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+Redeeming Relevance; Numbers
+פדיון הרלוונטיות על במדבר
+merged
+https://www.sefaria.org/Redeeming_Relevance;_Numbers
+This file contains merged sections from the following text versions:
+-Redeeming Relevance -- Numbers 1
+-http://www.francisnataf.com/books.html
+
+Redeeming Relevance; Numbers
+
+Preface and Acknowledgments
+
+With the publication of this third volume in the Redeeming Relevance series, I now feel committed to completing the series on all five books of the Torah, something far from what I had intended when I first started writing the first volume. But the response that I have gotten from so many readers and their thirst for more have pushed me to dedicate myself to this challenge and see the project to its natural conclusion. Such a goal notwithstanding, I have chosen to continue out of order and to put out Bemidbar and Devarim before I return to Vayikra, considered by many to be the most challenging book of the five. This choice is not only a result of the difficulty of that book; in the process of writing I have found that each volume builds upon the other, such that I plan to use much of what I have written in the first four volumes to make the last volume on Vayikra a finale to and synthesis of them all.
+As we pass the midpoint in the Redeeming Relevance series, I would like to mention the many individuals who have helped me reach this milestone. The publication of Redeeming Relevance in the Book of Numbers has been made possible by friends who have also become donors, and donors who have also become good friends. Andrew Bloom, Morris and Julie Dweck, Ron and Toby Hersh, and Michael and Judy Kaiser provided the main support for this volume. Others who helped in its publication were Rick and Caryn Bentley-Vogel, David and Ilene Brookler, Ruth Levi and Bob Carroll, Michael and Sarah Hidary, and David and Sarah Sassoon. I am honored by the support of these dedicated individuals, and their friendship is a source of great joy. It is a blessing to have such upstanding and outstanding partners in my work.
+Although I am no longer formally associated with the David Cardozo Academy, I am indebted to the institute for the help given toward the publication of this book. In particular, its founder and dean, Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo, continues to encourage and help me in many aspects of my creative work. He and his staff members, Esther Peterman and Ayala Goldman, provided me with important administrative assistance on this project, for which I am very grateful.
+Tzvi Mauer and Urim Publications continue to provide a warm yet highly professional editorial home for the Redeeming Relevance series. I feel privileged to be involved with Urim, which has done the Jewish community an invaluable service by putting out so many important titles. May they continue to publish many more works of lasting value.
+Many friends and students helped me by tweaking an idea or suggesting additional sources and the like. They are too many involved for me to list, but I would be amiss not to cite the help of Eli Auslander, who reviewed much of the text and provided valuable input.
+As with the previous volumes, my most important partner in this book is my wife, Deena. Among her many talents is being an outstanding Judaica editor. She is a master of both content and form, and thus contributed immeasurably to the readability of my thoughts. As in everything else that we share, she has gone way beyond the call of duty in giving of her time and efforts.
+Most of all, I thank the Master of the Universe for all of the insights and inspiration that He has granted me. Many times when I have come up with a new interpretation, I stand in awe and wonder what I could possibly have done to deserve such a distinction. The one thing I can surmise is that I have shown willingness to really listen to the Divine voice in the text and to hear what it is saying to me. And the only way I can pay back this gift is to recommend to others to do the same and to share that which I have gained by doing so myself. What follows is the third volume in my effort to do just that.
+— FRANCIS NATAF
+Jerusalem
+Tevet 5774
+
+Introduction
+
+Old School, New School, One School, Two Schools
+By the time this volume will have come out, it will mark almost a decade since I began the Redeeming Relevance series. When I started, I bemoaned the decline of traditional Jewish Bible commentary in the twentieth century. I complained that what was being written was either too scholarly or too flighty. There were far too few works that showed the classical combination of sophistication and accessibility, and the proof of the pudding was the lack of twentieth-century works on our bookshelves.
+At the same time, I noted that there were encouraging new lights on the horizon and that I was certainly not coming to a deserted enterprise. No doubt, most readers are aware that if there was reason for encouragement at that time, this is all the more true today.
+There is no question that the last decade has been a productive one. Primarily thanks to what has become known as the “Gush school,” also referred to simply as the “new school,” novel interpretations from a new generation are becoming better known and more widely diffused. Some of the new stars in the field include Rabbi Elchanan Samet, Rabbi Amnon Bazak, and Rabbi Yonatan Grossman, but there are many others. Though this school is primarily Israeli, its work has become more familiar to the English-speaking world through the efforts of various American-born teachers such as Rabbi Menachem Liebtag, Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom, and Rabbi Hayyim Angel. Concurrently, there has been a more general flourishing of Tanakh study in English-speaking countries, marked by the publication of several new books and translations, as well as the organization of many well-attended study conferences in major Jewish centers such as New York, Toronto, and London.
+Yet, in spite of it all, we can raise the same questions that we raised at the beginning of the journey. Are we really producing works that succeed in combining relevance and rigor? And if we are, do these works bear the depth and creativity of yesteryear that will allow them to find a lasting place in the Jewish library?
+In this regard, the new teachings, especially the ones from the Gush school, have not been unilaterally welcome. One reason is this school’s alleged tendency to discount Talmudic and Midrashic interpretations. Of course, disagreement with rabbinic interpretation is as old as the interpretive endeavor itself. What is new is the place of rabbinic interpretation in the endeavor. When classical commentators differed with rabbinic explanations, they did so only after first examining earlier works of the tradition to which they belonged. They did this believing that they would usually find the correct meaning by poring over these works. Only afterward, when they did not find what they were looking for, did they feel free to disagree and/or proffer new interpretations. But it was not only to save themselves extra work that classical commentators referred back to the past. Familiarity and interaction with rabbinic works provided an interpretive context within which to work.
+The importance of the latter should not be underestimated. Stanley Fish is known for most clearly arguing that which is patently true – that a text necessarily comes with a context. This means that if Jews have preconceptions about the Bible, so does any interpretive community to any text. Such a community creates the context, spelling out the basic assumptions, the ground rules, and the accepted “facts” about the text. It follows that arguing how to interpret a text across traditions is a near absurdity – the rules of the game are simply different. This is the point Alasdair MacIntyre makes so forcefully in his famous book, After Virtue: two people cannot even argue if they don’t first agree on the definition of the terms (e.g., virtue) that they are arguing about. Different approaches may share some of the same assumptions or otherwise include insights that can be useful to each other, but this can never be taken for granted.
+To cut to the quick, one of the main questions about the new school is to what extent it is true to the classical Jewish interpretive community. Even if we look at this school’s more traditional exponents, this is an issue. For example, no one can seriously doubt the credentials of Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun, often considered the father of this school. He is an outstanding and creative teacher of impeccable character. The question can only be about his approach. What made his approach “new” is finding his inspiration in many of the raw materials of the text: etymology, archeology, and language structure. Despite Bin-Nun’s comprehensive knowledge of rabbinic interpretations, it is often not clear what their place is in his approach.
+Essentially, Bin-Nun tries to synthesize the traditional Jewish interpretive tradition with the tools of modern, academic biblical scholarship. When successful, this synthesis can be very powerful. Nonetheless, it is no simple feat to accomplish, especially if the rabbinic reading was intentionally ahistorical and unconcerned with the types of information that Bin-Nun is trying to integrate. In other words, the two approaches that Bin-Nun seeks to integrate may be working at cross purposes. If that is the case, tapping into academic scholarship in any significant way would undermine one’s rootedness in the traditional Jewish approach. This is essentially what Nechama Leibowitz was arguing when she chose to bypass most of the information that Bin-Nun found so valuable. Not surprisingly then, these two magnificent teachers were actually at loggerheads many years ago regarding how to study the biblical text, and consequently how it should be taught in Israeli schools.
+A great admirer of Meir Weiss, who, like her, was influenced by the “New Criticism,” Leibowitz argued that a text had a life independent of its cultural context. Weiss gives the example of the contemporary readers of Shakespeare and Goethe missing the main point by getting overly caught up in the cultural trends and local realia that served as the background for these great writers. Yet Weiss also points out that ignorance in this context is not bliss, and that if studying Near Eastern languages will shed light on the meaning of a word, such study should not be ignored.
