The Torah/Pinchas

Questions
Here are a few of the questions that the Rabbis raised about this Torah reading:


 * Why does the Torah detail Pinchas’s ancestry (in Numbers 25:11)?


 * What special circumstances justified Pinchas’s taking justice into his own hands?


 * Why another census?


 * Why did the tribe of Simeon lose so many people between the two censuses?


 * What happened to Korah’s children (referred to in Numbers 26:11)?


 * Who was Serah bat Asher (referred to in Numbers 26:46)?


 * Why (as Numbers 26:62 reports) didn’t the Levites get an inheritance of land?


 * What was it about the case of Zelophehad’s daughters that puzzled Moses?


 * Who was Zelophehad?


 * Why does the designation of Joshua follow the incident of the daughters of Zelophehad?


 * What was it about Joshua that qualified him to succeed Moses?


 * On which Festival did the priests sacrifice the most animals?


 * Why does the Torah (in Numbers 29:12–34) require the Israelites to sacrifice 70 bulls on Sukkot and one bull on Shemini Atzeret?


 * Why did the number of sacrifices on Sukkot decrease every day?