Parshat Matot

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" [yatza lamilhama], 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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