Pinchas
The Gaon Chafetz Chayim brings a very important lesson that comes out from Parashat Pinchas. There is census in this week’s Parasha, where after the plague of 24,000 people died in last week’s Parasha, Bore Olam recounts the people of Israel to see how many people are left over. It’s a sign of love, like a shepherd after his flock gets attacked. So now, Bore Olam is taking inventory to see exactly how many people there are left. And in this census we see something very strange. We see that there were two families, two tribes that were counted whose numbers were very much askew. First was the tribe of Binyamin, whose final numbers were counted at 45,600. And second was the tribe of Dan, who was the second biggest tribe only after the tribe of Yehuda, whose final number was at 64,400. What was so strange about this and what does this come to teach us?
The Chafetz Chayim says that the count of these 2 families were strange because Binyamin had 10 children, and Dan only had 1 child. So would you have estimated that the tribe of Dan would have so many more descendants than the tribe of Binyamin? Furthermore, would you have estimated that Dan’s family would have grown at all given the fact that his one son was deaf. His only son, whose name was Chushin, had the handicap of being deaf. He was a special child.
Rav Pam asked what must have gone through Dan’s mind when he took his deaf son to the house of Yaakov Aveenu, whereas his brothers walked in with 10 sons, and 6 sons, and 5 sons, etc. Dan must have been thinking what would the future would bring, or in his case what the future would not bring, since he had only one son, and that son was deaf. It’s true that Chushin Ben Dan was famous for one episode for he was the one who killed Esav, but after that we don’t hear too much about him.
So the Chafetz Chayim comes and points out the results from the census. From the one deaf son of Dan came 64,400 descendants, but from the 10 children of Binyamin only came 45,600 descendants. So you see from this, that you can not play G-d and predict outcomes. You never know what is going to be. You can never calculate or estimate that something is a bad situation or a good situation. Bore Olam is in control.
It’s just like in the story of Chanukah, where we see that the few were able to beat the many which was against all odds. When it comes to Bore Olam there are no statistics. This breaks all the rules of the statisticians and the actuaries. It’s a great lesson in Bitachon (true belief), that those who trust in G-d, know that G-d breaks all the rules.
There is a story of a Rabbi by the name of Rabbi Zalman Meltzer. Before he got married, he was diagnosed with a bad disease, and he was told that would not live long. It was then relayed to his wife to be before they got married. So they went to the Chafetz Chayim who said, ‘that not everybody who is sick dies young, and not everybody who is healthy lives long’. Rav Zalman lived long into his eighties. So you can see from this story, that G-d is in control, and the laws of nature do not prevail.
This is a great lesson to people who have special children. This lesson teaches that great descendants can come from special children. And this should give them Chizuk and encouragements, that there is great hope and aspiration, that good can even come from one single special Jew.
