Ayelet Pearl is a rabbinic student at the Academy for Jewish Religion and a Master’s candidate at City College of New York. She completed her undergraduate degree at Barnard College, after which she worked at a private New York art gallery for three years. She currently serves as director of MASKIT, the youth education program at Astoria Center of Israel, and brings her background in the arts to curriculum development and programming. She has a certificate in curating from University of the Arts London, studied as an apprentice under Sofer Neil Yerman, and is a member of the Jewish Art Salon. She has also written for the visual arts section of the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, and has curated and been featured in multiple exhibitions in the New York area. She is especially interested in exploring how language around decolonization can help better understand and apply Jewish culture and practice in modern times, especially in museum and art spaces.
This week’s Torah Portion – Parashat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-30:1) – begins with Pinchas being rewarded for his problematic act of killing the Israelite and his Midianite paramour in the previous portion. A census is then conducted and God tells Moses how to divide the land between the tribes and people of Israel. The five daughters of Tzelafchad ask Moses to grant them the land of their father, who died with no sons, and God accepts their claim and adds it to the Torah’s laws of inheritance. Moses names Joshua as his successor, and the Parasha ends with a detailed list of daily offerings and of offerings brought on different holidays.
Previous Talks on Pinchas
Rabbi Laurie Rice and Rabbi Philip Rice
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