Dvar Torah Parashat Pinchas: Longing for the Land of Israel
Parashat Pinchas contains one of the most moving expressions of love for the Land of Israel in the entire Torah.
It does not come from a prophet delivering an impassioned speech or from a leader rallying the nation. It comes from five sisters.
The daughters of a man named Tzelofchad - Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah and Tirtzah - step forward before Moshe, Elazar the priest, the princes and the entire assembly with a simple but powerful request.
Their father has died in the wilderness. He had no sons. And under the ordinary rules of inheritance, his portion in the Land would seemingly vanish from the family.
And so they ask: “Why should the name of our father be lost from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father’s brothers" (Numbers 27:4).
At first glance, this might appear to be a legal claim, a question of inheritance law and family rights.
But it is far more than that.
The daughters of Tzelofchad were not asking for wealth. They were not seeking comfort, privilege or status.
They were asking for a portion in Eretz Yisrael.
That is what makes their request so stirring. In a generation marked by repeated complaints, fears and failures, these five women looked toward the Land not with dread but with longing. They did not see it as a burden. They did not view it as a dangerous unknown. They saw it as the fulfillment of a Divine promise.
They wanted a share in the destiny of the Jewish people.
Their plea stands in sharp contrast to the tragedy of the spies. Just a short time earlier, the spies had returned from the Land with a report that filled the nation with fear. The people wept, recoiled and spoke of returning to Egypt.
That generation, with few exceptions, lost the privilege of entering the Land.
But the daughters of Tzelofchad were different. They had absorbed the opposite lesson. They did not ask to go back. They asked to go forward. They did not pine for Egypt. They longed for Israel.
And G-d Himself affirmed their claim: “The daughters of Tzelofchad speak correctly" (Numbers 27:7).
Those words are extraordinary.
The Almighty validates not only their legal argument, but also the spirit behind it. Their love for the Land, their refusal to be excluded from its inheritance and their yearning to bind their family’s name to its soil become part of the eternal Torah.
There is a profound lesson here.
Love of Eretz Yisrael is not merely a political position or a national sentiment. It is a spiritual instinct embedded deep within the Jewish soul. From the days of Avraham, who was commanded “Go forth" to the Land that G-d would show him, until our own time, the Jewish people have understood that the Land of Israel is not incidental to our destiny. It is the place where our covenant comes alive.
Israel is where our history took root, where our prophets spoke, where our kings reigned, where our Temples stood, and where our future redemption will unfold.
For nearly two thousand years of exile, Jews prayed toward Jerusalem, wept for Zion, mentioned the Land in their blessings, and ended the Passover Seder with the words, “Next year in Jerusalem." That longing was not nostalgia. It was fidelity.
It was the refusal of a people to forget from they came and where they truly belonged.
The daughters of Tzelofchad embodied that fidelity before the nation had even entered the Land. They understood something essential: To be part of Israel’s future, one must want a portion in Israel’s land.
Their request was therefore not merely personal. It was prophetic.
They spoke for every Jew who would one day dream of returning. For every exile who would whisper the name of Jerusalem with tears in his eyes. For every family that would cross deserts and seas to rebuild what others had tried to destroy. For every young soldier who would stand guard in Judea, Samaria, the Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem, knowing that he is defending not only a state, but a promise.
In our own day, when so many seek to weaken the Jewish people’s attachment to the Land, the daughters of Tzelofchad remind us of a simple and eternal truth: Eretz Yisrael is not a prize we stumbled upon nor a temporary refuge. It is our inheritance.
And that is their true legacy.
The daughters of Tzelofchad taught us that love of Eretz Yisrael is not measured merely by speeches or slogans. It is measured by longing, by faith and by the courage to say, even before we have arrived: this land is ours, this destiny is ours, and we will claim our place within it.
Dvar Haftorah Parshat Pinchas: A Prophet for Difficult Times
The Haftorah for Parshat Pinchas, when read during the period of the Three Weeks between the fast days of 17 Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, opens not with comfort but with calling.
Drawn from Jeremiah (1:1-2:3), it introduces one of the most reluctant and courageous prophets in Jewish history. Jeremiah does not seek influence or acclaim. On the contrary, when G-d summons him, he recoils.
“Ah, Lord G-d," Jeremiah says, “behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am but a youth" (Jeremiah 1:6). Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, 1040-1105), explains that Jeremiah is saying that he is not worthy to offer rebuke to the people of Israel.
It is a deeply human response. Faced with an overwhelming mission, Jeremiah sees only his inadequacy. He is young. He is inexperienced. How can he stand before a king, priests and an entire nation and deliver words they do not wish to hear?
But G-d’s answer is immediate: “Do not say, ‘I am but a youth,’ for wherever I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak" (Jeremiah 1:7).
In that exchange lies one of the great lessons of Jewish leadership. The question is not whether Jeremiah feels ready. The question is whether he is willing to be faithful.
This is an especially fitting message for the Three Weeks, when we mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile that followed. These days force us to look honestly at Jewish history. Nations do not collapse overnight. Spiritual decay precedes political ruin. Moral confusion weakens a people long before its walls are breached.
Jeremiah’s task was to say this aloud.
He was not sent to flatter the people or reassure them that all would be well. He was sent to awaken them, warn them and call them back to G-d before disaster struck.
And yet the Haftorah does not begin with anger. It begins with destiny.
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you," G-d tells Jeremiah. “Before you emerged from the womb, I sanctified you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5).
This is not merely a statement about Jeremiah. It is a statement about purpose. Every generation needs people who must speak when silence would be easier, stand when others retreat and remind the Jewish people who we are when we are tempted to forget.
The Haftorah then presents two visions. First, Jeremiah sees a branch of an almond tree. G-d explains that He is “watchful" about His word to fulfill it. The Hebrew word for almond, shaked, is linked to the word shoked, watchful. History is not random. G-d sees. G-d remembers.
The second vision is more ominous: a boiling pot tilted from the north, warning of the calamity that will come upon Judah because the people have forsaken G-d and bowed to the works of their own hands.
The message is uncomfortable, but it is necessary. Judaism does not believe in denial masquerading as optimism. It does not teach us to ignore danger, excuse wrongdoing or pretend that all paths lead to blessing. True faith requires moral clarity.
And then, after the warnings, comes one of the most tender verses in Tanach.
At the end of the Haftorah, G-d remembers the earliest love between Himself and Israel: “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, your bridal love, your following Me into the wilderness into an unsown land" (Jeremiah 2:2).
After the rebuke, after the visions of destruction, after the call to repentance, G-d speaks of love.
That is the essence of the Three Weeks. We mourn because we love. We grieve over Jerusalem because it is not a relic of the past but the beating heart of our people. We remember the Temple because its absence still matters.
Jeremiah teaches us that rebuke is not the opposite of love. Indifference is.
A prophet who warns Israel is not an enemy of Israel. He is a defender of its soul. He refuses to allow the Jewish people to drift into disaster without protest. He refuses to let them confuse survival with purpose or national existence with spiritual greatness.
That is why this Haftorah speaks so powerfully to our own time.
The Jewish people have returned to history with astonishing strength. Yet strength alone is not enough. Sovereignty must be matched by sanctity. Power must be guided by purpose. A Jewish state must remember that it is not merely another country with another flag, but the vessel of an ancient destiny.
The Three Weeks do not ask us to despair. They ask us to remember what we lost, why we lost it, and above all, that G-d has never stopped remembering us.
Even in rebuke, there is love. Even in exile, there is longing. And even in the darkest chapters of Jewish history, the Almighty continues to call His people back home.