Category: Current Events
Pinchas – A TIME TO FIX – July 2025 – Leah’s Blog
We are in the three weeks now- a time I far from relish. Our car broke down on a teeming Jerusalem highway without any forewarning and now our oven door just fell off the hinges to the ground. Rachel told me the heavy lumber they just bought fell off their truck into the road, logs rolling in all directions. Make no mistake – this is all typical for this time of year- for these three weeks. Now, you know I’m not a downer but sharp, hard memories of the expulsion from Gush Katif and the northern Shomron, a self imposed exile happened in this time frame making me recollect, forcing me to feel broken. You can’t avoid the vibe. In an act that empowered beasts, twisted reality, made swaths of land and settlements alongside them void of security, forfeiting rule, and castrating the strong Jewish presence that made sand into thriving life- nothing after this atrocity grew from it but terror tunnels and destruction. This dispossession was not the Romans who banished us, but our own leaders who ordered it – the recipe for disaster, which fast forward led to the fatal carnage of October 7 2023. Like King Saul who let Agag live, Amalek took the lead.
These three weeks are the saddest time of the year, a time full of tribulation. Put aside Gush Katif for a later blog, four beautiful communities in northern Samaria were destroyed- they overlook the Israel electric company in Hadera. A simple anti-tank missile and we’ll all be sitting in the dark. How can my second grader grandson know more than Ariel Sharon? How could they have turned these places into closed military zones with NO-ONE living there? How could the beautiful fields of tobacco now be a garbage dumping ground? Where are the rows of almond trees? The flowing water has become a filthy trickle in the Tirtzah stream now. Yes, again it was a fall of dominion, of the kingdom and the enemy sensed weakness as the very foundations cracked beneath us. Here in the Middle East you cannot be vulnerable, even when you feel exhausted. The minute you retreat, it collapses.
The land we so willingly turned over is by no coincidence what we read about in this parsha- Pinchas, about the very inheritance of the daughters of Tzlofchad. If you stand on the high point of Har Kabir of the northern slopes of Elon Moreh, you can look down into the green beautiful territory of Tirtzah. Drawing a line west, all towns are named after the Tzlofchahd daughters. This is their inheritance. In the hot summer of 1910 archeologists found in the treasury of the palace of the Kings in ancient Samaria (Sebastia) Samarian ostraca- pot shards with dozens of inscriptions written in ink. These were actually shipping and tax records with dates that go way back to when ancient Israel lived on these lands. The products that were transported were jugs of fine oil, jars of wine, balm etc. The territories mentioned on these ostraca are specifically named after major households from the tribe of Menasseh – their legacy- northern Samaria. Some of the names: Shechem, Hoglah, Noa, Tirtzah… about the many districts of northern Samaria after the Tzlofchad sisters. The Mishnah, Tosefta, and Yerushalmi all written in a later period speak about a place- Bedan- the stream of Tirtzah- a place famous for its fertile soil, with running streams from the springs of Mount Gerizzim flowing east into the Jordan River, a place of high quality pomegranates and nut trees.
The Tzlofchad women are personal examples of Zeal for Zion, receiving fertile beautiful lands in the heart of Israel.
At a time that we learn about the trials, mistakes, chasms both in the earth and in the very fabric of life in forty years of wanderings, of the downfalls of Israel like we know in Zimri, a prince of the tribe of Shimone that falls, towards the end of the desert journey, we learn too about a wonderful family of women, the Tzlofchad women of influence and great courage and strength that couldn’t have come at a better time. We learn in this portion of the broken and the fixing. Something uplifting and remarkable- as the nation witnessed the zeal of these women marching to the future -to possess Eretz Yisrael, yearning for it, and laboring for it, this readied all the tribes for their time of entry into their respective tribal territories.