+At the same time, however, though knowledge of the ancient world can add to our understanding, it is not meant to cast a shadow over the text’s meaning, which within the Jewish community has been primarily didactic. It would be difficult to say that Jewish commentaries have ever tried to reconstruct the historical Avraham or David, and there is a reason for this. It would have been only of secondary interest, since these men have been seen as literary characters, described in ways that would provide different meanings at different times. This is how I understand Ramban’s famous notion of ma’asei avot siman l’banim, that the actions of the [biblical] fathers are a sign for their progeny. Subsequent generations will understand the life of Avraham differently from their biblical ancestors and will accordingly derive new lessons from him. This is not, of course, to say that there are no constants, but rather that the text’s subtle nuances permit different generations to see different things, alongside the Torah’s major and obvious teachings that are accessible and relevant for all time.
+The bottom line is that it will be difficult for the new school to follow a more universal medium of discourse without dropping many of the assumptions and methodologies of rabbinic interpretation. In some cases, one can see this quite vividly. For example, while the new school makes much out of words that appear with great frequency in specific sections (the leitwort), it has all but abandoned the rabbinic notion of extraneous language (lashon yitur) as a tool through which to understand the text. Almost universally accepted by classical commentators, the likely reason for the latter’s unpopularity among proponents of the new school is this tool’s assumption of a perfect and uncorrupted text, something unacceptable to the academic circles with which the new school attempts to conduct a dialogue.
+At other times, however, new school writers will ignore the assumptions of academia. Classic ethical assumptions have, appropriately, not disappeared. Most of the new school writers still find Ya’akov’s statement (Bereshit 27:19), “I am Esav your firstborn,” problematic. Yet adhering to these types of assumptions undermines the universality of their work, since academics need not accept Ya’akov’s deception as a problem for Ya’akov or for anyone else living at that time. Hence, the price paid for what is ultimately a hybrid approach is far from negligible. In an attempt to bridge worlds, there comes the risk of pleasing no one.
+But there is also room for a different critique. Relevance is not measured only by content but also by form. One of the beautiful features of traditional Jewish commentaries is the easy access it provides for sophisticated topics and methodology. Too many of the new studies get bogged down in long-winded explanations of structure and the like, often losing all but the most dedicated student in the process. This is not to criticize the need for depth and systematic explanation when it is required; if an in-depth, structural examination of a certain section of the Bible is needed to understand it better, it should be pursued. Yet, what scholars who undertake such studies need to realize is that this will often prevent their work from easily finding a place in the tradition, as their complexity places them in its margins.
+Ultimately, a book that is not read does not contribute. And from a historical perspective, a book that does not continue being read will not make a historical contribution.
+Truly, new knowledge and approaches have always been integrated by Jewish interpreters, but always from within the consciousness of the classical Jewish interpretive tradition. This means that we can greatly benefit from the work of the new school, but in order for it to find its place in the Jewish corpus it must conform to the broader contours of traditional parshanut. Otherwise, the truly valuable contributions it is making will fail to catch the interest of the Jewish people in the long term.
+It is not only the new school that presents weaknesses to the contemporary Jewish reader. The old school is not without its own issues. For one, classical methodology is sometimes unable to address questions that can be answered more readily by systematic literary analysis or by knowledge of the ancient Near East. The sophisticated, contemporary reader is often aware that solutions to certain issues lie in these directions and, as such, is frustrated by the limits of the classical approach to the text. The upshot is that both schools have their strengths as well as their weaknesses. Consequently, it behooves us to try to gain from both approaches to the text as comprehensively as possible.
+In my own work, I am keen to adopt the teachings and methods of the new school, but only from within a profound rootedness in the classical tradition on the one hand, and a fierce independence to forge new paths on the other. In this regard, I follow what I understand to be the road of the commentaries of yesteryear – to look everywhere for edification, but to search within my personal Jewish consciousness for interpretation.
+As in previous volumes, in this book I seek new understandings that are intended to promote greater interest in the biblical text and deeper thought about its ramifications for our lives today. There is no doubt that my understandings are inspired by a diverse array of works, old and new, as well as by a variety of intellectual influences, both Jewish and general. I believe that any commentator’s work is enriched by the influences in his own life. The more diverse the influences, the richer the commentary – so long as it is centered in a coherent integration of these influences into a systematic whole, rooted in the Jewish interpretive tradition.
+Relevance and the Written Word
+In the previous volume, I wrote that Torah study is a conversation between man and God. This is certainly true, but it is also a conversation among the Jewish people as well. A welcome part of the conversation that my books have initiated has been the publication of several thoughtful reviews of my first two volumes. In one of the most insightful of these reviews, Rabbi Aharon Wexler writes that I sometimes bring “[my] points too far by connecting and comparing the lessons learned to the situation in modern-day Israel, or Jewish existence in the Diaspora.” He continues, “Nataf is so adept in elucidating his points that it makes any further discussion superfluous. It might have been better to let the reader come to his or her own conclusions and not walk us through it. I believe it takes away from his point and turns a great teaching moment into a sermon.” This is an important observation and deserves a response.
+On some level, it all comes down to the need to accept certain trade-offs. What Wexler observes will no doubt make this series less attractive for some readers. Indeed, it may be surprising to see what can be construed as sermonics in a volume whose readership is presumed to be highly intelligent and certainly capable of drawing their own conclusions. Yet, I believe that had I left out my own conclusions, it would be doing a disservice to the reader – if for no other reason than because it would be contrary to the genre that I am trying to emulate. As mentioned, Jewish reading of the Bible is primarily didactic. Such reading teaches with high standards of intellectual rigor and honesty, but they are the means, not the ends. The ultimate point of Jewish Bible study is, and always will be, inspiration and personal growth in light of its towering content.
+Wexler is correct that it is educationally more effective to allow students to come to their own conclusions. This makes a teaching more personal as well as more memorable. Nonetheless, Jewish commentaries have often chosen to connect the dots for the reader and explicitly reveal contemporary applications. Such commentaries were written by great Jewish educators who understood that they were sacrificing great teaching moments by doing so. In those instances, they presumably felt the message was more important than the medium. This is certainly not always the case. In an educational exercise, for example, the message is less important than the process. Similarly, when the context allows the teacher to work with the student face to face, a teacher can afford the luxury of subordinating the message to the medium. In a written commentary, however, this is usually not the case. Here it is critical for the author to make his point known, even at the cost of making it less powerful than it would be in the ideal, oral setting.
+But there is something else as well. While my readership is intelligent, it is also diverse. For each reader who would prefer a more academic style there is another who will find the more explicit implications of my interpretations essential. In a review letter, my friend and colleague, Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot, writes that my work “moves our study . . . from classic Talmud Torah and exegesis to a work of Torat Chaim. Each chapter concludes with a penetrating insight and ‘take-away’ message for us as spiritually striving human beings, as individuals and as community.” I am sure that for many readers, the importance of going from Talmud Torah to Torat Chaim is critical to the endeavor of redeeming relevance.
+There is another reason to avoid contemporary applications which Wexler actually does not mention. By seeking current implications, the author risks the eventual obsolescence of his work. What is timely for one generation is dated for another, especially in times that change so quickly. For me this is an even greater concern than the one Wexler raises. When one reads certain older works, he often senses their complete irrelevance to our own times. This is surely a high price to pay for seeking relevance. And yet, as I have argued in previous volumes, relevance is precisely what the Jewish commentator is called upon to pursue.
+But relevance need not mean a short shelf life. Truly great works rise above the limitations of writing primarily for one’s own era, even as certain applications become dated. Concerning my own work, it is not for me to decide whether it will ever be considered truly great – I am sometimes embarrassed when my books are found next to authors much greater than I (though sometimes I am embarrassed for the opposite reason). Greatness can only be a dream, but relevance must be an agenda. In these pages, it remains mine.
+
+CHAPTER 1 The Titleless Torah
+
+There are many things in our lives that we take for granted. One of them is that a book must have a title. And we usually expect even more than that; we expect that the title will reveal the essence of the book. But our expectations notwithstanding, this is not the case in the Five Books of Moses. Instead of carrying titles, they are referred to only by their first significant words (i.e., Bereshit, Shemot, etc.).
+On the one hand, one could simply attribute these books’ lack of formal titles to the historical development of literature, and that may in fact be the most straightforward explanation. On the other hand, there might be more to it than that. After all, the essence of each of the Torah’s five books extends beyond what can be summarized in titles. Given their tremendous depth and nuance, titles would necessarily be reductionist.
