Much goes through my mind on a weekly basis, from writing one paper to the next. At times I scramble my mind to see what topics or lessons I learnt over the week and which ones I’d like to cover, and at times the Parshah speaks out to me. As we see in Rashi 26:54 this week, the raffle was drawn for each tribe as they divided the land; the ticket itself screamed out, “Shevet this to this plot!” Sometimes the words just scream out to me and tell me to speak of them.

First let’s discuss the overall pattern in this week’s Parshah. The concept of love for Eretz Yisrael. Pinchas, the aforementioned raffle, daughters of Tzelafkhad asking for a plot, and Yehoshua Bin Nun becoming leader.

Pinchas was born to Elazar ben Aharon, his mother was the daughter of Yitro as the Gemara in Sanhedrin 82b is mentioned in the first Rashi in the Parshah (25:11), “Because the Shevatim shamed him [by saying], have you seen the son of this animal stuffer, whose mother’s father stuffed calves for idols, killed a Nasi of a Shevet of Israel?” When did Elazar marry Yitro’s daughter?

When we look into Parshat Yitro we can find it hidden between words. But first we must go back all the way to Shemot (2:20) as Moshe saved the daughters of Yitro from the shepherds at the well, “And why have you left the man, call him so he will eat bread?” Rashi points out that ‘eating bread’ is a euphemism for marriage, as we see Potiphar called his wife ‘his bread.’ Now let’s go forward to Parshat Yitro, as he arrives at the camp it says (Shemot 18:12), “…and Aharon and all the elders of Israel came to ‘eat bread’ with the father in law of Moshe before Hashem.” It seems like it was at this point that Elazar got married, as proof, we see that only Aharon was present at........

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