Moses said to them, "... So build yourselves cities for your children and enclosures for your sheep, and what has proceeded from your mouth you shall do." (Bamidbar 32:20, 24)

 

So build yourselves cities for your children... and what has proceeded from your mouth you shall do. It seems to me that the words of someone who passionately seeks wealth, loving it more than his own self, should not be trusted. The urge for wealth will drive him to break his word. That's why the promises of the Gadites and Reubenites, who loved wealth so much that they mentioned their livestock before their children, could not be trusted. That was why our master Moses, z"l, said build yourselves cities for your children first, so that they would avoid that disgusting character flaw, as Rashi explained, it is not as you said [mentioning the livestock first], and if you become re-accustomed [to the proper priorities] your words will be trusted and you will do what you say.

(R. Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer: Ktav Sofer Bamidbar 32:24)

 

Practically speaking, the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh settled outside the Land, since the Land of Canaan, as it was known to the People Israel, lay in the west bank of the Jordan, while the east bank only happened to be captured by Israel because Sihon, King of the Amorites, and Og, King of the Bashan, refused to let Israel cross their borders. If they had allowed Israel to cross their borders, it was not at all Israel's intention to settle their land.

While historically speaking, part of the Land of Israel is located in the east bank of the Jordan, that area had originally been designated as outside of the Land. These tribes, heavy with livestock, chose to stay there separated from their brothers to settle outside the Land because of material interests and because it was a flourishing pastoral region.

(Y. Leibowitz: Sheva Shanim shel Sihot al Parashat haShavua, p. 743)

 

And they journeyed and they encamped

Shlomo Fox

Our blessing for the journey and the encampment

Upon the marriage of our oldest daughter, Reut

To Amotz of the Pinchover family

"One must journey" - wrote R. Nahman MiBratzlav regarding the obligation to journey.

"Someone asked him about traveling to a certain place, [asking] whether he should travel.

He replied to him: When a person sees a journey before him, he should not insist on avoiding it in order to stay at home. For wherever one travels to, he repairs something there, even if he is a completely ordinary person.

And he added: Therefore, a person is certainly determined by Heaven to be there, in that particular place, in order to repair something that has to be repaired exactly there.

Therefore it is a favor done him that an opportunity arose to travel to there, because otherwise he may have been forced to go there in iron chains.

And as the Sages said of our Father Jacob: "Jacob should have been brought down to Egypt in iron chains, but... etc." And all of this was said of a completely ordinary person.

By its very nature, a journey is a tikkun - an act of "repair" - and note: this is true of the journeys rather than the encampments. The various journeys the Israelites took on their way from Egypt to the Land of Israel should be understood as analogies to the way a person seeks his path through the various stages of life, each stage of life serving as a stepping stone for the next leg of the journey.

In his Torah commentary Or HaHayyim (Bamidbar 33:1), R. Hayyim ben Atar writes: These are the journeys, etc. Our Rabbis of blessed memory said: Everywhere the term these - eileh - is used it disqualifies the previously mentioned items [as not belonging to the category in question], but in the case before us we did not see any previously mentioned journeys that could disqualified by Scripture [as properly belonging to the list of journeys].

It would seem that it means to disqualify all the other journeys in the world, even if they were not mentioned, but it rather shows that the journeys were not a good thing, and it would be better that there were no [journeys] at all, since they were mostly torments suffered because of the sin of the spies...

Our Rabbis also said (Yalkut Shimoni 283):

Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all of its paths are peace - The Holy One, blessed be He wanted to give the Torah to Israel when they left Egypt, but they were divided against each other and kept on saying, Let us set up a leader and return to Egypt. Why is it written, and they journeyed from Sukkot and they encamped in Eitam? They would journey quarreling and they would encamp quarreling. When they arrived at Sinai they were all united as one unit; [that is why] it is not written vayahanu - and Israel encamped [third person plural], but rather vayihan - and Israel encamped [third person singular], that they had become a single unity. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: All of the Torah is peace, and to whom do I give it? To the nation that loves peace, that is, all of its paths are peace.

According to this midrash, the journeys through the wilderness were so precious that all other journeys are worthless.

The journeys mentioned in our parasha may be divided into two categories:

a) The journeys of the first year, before the punishment for the sin of the spies.

b) The journeys that they had to undertake as punishment for the sin of the spies.

Only two years of the Israelites' journeying was intended by God. The unplanned journeys were worse than those mentioned after them. That is why Scripture uses the term these to disqualify the former, and that is the point of the phrase, these are the journeys.