+The truth is that to the extent that we are uncomfortable with our holiest books not having titles, it may reveal more about us than it does about the Torah. As Westerners, we have become used to categorizing most of what we encounter in order to digest it more readily. Names are an aid to this, and in the case of a book, the title immediately identifies it as belonging to a particular category. Yet, if there is anything that the Bible defies, it is identification and categorization.
+Nor is it only in recent generations that Jews can be described as Westerners in this sense. It has been a very long time since Jews have thought in purely Hebrew or biblical fashion. Even in the rabbinic period (i.e., from before the destruction of the Second Temple until after the redaction of the Talmud), it is impossible to say that the sages were immune to the influence of Greek thought that is at the roots of Western thinking. The move from the Torah to the Mishnah is a telling landmark of the Greco-Roman organizational style’s impact on Jewish thought and culture: whereas the Torah flows in a stream of consciousness, the Mishnah is very tightly structured by topic. No doubt, such a move was needed to survive in the new civilization that was being created all around the Jews, but along with it came a flattening out that is inevitably created by order.
+It is likely that the same historical currents are what prompted the rabbis to give names to the title-less books of the Torah. Nonetheless, there is no question that the titles they gave are also representative of the rabbis’ ability to come to a profound and deep reading of the text. As such, the new titles are highly deserving of our attention as we attempt to understand each book.
+In general, the rabbinic names of the Torah’s books served as the basis for their names in most foreign languages. Sefer HaPikudim, the rabbinic name for Bemidbar, however, suffers from somewhat of a mistranslation. For instance, the English rendition, Numbers, is neither literally nor figuratively a correct translation of the original Hebrew. Pikudim means “countings,” and though counting obviously implies numbers, such a translation emphasizes the wrong part of the biblical exercise of counting that occurs repeatedly in the book. The main point of the censuses is not really to tally up the population of the tribes but rather to better identify them. In other words, the counting in the book of Bemidbar is a process through which to understand who these tribes intrinsically are. The inadequacy of the English translation of Bemidbar notwithstanding, we still need to discover why the rabbis chose the countings as this book’s central component and what they were trying to tell us by it.
+The Book of the Tribes
+The Torah’s interest in “numbers” constitutes only one component of a larger interest in tribal attributes. Another detail that epitomizes the book of Bemidbar is the list of tribal leaders’ offerings at the Tabernacle’s inauguration. For many readers, this discussion at the end of parashat Naso (Bemidbar 7) ranks at the top of cumbersome Torah readings, difficult to sit through even on a good day. Most of us simply don’t understand the need for the Torah to list twelve times the exact same sacrifice given by the princes of each tribe. Yet, with a more careful reading of the book, this repetition can be viewed as part of a very important pattern.
+Clearly, it is not just random items that are enumerated and counted in this book. Upon careful consideration, we see that not only do the countings center on tribal censuses (as opposed to one that stresses the nation or the clan), but the repeated lists of leaders are also all about the tribes and the corresponding Levite divisions. (Levi will have somehow turned into a microcosm of the Jewish people, treated separately but in parallel to the rest of the tribes.) Alongside numbers and leadership, the book of Bemidbar also tells us each tribe’s marching position, as well as its position in the camp and with which other two tribes it was aligned.
+All in all, the Torah takes up a new focus in Bemidbar, paying more attention to the confederate nature of the children of Israel, mentioning the tribes and their princes over and over again. The abrupt nature of this shift in focus is highlighted by the fact that after the book of Bereshit, the names of the tribes, descended from and named for Ya’akov’s sons, don’t reappear in their tribal variant until we get to the book of Bemidbar. That means that the Torah narrates the story of the twelve tribes for almost two entire books without really mentioning them. Yet, once it starts mentioning them in Bemidbar, it repeats them at many points and from many angles, only to deemphasize them once again in the book of Devarim.
+Now that we have noted the tribal focus of Bemidbar, we can see how fitting it is for the book to begin with the command of the newly named tribal leaders to count the Jews, and to end with a new list of tribal leaders who will help conquer the land. The latter narrative is almost immediately followed by the last details of the tribal equation: a discussion of how to insure their geographic integrity in view of possible tribal intermarriage. By the end of this book, the lens through which the rest of the Bible will view the nation of Israel will be changed forever. From that point on, the nation would be viewed primarily through its component parts, i.e., its tribes.
+But this is not just a literary tour de force. With the settlement of the land, tribal identity actually takes on a more powerful role. From that perspective, the book of Bemidbar not only guides the future, it also helps explain it. The tribal identity that will play such a major role in the unfolding biblical saga of the Jews in their land needs grounding, and Bemidbar comes to do just that. To understand how these tribes came to have such differing traits, the early similarities and distinctions become a key part of the desert narrative.
+Yet, one should not only look forward; one should also look back. There is a progression from one book to the next that should make the focus of Bemidbar almost expected: if Bereshit is dealing with individuals and Shemot (and to some extent Vayikra) with the nation, Bemidbar is the book which gives the structure in which the individuals relate to the nation. We go from the smallest unit to the largest unit, and then return to examine its parts. Thus, if a better literal translation of Bemidbar might be the Book of Countings, the book’s essence might be best conveyed by calling it the Book of the Tribes.
+Tribal Hierarchy
+Now that we have established our book’s focus on tribal identity, we can begin to observe what the Torah wants us to know about the various tribes. Several of the chapters in our present study will focus on specific tribes, but before we finish the current discussion we need to establish the general contours of the tribal enterprise that we find in this, the fourth book of the Torah.
+It is true that much ink is spent on establishing the basic equality of the tribes, something to which we will return later, but it is just as clear that the hierarchical family structure one sees in Bereshit remains here as well. As in Bereshit, birth order and merit interact to determine position. Thus, one item that should immediately catch our eye is the order in which the tribes are mentioned. While there are some tribes always at or near the top (Reuven, Yehudah, and Shimon), others consistently at the bottom (Dan, Asher, and Naftali), and those that we can expect to be near the middle (Ephraim, Menashe, and Binyamin), there is a measure of indeterminacy which makes these lists worthy of our attention.
+Of particular interest is the interchange for first position that occurs between Reuven and Yehudah. The general trend is delineated by the first tribal list in Bemidbar (Bemidbar 1:5-16) starting with Reuven and the last (Bemidbar 34:17-29) starting with Yehudah. Mirroring the process in Bereshit, the default position of leadership starts with Reuven, who is, after all, the firstborn. Yet, in the same way as Reuven’s leadership in Bereshit is ineffective and becomes eclipsed by Yehudah’s, Reuven’s descendants give way to the descendants of Yehudah as well. This is made amply clear by the end of Bemidbar, when Reuven teams up with Gad and settles in Transjordan (Bemidbar 32), essentially deserting the rest of the tribes.
+Hence, the Torah’s bottom line is that the leadership of the Israelites will be assumed by the tribe of Yehudah, just as the brothers had been led by its namesake several generations earlier. As in the earlier events in the book of Bereshit, there is a need for someone to show the way and to make the difficult decisions. Accordingly, Yehudah’s Calev would be the one to stand up to the spies’ insurrection (Bemidbar 13:30).
+As Bemidbar asserts the dominance of Yehudah as the national leader, so does it further clarify the ritual leadership of Levi and the priestly lineage of Aharon. The separation and further sub-division of Levi into three clans at the beginning of the book, for example, is followed up by the clear and ominous warning that this tribe will serve in the tent of meeting so that “there will not be a plague among the children of Israel should [they] approach the holy things" Bemidbar 9:19).
+We will see later how Korach’s insurrection and its aftermath seal the indisputability of the division between Levi and the rest of the Jews on the one hand, and the Kohanim and the rest of the Levites on the other. Particular flourish is used concerning the former. God does this by commanding each tribe to take out its staff to see which one will miraculously flower. The Hebrew word used for staff here is mateh, which is also the word used throughout the book of Bemidbar to refer to a tribe. This Divine choice of one mateh over the others was an unmistakable sign for the ancient Israelites. The linguistic connection was obvious to them, as the mateh was a more direct representation of a tribe than a flag is a representation of a state today. More than a mere symbol, the mateh represented a tribe on an intrinsic level, since the staff would be held by the tribal leader to designate his power.
