AND MOSES SAID TO THE CHILDREN OF GAD AND TO THE CHILDREN OF

REUVEN: "SHALL YOUR BROTHERS COME TO WAR WHILE YOU SIT

HERE?"

(Bamidbar 32:6)

Shall your

brothers come to war

Usually Scripture uses the expression "went out to war"

while the expression "came to war" [ba

lamilhama] is unusual. Moses uses the latter when

addressing the children of Gad and the children of Reuven:

Shall your brothers come to war. He who goes out to war sets

forth to battle promptly and willingly. He takes joy in combat, going out to

fight beyond his country's borders. In contrast, one who comes to war or

especially one who comes towards war [ba

milhama] (Bamidbar 10:9) takes the dangers of combat

upon himself only after finding himself entangled in war.

The war came without provocation on his part, and he is forced to endanger

himself. That is why Moses asks: Shall your brothers come to war? while in contrast, you sit here. Your brothers want

to reach rest and claim their estates just as you do. However, war is

necessary, it has come to us, and your brothers must enter the fight – and you

would shrug off that duty?

(Rabbi S.R.

Hirsch on Bamidbar 10:9)

The Present Shapes the Memory of the Past

Menachem Klein

The content of our parasha

contrasts with the season in which we read it. While parashat

Matot tells of the Israelites' great victories over

the five kings of Midyan, of the distribution of the

spoils won in that war and of the territories conquered in earlier victories

against Sihon, King of the Amorites and against Og, King of Bashan, it is read in

the days of bein ha'metzarim,

which mark the destruction of both Temples, the loss of national autonomy, the

conquest of the Land by world empires, and our exile to the diaspora.

The days of bein ha'mitzarim

control our minds, hiding the warriors of the parasha and their victories from

our eyes. The fasts and customs of mourning practiced in this season help us

remember catastrophes. They also cause us to forget parts of the parasha that

are more relevant in our day than they were for previous generations.

This contrast shows us that

memory is not objective; rather, it is dependent upon our situation and the

forces at play behind our situation. Memory is really an act of selection in

which we choose what to remember and, simultaneously, what to forget. The act

of remembering and forgetting does not only take place at the level of the

individual; it also shapes peoples and communities which create collective and

national memories for themselves. The Jewish People is

a community of memory. The Jewish calendar, great sections of the liturgy,

rituals personal and public, as well as many of the actual commandments are

geared towards the construction of memory. The construction of Jewish memory

continues throughout the course of everyday life even while factors wholly foreign

to the object of memory actually control reality. For example: We remember

divine providence and the presence of God in a world that proceeds by its own

laws, and we remember the Exodus from Egypt thousands of years after it

actually occurred.

The construction of memory is

accomplished via formative and activating agents (tzitzit

on our garments, tefilin on our heads, the

prohibitions that shape Sabbath-observance, the customs of the Pessah Seder, dwelling in the sukkah, reading the Shema, reading Meggilat Ester) and by the construction of

positive heroes and evil villains: Haman vs. the

goodly Harvona.

The way in which we remember an

event does not accurately reconstruct the past. Rather, it is an activity of

selection, of reshaping an event that has already ended. Since memory must

contend with the present and react to it, the event, as it lives on in memory,

bears a different character than it had in reality. The present shapes the past, it challenges and influences the past. In our parasha,

Moses lifts recollections out of the tangled past, he brings up memories of the

national trauma that had afflicted the people forty years earlier. He reminds

them of the story of the spies. Moses paints the event in strong colors. The

spies had seen the Land of Israel and decided to convince the people not to

enter it. Only Kalev ben Yefuneh and Yehoshua ben Nun remained outside of the

conspiracy. According to this version, the people remained passive and the two

great heroes of the story were the two spies who refused to join the

conspiracy. Moses says that the children of Gad and Reuven

are repeating the sin of the spies. Even though the Gadites

and Reuvenites had not spoken a word against the Land

of Israel, Moses claims that they are acting like the spies, trying to convince

the people not to enter the Land. In contrast to the case of the spies, no one

here voices the slightest doubt regarding the virtues of the

Land of Israel nor regarding the divine aid which the people will enjoy

while capturing it. Moses accuses them of lowering the warriors' motivation by

wanting to settle territory that had already been conquered. In the story of

the spies, crippled motivation had been a by-product of the way the Land had

been described, of how its inhabitants were described, and of the lack of faith

that God would help the Israelites achieve victory. In addition, the spies'

complaints resulted in the Israelites being overcome by excessive motivation;

they tried to go to war by their own volition and without God's protective

presence. They suffered defeat in battle. They did not lack motivation. Now

Moses changes the by-product into the principle issue. And more: In our parasha

Moses takes upon himself the role that Yehoshua and Kalev

had played earlier. He stands alone against a group in order to uncover the

plot. In response, the children of Gad and Reuven take

upon themselves the role of the military vanguard, i.e., the role played by

Yehoshua and Kalev when they dared to disagree with

their ten colleagues. The nature of the Land of Israel is not the central issue

here, but rather the ability to disagree with the majority; individual courage

and self-denial for the sake of the collective goal. Moses achieves this by

recalling the case of the spies.

In the parasha

of Devarim, which, according to tradition, was spoken by Moses near his death

on the eve of the entry into the Land of Israel – long after the deliberations

with the children of Gad and Reuven – the episode of

the spies is described differently. According to parashat

Devarim, the spies returned from their mission with the report that the land

which the Lord our God gives us is good, but the Israelites refused to

listen to them and enter it. They were still afraid of the bitter battles that

lay ahead and feared that many would fall in combat. However, the main sin

described in Devarim is the conspiracy theory that took hold among the people. The

theory claimed that God had taken them out of Egypt only in order to have them

killed off by the inhabitants of Canaan. The Israelite people

replaces the spies as the principle agent of the story. Moses stood on

one side, describing how God had miraculously saved them and fought for them,

while on the other side the people claimed that all of those miracles and

battles were just part of a scheme to set up their future downfall in Canaan. The

main issue becomes whether or not God would fight for the Israelites in Canaan

as He did in Egypt, whether or not he would clear the way for them into Canaan

as he did in the wilderness. All eyes were focused upon the future battles

awaiting the Israelites in Canaan.