October 7 2023- through now (2025) has seen an incredible “fixing” of the crimes of the expulsion. The self- sacrifice demonstrated by the willingness of so many people, soldiers, recue workers, teachers, doctors, donors, and volunteers who want to remedy the pain and unjust mistake of the expulsion of the summer of 2005. Zealous for Zion, we all want to do the right thing. Israel has been viewed as an individualist, liberal, modern sushi eating western cultured country that was unraveling over political differences prior to the Nazi attack on the music festival and communities bordering Gaza on that fatal day of October 7. We have since risen above division into an exceptional collective people blended together –all different tribes of the same nation. This is for Israel’s survival and future. People of all views on politics poured into the Gaza belt for the klal (the collective), soldiers doing miluim for hundreds of consecutive days- all in a readiness that reminds us of the Tzlofchad daughters. It was not expected for women to conquer, settle and establish within the constraints of their time- We know their internal lives and relationships led to the awesome experience of settling the territory of Mennaseh on this side of the Jordan. Now too soldiers and civilians of polar opposite sides of the spectrum of society share a tank, rebuild a bombed out home and cross sectorial views are shared. We solace together- as we fix. The three weeks will pass and we will move into Elul and then the High holy days of celebration.
One thing that is clear and clarified – we must be a complete nation in a complete land.
From here we go uphill. Back up to the highest point on Mount Eval looking into Efrayim on Har Gerizzim- these parts and parcels all coming together now- Shabbat shalom and blessings to all of our dear friends xoxoxoxo Leah
PS for those who want to read my blog of Pinchas 2008- it’s worth the reading
Leah’s Blog – Parshat Balak – BIBI AND TRUMP- DECLARE SOVERIENGTY ! July 2025
We are coming near the end of the book of Bamidbar, soon also completing the forty years journey through the wilderness. What happens in the final chapters now before entering through the keyhole of Jericho are important lessons we repeat and repeat, year after year- every portion teaches something relevant- even to right now. NATIONS BEHOLD! WHEN YOU COME TO CURSE- YOU WILL BLESS! The cyclical events of the world- and they always come back to this core- to the center portal to heaven. The main ideas always fall back to Israel- you can love her or you can try to defy her- You can walk up the stairway to heaven from here, or fall into the lowest place on earth. The theme however follows a journey, an arduous walk to obtain the promise- a living Land.
In these portions, instead of walking an easier path, we had to walk around, a walk through the wilderness, facing dangers in unhospitable lands, frightening desolation. The barren terrain wanting water for thirst and sustenance had us crying out, vulnerable. Through the paved red cities of Petra and Sela in Edom in a forward march northward into Moav and Ammon- forced into the dessert plains of no human presence. Is anyone here? Will anyone sell us water please? Only the wasteland “the wilderness bordering on Moav to the east.”(21:11) The King of Moav refused. Walking along the edge of the border, they meet a river, the Arnon , flowing east to west into the Dead Sea. This is the scene. The lowest place on earth- and like the story of Sdome- there is bad karmah in the air with wicked intentions. When magicians are summoned from afar to come and curse as we stumble through the pass; the drama only continues. Time ticks. Never resting, millions of people make their way through the ravine and they are being watched. A man on a she donkey has been sent to curse them. Viewing them from every angle, the “dignitary” fights with his donkey – the two animals argue, the whole landscape hears it, words bouncing off of rocks and echoing into the camp. Hashem is watching all this time. Shadows form on the cliffs as the sun sets- Israel is saved.
Israel has wandered from afar. Bilaam has travelled from a far land through the trajectory, the winding road fails him. Israel is on a track to the route Abraham Isaac and Jacob walked and lived and had a covenant with G-d about.
Fast forward and all eyes n Israel. The Road Map Plan that was first outlined by President Bush called for an independent Palestinian state living side with Israel “in peace”- and halleluyah- a plan that was never implemented. PRESIDENT TRUMP_ THIS IS YOUR CALL- Let us now return to our holy cities in complete rule and ownership- flush out all of those who curse Israel! We have crossed this Jordan. From the river to the sea seems to be on the lips of most people- to bless? To curse? This wilderness has been plowed. The worn path- paved and now been widened for more and more of us to travel and live in this heartland. The land fills up now. The emptiness now is only one of a twisted ideology that if we give this precious land away it will bring peace to the Middle East. We say to those donkey riding dignitaries- the senselessness of this has reached the psyche of almost every recipient of a ballistic missile from beyond the Euphrates and from the ports of Yemen. The heartland of Israel has sprung to life.
Apply sovereignty now ! I PERSONALLY INVITE YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP TO MY HOME HERE IN ITAMAR!
HOW GOODLY ARE YOUR TENTS!
Shabbat Shalom dear friends xoxoxoxox Blessings, Leah