+If two tribes are placed at the top of the hierarchy, the establishment of one was clearly different from the establishment of the other. As opposed to the clear roots of Yehudah’s leadership in the family history, the replacement of all firstborns with the tribe of Levi was a more radical move. Unsurprisingly, it met with more resistance and seems to be one of the main causes for Korach’s rebellion.
+We will discuss Korach’s rebellion more fully in Chapter Three. However, it is worth noting here that the actual distribution of power and the concept of hierarchy against which Korach effected his rebellion is an important theme found in Bemidbar. And the Torah’s complete rejection of his attempt to undermine these institutions is part and parcel of this book’s overriding message.
+The Four Blocks
+We see the notion of hierarchy in other units in addition to the basic tribal one. The Torah creates a new institution, the degel or formation, each one made up of three tribes and seemingly led by its most esteemed component. Via these formations, each tribe’s position in the hierarchy is further clarified. We will see that the tribes are ranked according to which other tribes and which Levite clan they are grouped with, as well as according to their geographical position and marching order.
+The composition of these groups is quite striking. Were one to divide the tribal populations equally, he would not be able to assemble the groups as the Torah does. Indeed, the Torah’s ordering of the formations makes little sense without knowledge of the tribes’ pedigree in Bereshit. If we do follow their ancestry, however, things generally fall into place. We see that the full brothers are generally grouped together, so that all of Rachel’s descendants are united in one group and Leah’s descendants make up five of the six members of two other groups. Due to the uneven remnant, one of Zilpah’s sons is put in with his peers (Bilhah’s sons), while her firstborn is “moved up” and grouped with the less illustrious of the two Leah groupings. On some level, this pedigree also determines the order in which the formations are mentioned: Leah’s descendants first, followed by Rachel’s, and those of the maidservants at the rear.
+Now that we have a general sense of the hierarchy, further analysis will refine it even more.
+One way to probe further is to note the exact division of Leah’s and Zilpah’s children. That the children of Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, should be divided – and not those of Bilhah – so that one of them would take the extra spot left among Leah’s two formations, is completely understandable, but why was that spot taken specifically by Gad and how do we explain the precise division of the other five Leah tribes into their respective groups? We can deduce that Gad and Reuven had some sort of connection, since we know that later in the Jews’ desert sojourn they both requested to live in Transjordan. Although the case could be made that this is in fact a result of being placed next to each other in the formation, what remains clear is that this is not an alliance of valor.
+Finding the third member of the formation to be Shimon, we gain even more understanding regarding its weak status. Shimon has already been negatively portrayed in Bereshit, is the only tribe that does not receive a blessing from Moshe (Devarim 33:6-24), and basically disintegrates once the Jews settle their land. From this information alone we see that Shimon is one of the least successful tribes. In sum, we get the sense that Reuven, Gad and Shimon were the lesser tribes among Leah’s and Zilpah’s sons. So while we might still consider Gad’s placement an honor for him, it is certainly clear that this is not the case for Reuven and Shimon.
+At this point, we might propose a hierarchy of the most important formation being mentioned first and the seemingly least important going last. The middle two groups could be seen in one of two ways: either they are ranked according to importance, even the less illustrious tribes of Leah going before the tribes of Rachel, or the Torah is aiming at symmetry by putting the most important groups opposite one another (encamped east and west) and the less important across from one another (south and north). The first proposal suggested is buttressed by the actual marching order, which places Reuven’s marching position before Ephraim’s. In other words, it is one thing for the Torah to mention Reuven before Ephraim when giving a description of what the encampment looked like. It is quite another to actually allow it to march in front of Ephraim.
+Yet, after reflecting on Degel Reuven’s composition, we would likely decide in favor of the second suggestion, i.e., that the Torah is actually seeking symmetry. This is reinforced by the greater distinction of the east-west axis in the Bible and subsequent Jewish writings: east to west is the path of Jewish migration, especially in its most significant incarnation from Egypt to Israel. It is also the primary direction of both the Tabernacle and the Temple, as well as the direction of the sun’s path in the sky. As such, north and south can readily be viewed as ancillary, and it is likely that the tribes identified with these directions are ultimately ancillary as well. But even without these examples, as we will see in greater detail in Chapters Five and Seven, all three tribes of the Reuven formation distinguish themselves by their relatively mediocre moral character, which gives us pause that the formation may be inferior not only to the Rachel formation but perhaps even to that of the remaining one made up of the maidservants’ descendants.
+Tribal Equality and Proportional Representation
+The Torah’s repetition of each tribe’s offering at the inauguration of the Tabernacle (see above), as well as its emphasis on each offering’s being exactly the same, softens the Torah’s treatment of tribal hierarchy discussed so far. For one, this seemingly superfluous narrative expresses the Torah’s insistence on the basic equality of the tribes. Had the Torah simply grouped the tribal inaugural offerings together and skipped mentioning specific names, there may have been some room for doubt about the complete equality of representation. Since the tribes were unequal in population and merit, their equality not only cannot be taken for granted, it is really counterintuitive. Even if we were to assume the need to recognize the important role played by the tribes as distinct and autonomous cultural units, it is a jump to conclude that they should have any sort of equal representation.
+Truly, the offerings are not the only instance of equal tribal representation. The geographic formation which divides the tribes into four groups of three makes a similar statement (even as the composition and order of these groups speaks of hierarchy, as mentioned above). Likewise, we find equal apportionment of soldiers in the battle against Midian (Bemidbar 31:5), and there are other instances throughout the book of Bemidbar.
+The equal status the Torah gives to the tribes in the abovementioned examples is reminiscent of state representation in the United States Senate (a system shared by many governments, highlighting the Bible’s impact on future governmental structures). Apportioning two senators for each state results in much greater representation per capita for smaller states than for more populous ones. To translate this into real terms, in the year 2000 California had a population almost seventy times the size of Wyoming, yet both states had only two delegates in the Senate. The message is that there needs to be equality of all the states (or in our case, tribes) regardless of their numbers, leadership abilities, or any other criteria for the preference of one over the other.
+Of course, the existence of the House of Representatives makes it clear that this is not the whole story. Tribes are equal only on a basic level, alongside which exists a hierarchical differentiation, sometimes based on merit or ability and other times on pedigree.
+By setting up the Senate the way they did, the framers of the United States Constitution were acknowledging the existence of the state as a corporate body. This is another way of saying that people don’t count only as individuals but also as part of a greater whole; in this case, a state. Otherwise, there would be little justification for the disproportionate representation of citizens from one state over another.
+Returning to our discussion of why the Torah sets up a certain level of equality among ultimately unequal tribes, it would appear that this motif in the book of Bemidbar is pushing us toward a more complete understanding of human identity than we have gotten up until this point. While humans are counted as individuals, we are also (and perhaps even more so) counted as part of something larger than ourselves. Accordingly, we need to be aware that our own identities are largely determined by the group to which we belong.
+One can argue that this could have been accomplished without the emphasis on the tribes, as a nation is also a corporate body and the Torah could have simply focused on the nation without any need to establish tribal identities. Yet, any message about corporate identity that we could learn from nationhood would be diluted, because a nation is a necessary body with larger, universal implications, while a tribe or a state is not. Thus, using the nation as the point of identification would lead to our ignoring it as anything more than a cultural and political entity. Looking at the tribal level of identity, however, pushes us to focus on the nature of the group.
+But this isn’t meant to obliterate individual identity either. Lest we forget the place of the individual in the tribal scheme, the Torah also proclaims that territory will be divided according to the number of individual families in each tribe. Moreover, the emphasis placed on tribal identity is a way to inform our personal identities and better understand ourselves.
+Earlier, throughout the book of Bereshit and at the very beginning of Shemot, we encounter rugged individualists that may have led us to ignore the importance of the group, as their uniqueness might have mitigated any meaningful connection to it. On some level, this is what God commands Avraham to do when He asks him to leave his birthplace and his father’s house (Bereshit 12:1). Yet, with the exception of only the most outstanding giants, this is an unnatural model. More fitting the human condition is to form one’s identity primarily through one’s groupings.
+Collective identity was taken for granted for much of history. During that time, the Torah was simply reinforcing a commonly accepted idea. Yet, for us moderns who have lost much of our sense of identification with any type of group, the Torah’s focus on the tribes is an important reminder of our corporate essence. Whether taking on the identity of a group is a question of nature or nurture is irrelevant. What is important is that according to the Torah, who we are is not merely a personal issue.
