Hamas in Gaza and by Syria to the north, who are two proxies of Iran, an arch enemy of Israel. We must remember that when we first fought Amalek back in the book of Exodus we were winning when Moses lifted his hands to heaven (see Exodus 17:11). In this weeks Parsha the letter u vav by the term ouka shalom is cut short. Commentators have many interpretations. Based on today’s events, we see that it is cut short since Israel at war with its hostile neighbors. If history is a guide, we should set our hearts and mouths in prayer to God so that our enemies will be cut short and disappear off the face of the earth just like we do not hear of Midian, Moav, Amon , Emori and all of our enemies of the past 3000 years. I am not calling for anyone’s destruction but a war against Israel is a war against God. I respect all human beings as we are all made in the image of God. However, when someone is bent on your destruction, you must take on the enemy or face destruction. Israel will prevail since we are the treasured nation (see Exodus 19:5). God will never abandon us. The history of the world is our testimony. We must raise our hands to heaven and pray with a sincere heart (as noted by King David) and God will surely answer our prayers, like He did to Pinchas and Eliyahu and may these events lead to the coming of our Messiah .

A refuah shlaimah to my father, who is recovering from stroke at Vanderbilt Nursing Home, SI, NY SShabbat Shalom ouka ,ca