SAN DIEGO — This week’s Torah Parasha, Pinchas, is all about family. We’ll start with a quick history lesson. In the first book of the Torah, we’re introduced to the families of several important people: 1) Abraham and his wife, Sarah, 2) their son, Isaac, who marries Rebecca, and 3) Isaac’s son Jacob. Jacob marries two women, which was okay back then, and winds up with twelve sons (and a daughter). It is the families of those twelve sons who appear, many years later, in this week’s reading. God is about to divide up the land among these different families. Moses is told to make a list of the different members of each family. This is such an important idea, that this entire parasha is mainly a listing of those names.
We can see how important family is in the Torah. Tracing back those ties helped decide how to divide the land. You can trace back your family, too. Work together to draw this funny tree. Fill in the names of your parents and siblings, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Don’t forget to add yourself.
*
Marcia Berneger is a retired elementary school teacher as well as a teacher at Torah school. She is the author of such children’s books as Buster the Little Garbage Truck, and A Dreidel in Time.