+Composite Selves and Complementary Groups
+Once we accept the importance of group identity, we should note that in the Torah, the Jews have multiple identities, i.e., each is part of a tribe and of several sub-tribal units, all of which shape his character. However delineated, these divisions ensure that an individual is identified by his immediate family, his clan, his tribe, and then finally – and perhaps most important – by his nation-religion.
+Other divisions correspond to a division of labor, such that one group is in charge of a clearly defined task while another group has a different role to fulfill. The most explicit of such categorizations is that of the tribe of Levi, each of whose subdivisions is given the charge of specific objects they were to carry in the desert. Similarly, Jewish tradition tells us that the tribes themselves specialized in their primary occupations, so that the regional division of these groups led to a symbiotic division of labor. Based on this as well as on the blessings given to the various tribes, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch states what is unfortunately not always obvious in our day and age: the Bible teaches us of the need to welcome different roles and aptitudes within the Jewish people. In his words, “The establishment of [God’s] Kingdom requires Jewish farmers and artisans no less than Jewish scholars and sages, Jewish merchants and soldiers no less than Jewish priests and teachers.”
+Is division here a good thing? In a word, yes, and it appears that this is what is illustrated by the perfect symmetry and order in the structure of the Israelite encampment. When each tribe has its own space, it inevitably feels stronger internally, but without losing sight of the fact that it is part of a larger whole which needs all of its component parts. The problem begins only when the tribes are competing for the same space. The Torah explores this very topic at the end of the book of Bemidbar, when describing what happens when tribal land is inherited by daughters who may marry men from another tribe. We will discuss this in detail in Chapter Six.
+Yet the general message here is not difficult to understand. When different groups march in unison, each at the same pace and each knowing its place, we have something more powerful than a single unit doing the same. For the latter can be broken at any place and subsequently shattered beyond repair. In contrast, when a series of groups with many points of contact is broken, the groups can more easily reconnect at different points. This is what allowed Yehudah and Binyamin to eventually go it alone, in the monarchy that remained to Shlomo’s son Rachavam after the other ten tribes split off (I Melachim 12:20-21). Likewise, Binyamin had earlier been separated from and ostracized by the other tribes because of its abhorrent behavior concerning the concubine at Giv’ah (Shoftim 19-21).
+There are other examples, but the result is the same. When need be, the tribes could survive in different alignments and did not need to be aligned with all the others in order to survive Thus, the federalism of the Jewish people was more than a practical arrangement, it was a strategy for enhancing its dynamism and resilience.
+Bemidbar or Pekudim?
+Now that we better understand the fourth book of the Torah in light of its rabbinic name, Sefer HaPikudim, or “the Book of Countings,” we should note that by the Jewish people largely ignoring this name, we can conclude that they had ultimately chosen a different approach. Rather they refer to it as the book of Bemidbar (“In the Wilderness”), which shows a greater focus on all of the troubles the Jews encountered and created on their trek toward the Promised Land. When we look at the big picture, we can easily think that the latter is the central subject of the book; it is certainly the most memorable. And yet, the rabbis knew to distinguish between the essential and the (ostensibly) accidental – and memorable – stories of the Jewish people’s trials and tribulations which were not central to the Divine plan. They happened, and thereby became obstacles along the way.
+By contrast, once the children of Israel had been forged into a nation and come before God at Mount Sinai, only the countings and the tribal divisions would be a required part of their sojourn through the wilderness; and really the only things that needed to happen along the way. Yet, as the rabbis themselves have suggested (Shabbat 116a), Bemidbar is actually two books: the “ideal Bemidbar” that the rabbis renamed Sefer HaPekudim, and the “real Bemidbar” of tests and failures that defies the notion of order and pekudim.
+On some level, however, it is the real that eclipses the ideal. Although the Jews didn’t have to err, their journey was truly through a wilderness in all of its definitions; a place of “scorpions and snakes.” It was a staging ground for entering their land, and consequently not meant to be easy. In fact, it was to be a fundamental and existential challenge. Sometimes the Jews failed, other times they succeeded. But pass or fail, the preparation for entry into the land could be accomplished only via a series of trials by ordeal. Hence, this struggle was just as fundamental as the creation of tribal identity.
+In the end, only a name as amorphous as “In the Wilderness” could really represent the differing aspects of this book. And in spite of Greek and Western influences that can limit us by defining things more precisely, the Jewish collective consciousness continues to refer to this book as just that, Bemidbar. What that means is that while drawing great insight from the book’s rabbinic name, the Jewish people has intuited that it is not the last word. Indeed, the Torah’s open-ended nature teaches us that there is no last word.
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+CHAPTER 2 The Spies; The Sin of the Wrong Trajectory
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+By now it should be clear that Bemidbar’s focus on the tribes highlights the nature of the book: that the Jews’ central task in the desert is the preparation for entry into the land. Yet, this very endeavor is undermined in the middle of the book. Thus, the volume that was to be the most “Zionist” of the Torah’s five books in the sense of bringing the Jews into the Promised Land ends up being the least Zionist.
+The affair of the spies is a watershed, not only in the Torah but for Jewish history altogether. It marks a major turning point in the Jews’ relationship with God, severely altering their miraculous march to a utopian communion with Him. Instead, the Jewish future is all but destroyed when God allows the Jews to send a representative from each tribe to scout out the land. When they return, ten of the twelve give a discouraging account of what they saw, and when challenged by the other two conclude that conquering the land is simply out of reach.
+It is the people’s acceptance of the majority opinion and their hysterical carryings-on, however, which signaled the actual turning point and in turn was considered the major sin. At that point, the die was cast – the state that the Jews would eventually create would be only a pale image of the original conception. The rabbis (Taanit 29a) expand this notion by suggesting that the people’s sin would make tragedy an intrinsic part of the Jewish experience. We will get back to this idea later in the chapter, but first we will try to get a better understanding of exactly what occurred.
+In truth, there are many sins that occur in the book of Bemidbar, and were we just to look at the story of the spies without reading the drastic Divine response we might think that it isn’t any worse than many of the other sins in the desert – and certainly not more than that of the golden calf that occurred earlier on. We could go even further and justify the mission, given the permissible and even helpful use of spies in other similar situations. Moreover, there are indications that the spies were men of outstanding character; even without any textual clues, one would expect Moshe to be very particular about whom he would choose for this highly sensitive mission. So why did they blunder so greatly and subsequently drag others down with them so insistently?
+One approach to the severity of this sin is looking at it from a cumulative perspective. Had it not been the straw that broke the camel’s back, we could acknowledge that the sin in question here was really not so cataclysmic. It could have been almost negligible in and of itself had the Jews not been rebuked so many times previously for other misdeeds that betrayed a lack of trust in God. Such an approach would certainly take care of the issues raised above, and we could say that the great men sent on the scouting mission simply misunderstood their difficult charge and misread what they saw in the Holy Land. And once convinced of the truth of their conclusions, they did everything in their power to avert what they saw as an imminent disaster. Nothing terrible – but unfortunately, their missteps were committed at a time when God had run out of patience with the Jewish people.
+It might be that simple, but still, such an approach does not leave us completely satisfied. The Torah dwells too much on the sin of the spies for us to believe that it was only coincidentally linked to the catastrophic events that follow (i.e., only the straw that broke the camel’s back). Likewise, Moshe refers back to it as being of particular gravity on more than one occasion. Thus, most commentators do attach great significance to this sin, even if it seems dwarfed in theological severity by the golden calf. What these commentators still have to explain is that if it doesn’t have theological weight, then what is it that makes this sin so grievous? We will turn our attention to this question next.
+The Desert Bubble
+In order to better understand the sin of the spies, it is helpful to remember that the Jews did not engage in the purely upward ascent that we might expect to find in a journey to the Promised Land. Whatever conditions might have awaited the Jews in the Land of Israel had they not sinned, it was still not likely to be more spiritual and elevated than the direct and daily Divine support and contact that the Jews felt in the desert. Thus the journey “up” to the Holy Land was also a journey down from the very special space that was the wilderness.