In other words, the journeys listed after the phrase these are the journeys were worthwhile and needed, while all others were mere torments, moving them around the wilderness as a rebuke to the sin of the spies.

Worthless and unnecessary journeys must be differentiated from journeys which teach unity and important goals. This differentiation can only take place when we can compare the various journeys; that is why we must describe all of the journeys.

The Gerer Rebbe writes (Sefat Emet 5633 on Bamidbar 33:2): Moses recorded their starting points for their journeys according to the word of the Lord, and these were their journeys with their starting points. The order of words [starting point and journeys] in the beginning of the verse is reversed in the end of the verse. Scripture relates all of the journeys to the Exodus from Egypt, and it seems that the Exodus had been completed when all the journeys were over. Each journey brought them farther away from Egypt until they arrived at the Land of Israel. When someone abstains from corporeality in order to cleave to the Blessed Lord, he must want to be pure of heart. It must not spring from disgust with corporeality. That is why the Holy One, blessed be He made corporeality attractive - it was in order that people act only for the sake of Heaven. That is the meaning of their starting points for their journeys. Afterwards, the more someone journeys and approaches the Blessed Lord, [the more] the exit of separation from corporeality is completed, and each helps the other, as was explained above."

Contemplation of the journey makes us look backwards towards our starting point both to see how much distance we have traveled away from it and in order to check whether we remember it. The search requires us to both move away from the starting point and to maintain a connection with it.

The passage relating the journeys ends with a command - and you shall drive out... and you shall dwell. There is a disagreement over whether only driving out the inhabitants is commanded (Rashi) or whether dwelling is also commanded (RaMBaN).

Another interesting statement appears here: And if you do not drive out... That is to say: if you do not fulfill the command. One might ask: why shouldn't they fulfill the command and wouldn't they be punished if they didn't?

Scripture promises that if you do not execute the command you will find yourselves with a problem - the challenge of a mixed population, and it will be... and they shall harass. The verb vetzareru - "and they shall harass" - reminds us of what the Midianites did to the Israelites on the steppes of Moab. Living with others raises fears of what the Midianites had done.

And you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their temples, destroy their molten idols, and demolish their high places. You shall clear out the Land and settle in it, for I have given you the Land to occupy it. You shall give the Land as an inheritance to your families by lot; to the large, you shall give a larger inheritance and to the small you shall give a smaller inheritance; wherever the lot falls shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers, you shall inherit. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, then those whom you leave over will be as spikes in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land in which you settle. And it will be that what I had intended to do to them, I will do to you. (Bamidbar 33:52-56)

R. Hayyim ben Atar (Or HaHayyim 33:55) asks a question and then answers it himself. According to the Gemara (Meggilah 10b) "Everywhere that it says vehaya - "and it will be" - it is an expression of joy" - if so, what joy is there in the final verse quoted above? The author of Or HaHayyim explains: "Here it means to say that even if they [the Israelites] keep them [the Canaanites] around willingly and joyfully to fulfill their own needs that they will be like spikes... " That is to say: we must understand that the joy is temporary and in service of the Israelites, but we must understand its cost. He continues to explain: and they will harass you in the land, etc. - The explanation is that not only will they hold the part of the land that you did not win, but they will also be found in that part that you did win and dwell in, and they will harass you regarding the part in which you dwell, saying "Get up and leave it... " That is to say: the failure to clear out the land and the situation of dwelling amongst the Land's earlier inhabitants will eventually undermine our right to the Land!

The Gerer Rebbe (Sefat Emet 5646) quotes R. Hayyim Ben Atar and gives his words another interpretation: "And in the book Or HaHayyim he asked about vehaya being an expression of Joy. It seems to me that since they entered with that intention, even though some of them [the Canaanites] were left, they did not attach themselves to them, and the punishment was that they harassed us until we were exiled and will return in the future. But they did not attach themselves to them. For the whole reason why the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded not leave any of them around was so that they [the Israelites] would not learn from their actions - God forbid. And since they began fulfilling the command properly, even if they left some and they were spikes, etc., they still did not imitate them, and that was the cause of the aforesaid joy."

The Gerer Rebbe thinks that the Land was conquered in order to drive out its inhabitants, even though the expulsion was not completely carried out we were stilled blessed with not attaching ourselves to them and that is the cause of the joy.

There is a Divine guarantee against our assimilating among the Land's inhabitants - and we should rejoice in that.