Parashat Shalah

offers yet another, more complicated, version of the events. There we hear of

the argument that broke out between Kalev and

Yehoshua and the other spies after the latter had made their report to the

people. Scripture is not explicit on this point, but one may assume that this

was not the first round of the debate – it probably began while they were still

scouting out the Land. When the spies returned, they first reported to the one

who had sent them – Moses. Then. it

seems, their internal debate continued. Since the spies were themselves

respected representatives of their respective tribes, it was also expected that

they would report to the tribal leaderships and to the people in general. It

was then that the internal dispute broke out to the public sphere. The bitter public

controversy began as a debate over the limits of Israelite military power and

the chances for victory over the Land's inhabitants. From there it developed

into a debate over the nature of the Land of Israel; whether it was a good

land, or one that consumes its inhabitants. Only after that stage did the

people develop the conspiracy theory which parashat Devarim places at the

center of events.

The final section of parashat

Devarim can also teach us how powerfully the present shapes memory and constructs

it. There we find Moses ignoring the debate he had held not long before with

the children of Gad and Reuven. Now Moses presents

the settlement of the Jordan's East Bank by Gad and Reuven

as having been decided upon by God and himself. He leaves his bitter

disagreement with them, as well as the spies' evil precedent, entirely out of

the story. The argument with Gad and Reuven had been

settled and accurate recollection of the past became pointless.

During the period of bein ha'metzarim in

general and on the 9^th of Av in particular, we are enjoined to

recall the past.

There are days on which all of

Israel fasts, because of the calamities that occurred on them in order to

awaken the hearts to open the ways of repentance, to make it a remembrance of

our evil deeds of the past, and of our forefathers' similar deeds, which

brought the calamities upon them and upon ourselves. (RaMBaM Hilkhot Ta'aniyot 5)

This applies mostly to the 9^th

of Av, on which, according to Jewish tradition, five events occurred: the punishment

for the sin of the spies was decreed, the first and second Temples were

destroyed, independence was lost with the fall of Beitar

and the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, (in the

course of which, "all of Israel and the great wise man that that he was

King Messiah, yet he fell by the hands of the Romans" (ibid)), and the

Temple Mount was plowed. These days invite simplistic historical analogies and

the wholesale identification of present with past events. The Torah's various

versions of the story of the spies teach us that even the remembrance of this

essential element of the 9^th of Av involves a process informed by

the present, and significance is lent to it by the present. The call to

remember an event not only requires a contemplation of history. It also

requires that we be aware of the changing present and allow it to shape our

view of the past, lending it varied meanings.

Dr. Menachem

Klein is a member of the editorial board of Shabbat Shalom, and teaches in the

department of political science of Bar Ilan

University.

And Moses spoke

to the leaders of the tribes

There is no doubt that all of the commandments including all

of their principles and details were spoken to Moses to Sinai. However, Moses

did not teach them immediately, but rather at the appropriate times and places.

There was no reason for him to teach anyone the laws of the annulment of vows

while he was still alive because he, may peace be upon

him, served as the unique expert of his generation, annulling vows and oaths

whenever necessary. Now, however, his death was nearing, and he saw fit to

teach the leaders of the people the laws of the annulment of vows, for they

would replace him in this matter. That is why he only commanded the leaders of

the tribes; there was no reason to teach the laws of vows to all of the

Israelites. It may have even been necessary to hide these laws from them lest

they make oaths frivolously, but he did teach the law to the tribal leaders.

(R. Yitzhak Reggio, Bamidbar 30:2)

The vengeance of Children of

Israel – the Vengeance of God?

Seek vengeance, the vengeance of

the Children of Israel… We

have already noted in our commentary on Bereishit 4:15 the relationship of nakam (revenge) to koom

(stand)… vengeance reestablishes justice which was trampled by iniquitous

feet, or it lifts up the personality that was degraded to dust. The avenger

identifies with that which he desires to raise up. From this we can understand

the preposition mem – Avenge the Israelite

people from the Midianites. The goal is not to

subdue the

enemy and to give them their just deserts; had the Torah wished to say

that, it would have used the grammatical form for take vengeance against – (using the preposition bet). But the goal is to return and

raise

up Israel from

the Midianites, to liberate her spiritually and

morally and to free her from the fear of their craftiness.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch on Bamidbar 31:2)

The Children of

Gad and the Children of Reuven – the Connection Between Acquisitiveness and Isolationism

…two wealthy men arose in the

world, one from Israel and the other from the nations of the world; Korah from Israel and Haman from

the nations of the world. They both perished from the world. Why? Because they

did not receive riches from the Holy One blessed be He; rather, they would grab

it for themselves.

And so you find in the case of the children of Gad and the

children of Reuven that they were rich and had a lot

of cattle and they loved their possessions and settled outside of the Land of

Israel. That is why they were the first of the tribes to be exiled, for it is

said, he carried them away, namely, the Reubenites,

the Gadites, and half the tribe of Menashe (I Chronicles 5). What caused this to happen to

them? Because they separated themselves from their brothers

for the sake of their possessions. How do we know this? For it is

written in the Torah, the children of Reuven had

much cattle.

(Bamidbar Rabbah 22:7)

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