+On some level, the desert was akin to an ascetic religious order: kulo kodesh, entirely sacred. And that was precisely why it was meant to be only a temporary situation. The Jewish calling is to bring sanctity to the real world. Mission though it may be, however, it is certainly a more complicated and often less pleasant task than basking in God’s radiant proximity. Hence, one can certainly understand the ambivalence of the desert Jews’ having to give up their spiritual cocoon in order to take on the mission God wanted them to embark upon. In light of this, we can understand the latent unpopularity the spies’ mission engendered.
+With the above in mind, we can differentiate between the sin of the spies and the Jewish people’s many earlier sins. Their previous transgressions had mostly been those of ambivalence toward the novel and rarified wilderness experience. They were unaccustomed to and clearly intimidated by the conditions of their Divine journey. The Jews didn’t know where to find water in the desert, so they complained. Instead of manna they wanted “real food,” so they complained.
+Even the golden calf can be seen as a protest against the rigors of worshiping an overly elevated God, One too far removed from the tangible and corporeal idols that many had worshiped in Egypt. Although they did not expect to go back to idol worship in the Promised Land, still the Jews had good reason to expect a more physical worship of God, something that would align more with the agricultural existence soon to become central to their lives. In the Land of Israel, the Jewish people’s livelihood would depend on the normal functioning of the seasons as well as on the people’s gifts of thanks to God for a successful harvest via sacrifices and tithes. (Thus, Pesach was celebrated only once while the Jews were in the desert; there could be no Festival of Spring without something they could really call Spring.)
+Yet, all of the nation’s early sins could be forgiven. Mortal, corporeal men and women can be expected to err, and within limits it can be tolerated. The incident of the spies, however, engendered a completely new and apparently more problematic ambivalence – not toward the rarified wilderness, but rather toward the earthly existence which would once again become their lot when they reached the Land of Israel. Simply put, the wilderness quickly grew on the Jews. Someone happy with or at least used to where he is will easily find fault with any new location, and in this the spies – and the Jews – were no different than anyone else.
+The spies return with the message that the land cannot be conquered. Neither can it even be endured, in the miraculous event that the Jewish people are somehow able to acquire it. It is hence “better” to stay where they are, where there is nothing to conquer, nothing to plant, and no one to fight against. Unable to move forward, the children of Israel embody the perspective that they might just be better off simply not dealing with the rigors of earthly life. Such an approach calls to mind Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s rhetorical question (Berachot 35b): if people are busy all year round dealing with the physical rigors living off the land necessitates, what will be left over for the spiritual life? Is it really better to spend so much time and energy on matters that God has taken care of up until now?
+From this angle, the subsequent call to return to Egypt (Bemidbar 14:3) could have been more like a chimera than anything else. Given that no one can return to the past, their call was a way of saying, “Let’s stay where we are.” Returning to Egypt was a way to express it without sounding ridiculous. Moreover, there is an aspect of Egypt mimicked by the desert experience – the lack of necessity to take care of one’s own needs. In Egypt, the children of Israel were fed, protected, and housed by their masters; now they were fed, protected, and housed by their Master.
+The spies play to the Jews’ fear of physical existence by emphasizing that they are speaking about that which most embodies physicality, ha’aretz, the land, repeating the word for effect (Bemidbar 12:32, “aretz” meaning both a specific land and the earth in general). Perhaps not understanding this, Yehoshua and Calev also repeat the word “ha’aretz” four times in the context of two verses (Bemidbar 13:7-8). Alternatively, the latter was part of an intentional counter-thesis that it was time for the Jews to grow up and face the new challenge squarely. In either case, it is no wonder that the people want to stone them – rather than soothing their fears, they emphasized them.
+Though interesting, this approach is not without its problems. Most problematic is that it doesn’t really help us figure out what we originally set out to understand, which is what makes the sin of the spies so grievous. It is true that the people’s desire to stay in a sheltered, religious bubble was completely against God’s plan and wishes, but it is still hard to see this as worse than the sin of the golden calf. Let us then pursue another novel and perhaps even more unconventional approach.
+Punishment and Crime
+Usually, we attempt to better understand a crime based on its consequence. When a punishment is great, we assume that it indicates a very severe crime – all rational codes of law work around punishments that are commensurate with their respective crimes. As a result, we assume that due to the dire consequences, the spies’ crime must have been quite severe, and thus we continue our attempt to determine why that was the case. Although we usually find a correlation between punishment and crime for violating the tenets and admonitions of the Divine lawgiver, as we do with human law, we cannot necessarily assume it to always be true. With that in mind, we can seek other explanations for the relationship between the crime and the punishment in our story.
+One way to solve our problem is to reverse the order of causality. We assume that punishment should be established according to a crime, and this is certainly the chronological sequence. However, it may be equally valid to look at the punishment as that which sometimes defines a crime. In other words, a severe punishment may simply be a statement of value that transforms what should on the face of it be a minor crime into something much more significant. Making an ado out of an event that is not particularly headline-grabbing retroactively transforms it. In and of itself, the spies’ crime may not be so weighty, but God needed to make the statement that the Land of Israel is of great weight. And one way of showing that the land has a special place in the Divine order is to give a severe punishment to those who treat the land lightly, even if they only do so in a modest way.
+In human systems of law as well, a punishment may sometimes have less to do with the crime than the value a society would like to emphasize regarding certain individuals, objects, or institutions. For example, yelling at someone is generally not considered a crime. However, if the “someone” being yelled at is the king, it could easily result in the perpetrator’s death. Intrinsically, the crime of yelling is not great – if it is even a crime at all – but it is important for a nation to make a statement about its supreme leader. One could argue that this is really semantics and that in the end, the lawmakers have defined the crime as serious by making the punishment severe. While such an argument has its merits, it is not something universally accepted. Yet, regardless of our position on whether the seriousness of crime is something objective or whether it is determined by each society for itself, the present approach helps explain the significance of the punishment in the face of an ostensibly less serious crime.
+Punishment and Process
+So far we have used a fairly conventional definition of punishment. We tend to view it as an interruption in the normal course of affairs. From this perspective, then, it follows that if we do what is expected of us we need not anticipate any such unfortunate interruptions.
+Thinking more critically, however, and knowing that we sometimes expect people (even ourselves) to behave inappropriately, we would expect punishment for a crime to be the normal course of affairs and thus not an interruption. The chastised would retroactively experience the punishment as an interruption only if he eventually lived up to the law-abiding standard that was beyond him when he sinned. In this case, reward and punishment can be understood as consequences of certain choices. The bad as well as the good choices we make create natural trajectories for our future, and will include a variety of rewards and punishments that come in their wake. And to the extent that we are aware of what we can expect, the shock of ensuing punishments – as well as the joy of ensuing rewards – becomes attenuated.
+The notion of punishment and reward as consequences of a chosen behavior is rooted in the phenomena of the natural world. If someone does something positive and correct, it tends to be to his advantage, e.g., if someone sows, he will usually have food to reap. Refraining from something one knows is positive, however, carries the corresponding opportunity cost – in the above example, it can have disastrous consequences. Similarly, if one does something negative, it tends to be to his disadvantage: if he kicks a boulder, he will hurt his foot. Although we would generally expect a person to work in order to eat rather than to be stuck without food, or to avoid kicking a boulder rather than breaking his foot, we can’t necessarily speak about one event as normal and the other as abnormal. All we can say is that one is more likely to produce better results, and that one can be described as an alteration of the expected course.
+In the case of the spies, what occurred was really the more expected outcome. It was truly difficult for the spies to understand how the Jews would survive and prosper in the land that they saw, unless God would constantly perform miracles for them – which they had good reason not to expect. After all, the Jews had been asked to take it on faith that things would somehow work out. Yet that very faith was undermined by the sending of the spies. The scouting mission itself created a paradox, in that the scouts were given a detailed and thought-out plan to analyze an entity that could be secured only by faith! Understanding their mission this way, it is no wonder they failed. Still, the failure of their mission, which with our new perspective comes as no surprise, resulted in a very weighty consequence, to say the least. The difference between the Jews’ potential transition into the Land of Israel, led by Moshe and with original generation intact, and their actual transition is like the difference between night and day.
+The non-intuitive use of faith to physically conquer and settle the land turned out to be too much for the only generation that would even have a chance at this unusual endeavor. Yet, having been brought up on miracles, the children of Israel were also not able to adjust to the new, post-crime plan, which was to go through a slower, more gradual preparation toward the conquest and settlement of Canaan. This would be something for the next generation to accomplish. The generation that had seen constant, miraculous intervention in Egypt could not be the same one that would inherit the land with its own hands and with God only in the “background,” as it were. And once the desert generation showed itself incapable of conquering the land with faith, as would have been expected from a people who experienced so much Divine oversight, as well as unable to conquer the land with its own hands, there was no alternative but for it to die in the desert.