But if you do not drive out...and they shall harass... . The verb vetzareru - and they shall harass - takes us back to the story of the revenge against the Midianites, about whom it is said:

Harass the Midianites, and you shall smite them. For they harassed you with their plots which they contrived against you in the incident of Peor and in the incident of Cozbi their sister, the daughter of the Midianite chieftain, who was slain on the day of the plague [that had come] because of Peor. (Bamidbar 25:17-18)

The Midiantes harassed us, and that calls for revenge, a revenge which is woven together with Moses' death. Even so, Moses gives the command and they immediately set out to wage the war of vengeance. Moses appoints Pinchas - "One who begins to perform a commandment, tell him to complete it" - that same Pinchas who knew what to do in the hour of his trial was also needed to complete the revenge.

Moses changes the divine command and emphasizes that it is not his own personal revenge, nor that of the people but rather God's revenge:

Take revenge for the children of Israel against the Midianites; afterwards you will be gathered to your people." So Moses spoke to the people, saying, "Arm from among you men for the army, that they can be against Midian, and carry out the revenge of the Lord against Midian. (Bamidbar 31:2-3)

The account of how the revenge was executed shows that Moses was misunderstood. Moses is angered at them and orders the killing of women and children!

Pinchas the zealot and his army took mercy on the daughters of Midian, but why? Did they feel the command was too harsh?

Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had returned from the campaign of war. Moses said to them, "Did you allow all the females to live? They were the same ones who were involved with the children of Israel on Balaam's advice to betray the Lord over the incident of Peor, resulting in a plague among the congregation of the Lord. So now kill every male child, and every woman who can lie intimately with a man you shall kill. And all the young girls who have no experience of intimate relations with a man, you may keep alive for yourselves. (Bamidbar 31:14-18)

R. Hayyim ben Atar explains:

Pinchas and the soldiers did in fact consider the matter and excused them [the women], arguing that women are under their husbands' and fathers' control, and thus they were coerced.

And Moses our Master, may peace be upon him, sensed that they kept the women alive for that reason, but he countered that if their acts of harlotry had been committed at their superiors' request they could be judged leniently, however, they performed another deed which their superiors had not commanded them to perform - that was the act of Peor, as our Rabbi said (Bamidbar Rabbah 20:23) that they [the women] would take out an image of Peor and told them [the Israelite men] to prostrate themselves before it and that then they would obey them. This shows that they instigated the stumbling block of idolatry. That is why he [Moses] said they were the same ones, meaning that they did Balaam's bidding of their own will and caused the Israelites [to sin], that they used Balaam's suggestion that their daughters do harlotry as a means [to get the Israelites to practice idolatry].

And you will find that the Sages do not say Balaam spoke of anything but harlotry, as they said, "Their God hates lust, etc." And they were the cause of God's being betrayed in the matter of Peor, that they did not want to listen to them unless they prostrated themselves before Peor, and their was a plague among the congregation of the Lord, that is, because of the idolatry and not because of the harlotry. And who caused the idolatry? The same ones. And he said, So now [kill every male child, and every woman who can lie intimately with a man], meaning, let them admit the mistake and kill every, etc.

According to R. Hayyim ben Atar, Pinchas and his army came to the conclusion that the women should not be blamed, while Moses explained that they had in fact sinned. True, their husbands and leaders had commanded them to act, but they did not merely carry out their orders. They decided by their own volition to make harlotry conditional upon idolatry, thus causing the Israelites to sin and making themselves liable to punishment.

To sum up: inquiry into the journeys and encampments requires an inner journey, a journey of tikkun. The journey leaves Egypt - Mitzrayim , leaves the straights - hametzarim. That's why this parasha is read during the "three weeks" - bein hametzarim.

The journey is entirely aimed towards the "encampment", towards settlement in the Land of Israel. During the course of the journey, the people are supposed to move from quarreling to unity.

During the journey, the people is tested with temptations; they must determine whether they alone are responsible for being seduced, or whether the seducers must also share the blame.

Contemplation is even more necessary in the state of encampment, when the people are settled in the Land of Israel. Absolute banishment of the Canaanites will guarantee separatism and spare the need for clarification, but it seems that Scripture determines that the Land will not be cleared out and that its earlier inhabitants will remain there in order to question our right to it and to force us to think about our relations with them, and especially to be critical of our behavior towards the Land's earlier inhabitants. Such investigation will generate "joy" and thus the words of the Prophet Zachariah will be fulfilled, that the days of fasting will become days of happiness and joy when they shall love peace and truth!

Shlomo Fox teaches at Hebrew Union College, Beit Shemuel, and Kolot.

 

 

 

 

 

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