+We can now understand that the “new” course of events of wandering in the desert for forty years that we generally see as a punishment was actually the natural trajectory and the most likely outcome of the spies’ mission. In that case, it is not that the crime was great in the sense of being a shock, but rather only that its “punishment” was very significant. And the unusually high stakes didn’t make the desirable outcome more expected and therefore any easier. As a consequence, what happened was truly in the realm of the tragic as opposed to the criminal.
+A similar approach can be taken regarding the Tree of Good and Evil at the beginning of the book of Bereshit. Adam and Chava did what God expected them to do, even if it wasn’t the ideal that was set out in front of them. Once they pursued that course, many consequences followed which were quite far-reaching and tragic. Can we call this a severe punishment? We can, but again, the issue is simply that the stakes are great, not that this is a deviation from the expected trajectory.
+Rabbi Akiva and Jewish History
+Though very novel-sounding, the view just presented can be traced to R. Akiva. We should preface the following analysis by reminding the reader that R. Akiva was known for his mystical orientation. Hence, the perspective that we will now suggest requires looking at events from an alternative point of view.
+When his colleagues questioned him for laughing when he saw foxes running over the destroyed Temple mount, R. Akiva answered that now that he saw this prophecy fulfilled, he no longer doubted that the prophecy of redemption would also be fulfilled (Makkot 24b). At face value, this statement is rather puzzling. How could one of the most dedicated Jews of all time doubt the words of our prophets? Eitz Yosef, a commentary on the Talmud, explains that R. Akiva was not expressing doubts about prophecy, but reminding himself and the others that the only way there could be redemption was if there was also destruction. Let us attempt to provide this with some elucidation.
+Perhaps R. Akiva saw that already on their way out of Egypt, the Jews chose the more likely path of living within natural human history, as opposed to living supernatural lives that would have put them outside of history. They made this choice by sending out the spies, who according to the natural order of events would bring back an intimidating report about the Land of Israel. Once they did so, there could no longer be any supernatural shortcut to the final redemption. The more conventional road that was taken would necessarily be one of mistakes as well as corrections since such is the stuff of human existence, all the more so when it comes to nations. Mistakes and their correction imply some level of destruction, the only question being magnitude. Thus, the only way to accomplish the redemption would be by way of at least some destruction. And so the sages say that together with the crying over the spies’ report came the inevitability of crying for the generations associated with the destruction of the Temple (Taanit 29a).
+It could well be that this deeper understanding is exactly what R. Akiva was alluding to in his otherwise almost incomprehensible statement that had the first prophecy not been fulfilled, he was concerned that the second would also not be fulfilled; only in the destruction lay the actual seeds of redemption. Our tradition tells us that God sometimes does rescind negative prophecies, and so the prophecy of destruction did not have to be fulfilled. But were it not to have been fulfilled, it would come at what R. Akiva knew would be an ultimately untenable price. He knew that the fulfillment of destruction was the only way to obtain the redemption that embodies the purpose of our national existence.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+In our own lives, we often make important decisions without realizing the full weight of their implications. We simply think of what follows as the “normal” trajectory. While psychologically sound, this attitude can easily allow us to miss out on the greatness that we can otherwise often attain. Had God simply allowed the spies’ report to unfurl without punishing them, the Jews would have wandered aimlessly in the desert, not able to go back to Egypt and not having the courage to march on into the Land of Israel. But they would not have realized that there had been a better choice. God’s punishment drove home the greatness they had chosen to forgo. True, the punishment was especially difficult for the generation involved, but it is still justified if it can have its appropriate impact on those who would come after it, shaking them out of a lethargy even more frightful than the original punishment.
+At the end of the day, we need to understand that the natural trajectory is not all that we are capable of. Frequently, it is the appropriate track, but this should never be taken for granted. I cannot imagine much worse than discovering that we failed to change the world simply because we didn’t think it was a possibility.
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+CHAPTER 3 Korach and the Limits of Popular Government
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+The story of Korach takes some of us by surprise. In spite of the tragic stories that precede it, somehow we still feel blindsided by its force and drama. For one, the harsh oppositional tone regarding Moshe’s leadership that we encounter here is simply unprecedented. Moreover, Korach’s rebellion is the only head-on confrontation with Moshe’s leadership in the Torah. If Moshe had been challenged before, never had his very position been truly questioned, and certainly not so brazenly and with such strong accusations.
+Yet as much as this episode stands out, it also fits in with some of the major themes of Bemidbar. As in other places, here too we find great interest in the political and administrative structures of the Jewish people-in-formation. What we have referred to as “the real Bemidbar” – the subplot of trials and tribulations the Jewish people need to face in preparation for their entry into the Land of Israel – requires that these structures be thoroughly tested. Thus Moshe and the established leadership need to be hardened via Korach and show their resilience. From this perspective, then, the story of Korach finds its natural place in the Jewish people’s preparation for the type of communal life that they will have to live once they cross over the Jordan.
+Still, if in light of “the real Bemidbar” a challenge such as Korach’s is expected, it doesn’t explain why specifically Korach. Where does he come from, what motivates him, and what is he really after? These questions occupy us as we go through this rather fast-moving, near-meltdown of the children of Israel in the desert.
+As Korach is mentioned only in passing before he takes center stage, it is truly difficult to understand his motivation. Having little else to go on, the rabbis (Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 1) see his lineage as a possible key: like Moshe, Korach too is a Levite. But unlike Moshe’s branch of the tribe, Korach and his family were skipped over for priestly distinction as well as for any Levite office. Based on this, the rabbis name jealousy as a key element of Korach’s motivation. That Korach was interested in replacing Moshe or Aharon as a leader is rooted in a careful reading of the text, as we will see. But whether this came as a result of Korach’s being passed over for a leadership position is harder to ascertain from just the narrative. Given the paucity of information, however, it is certainly a plausible hypothesis.
+Apart from the issue of motivation, we will also deal with other difficulties that Korach’s dramatic appearance presents. Yet even after we finish our analysis, we will still be left with certain unresolved questions. It is not incidental that some of the issues surrounding Korach will remain hazy. This is the Torah’s way of telling us that its interest in the character of Korach is ultimately secondary to its main focus, which is that more important than Korach himself is the relationship he is able to forge with a large political base. It is obvious why this is of great interest, since how he accomplishes this may provide key lessons regarding the role of the general public in the political process – a central feature in the lives of all nations and communities.
+The Korach narrative is one of the few in the Torah where the spotlight is actually on the Jewish masses. Because it is unusual, it is easy to overlook, yet at the end of the day Korach is only a vessel that allows the Torah to comment on the popular political arena. This is not to suggest that we have no interest in Korach per se, only to point out that the Torah’s missing information about him seems intentional and that if so, we may expect to be left with some of our questions about him unanswered. The Torah doesn’t want us to get caught up in turning this into a study of Korach; it wants us to keep our eyes on the larger picture and its ramifications for the Jewish polity. With that in mind, analyzing the extent of Korach’s success and eventual failure as well as how the rebellion was put down provide valuable lessons regarding what to look for in choosing our leaders and the proper role of the public in the political arena. Thus, we will focus on those aspects of the story at least as much as we will focus on Korach himself.
+To Talk or Not to Talk?
+A central pillar of any social structure is communication, thus it is noteworthy that communication (or its absence) in our narrative is focused specifically on competing social and political structures. Indeed, one of the most important motifs in this story is that of one-sided communication.
+Korach and his group launch the first salvo in the communication war, asking what appears to be a rhetorical question (Bemidbar 16:3): “Why do you raise yourselves over the congregation of God?” Although Moshe responds, he does not answer the question. Immediately afterward, however, he turns to Korach with his own rhetorical questions (Bemidbar 16:9-11): “Is it a small thing to you that God separated you . . . [as Levites], that you should also request the priesthood?” and “Who is Aharon that you should complain about him?” Before we even notice that these questions are also left hanging in the air, we encounter new unanswered rhetorical questions (Bemidbar 16:13-14). This time they come from Korach’s allies, Datan and Aviram, who ask Moshe, “Is it a small thing that you have taken us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the desert?” and “Will you gouge out [our] eyes?”
+Things continue to fall apart until Moshe feels forced to appeal to God for retribution against the rebels. But then something curious – yet by now expected – happens. God threatens to destroy the entire Jewish people, most of whom have now fallen in behind Korach. Moshe takes his usual stance of defending the children of Israel and asking God to kill only those guilty of true rebellion and not those who are just undecided. However, he does this by means of yet another rhetorical question (Bemidbar 16:22): “Will one man sin and You get upset at the whole congregation?” Here too, no answer is given.
+It is not only rhetorical questions, however, that highlight the lack of communication in this story. An even harsher break in communication occurs when Datan and Aviram spurn Moshe’s invitation to meet with him. The rabbis understand Moshe’s call here as conciliatory: since he is the one with the power he doesn’t need to turn to them; instead, it is for Datan and Aviram to retract and apologize.
+Here the text can be read differently. It is equally possible that in the same way that Moshe had just rebuked Korach, he was now only inviting Datan and Aviram in order to rebuke them as well (perhaps with more rhetorical questions). But even with that reading of the text, Datan and Aviram’s total shutdown of communication takes our theme one step further.
+But the communication gap is really two-sided. It certainly starts with Korach and his group, but it subsequently infects Moshe as well. In fact, Moshe seems so disturbed by the tenor of the discussion (or non-discussion) that he cannot break out of it, even when speaking to God.
+We need not point out the sorry state of affairs generated when people speak at each other instead of to each other. Communication is the art of sharing different angles of understanding, and as such can certainly not be accomplished when people are speaking only at each other. Without communication there is no room for much of anything except anarchy, which ironically is what Korach’s group had originally requested. (Nevertheless, when we discuss their request below we will see that it is far from clear that they actually wanted what they said they wanted.)
+When the rabbis critique the “disagreement of Korach and his group,” they are referring to this breakdown of communication that we have just traced. In Pirkei Avot 5:17 we read that such a disagreement will not have positive results whereas disagreements such as the ones between Hillel and Shammai will. The difference, say the rabbis, is that the latter was “for the sake of Heaven,” whereas the former was not. No doubt that is what is ultimately behind good communication, but the practical difference is that Hillel and Shammai were not asking rhetorical questions and walking away from each other. They argued back and forth to express their perspective and to hear what the other had to say. When Korach opened the discussion by making rhetorical swipes at Moshe, the chances for edification or even resolution were certainly quite slim. When Datan and Aviram refused to speak to Moshe, the chances disappeared altogether.
+The Talmud (Eruvin 13b) goes even further, pointing out that the reason Hillel’s students would usually carry the day is that they were more willing to listen to what the other side had to say. The only way to test the truth of our view is to measure it against another’s – especially one who we expect will be critical. Maharal (Be'er HaGolah, Well 7) explains this via a metaphor: “When a powerful man seeks out an opponent in order to demonstrate his [own] strength, he very much wants his opponents to exercise as much power as they can, so that if he defeats him, his own victory will be more pronounced. What strength is manifested when the opponent is not permitted to fight?”
+The Torah shows the back-and-forth between Korach and his opponents as the exact opposite of the debates between Hillel and Shammai, thereby emphasizing the lack of purposefulness in the various discussions that take place among the former. When Moshe sidesteps Korach’s initial question, he does so because Korach doesn’t want to hear an answer, and one can only give an answer to someone looking for it. And when Moshe throws rhetorical questions back at Korach, it is likely a way to hold a mirror up to him: “Listen to your tone and your lack of true communication,” Moshe seems to be saying. “If you want me to listen to you then be prepared to listen yourself, and if you don’t intend to listen then don’t expect me to, either!”
+Yet the power of negativity is such that even those interested in communication can get swept up in it. The correct answer to those who are not interested in communication is to turn around and walk away. Not only is non-communicative talk not constructive, it is actually detrimental. By the end of our story, we see Moshe taking up this non-communicative stance as well; even before God.
+Asking a real question of God, as opposed to making a statement, can be a sign of deference. However, this is true only if the questioner is asking for an answer, not when his question is rhetorical – as Moshe’s clearly seems to be. In other words, even Moshe gets infected by Korach’s negativity. Perhaps this is why Moshe seems particularly emotional and defensive in this narrative; his inappropriate use of Korach-like speech makes him realize that his self-mastery is ebbing away, which makes him angrier than he normally would have been by the simple threat presented by Korach.
+Of course, were the problem to have been merely lack of communication, the rebellion might not have gone as far as it did. As we will see, that issue was only the icing on the cake.
+Time for a New Leader?
+According to most commentaries, the story of Korach occurs right after the sin of the spies recorded in the first half of the previous parasha. The demoralization and doubts that must have plagued the children of Israel right after that event were certainly formidable; although they themselves were the cause of the predicament in which they now found themselves, the desert generation’s dream of entering the Promised Land was forever dashed. Their glorious trajectory – which had started with the Exodus from Egypt, had led them to Mount Sinai, and was to end when they would reach their own Godly land – had been hijacked. According to Ramban (Ramban on Bemidbar 16:1), the people further suspected that just as their own hopes had been dashed, the same thing would happen all over again with their children, permanently dooming the great mission upon which they had embarked. Had opinion polls been around, Moshe probably would have scored lower at this time than at any other point in his career.
+Yet Moshe’s troubles were not only coming from hypothetical polls. In many ways, he had lost his ability to master the situation. He was the leader chosen for the pristine, “ideal Bemidbar” that would have had the Jewish people come into the Land of Israel in the second year of their journey. After the sin of the spies, however, that plan was derailed, and the new generation that would reach maturity in the desert called for a new type of leader.
+For as brilliant a leader as Moshe may (or may not) have been, that was neither his vocation nor his interest. Moshe was a great prophet and teacher, and more than anything else, “a servant of God” (Devarim 34:5). He was the mediator of an unprecedented, Divine involvement with the daily affairs of a nation. In that role he was able to inspire the Jewish people to follow a God Who showered them with favor and protection when they complied and things went according to plan. For such a task there was no one more suited. But when things did not go as planned and God largely withdrew from the scene, Moshe was much less the ideal man for the job. His interests were not suited to the petty struggles and grievances that would subsequently become the more mundane lot of the Jewish people in the desert – all the more so since there is good reason to believe that God withdrew even from Moshe during this period. That Moshe nevertheless continued to be their leader forced his hand to try to do what he could. But try as he might, Moshe struggled to adapt to the circumstances in which he found himself. As the first major challenge since the watershed debacle with the spies, Korach’s rebellion was another early indication of Moshe’s difficulties in leading the people during this period.
+Earlier we mentioned that Moshe got caught up in the non-communicative style of Korach and his cohorts. Yet, even before that, Moshe appeals far too quickly and far too helplessly to God. No sooner does Korach present his (albeit rather shocking) claims, than Moshe falls on his face (Bemidbar 16:4). And things do not necessarily go uphill from there. Assuming that the dramatic showdown between Moshe and his opponents with the incense pans (see below) is Moshe’s own strategy, it does not seem to be very effective in getting Korach and company to back down or to get the people’s support. But even if we suppose that the Torah simply doesn’t reveal that Moshe is following God’s instructions here, Moshe’s own desperate petition that God not listen to his adversaries (Bemidbar 16:15) rings very strange: If his opponents are wrong (which would seem to be clear), why would Moshe think that God would listen to them? In this and throughout the rest of the story, we encounter a Moshe seemingly unprepared for the task at hand.
+Indeed, much of the rest of the book of Bemidbar is really about the transition of leadership from Moshe to Yehoshua; moving from the “ideal Bemidbar” of Mount Sinai to the “real Bemidbar” of the desert which culminates in the Jewish people’s entry into Israel thirty-nine years later. But this transition would take time, and would not be completed without Moshe’s increasing frustration with the people’s backsliding and his resulting inability to respond in an adaptive way.
+In light of the above, the timing was very opportune for a Korach, and as we discussed in our study of Bereshit, proper timing can go a long way in politics. Over there we followed Yehudah’s masterful ability to wait until his audience was most likely to listen to him, and saw how he used this to get the support of his father and brothers. It is not clear whether Korach waited for the right time or was simply lucky by being upset when everyone was also upset. In either case, it is obvious that the timing of his rebellion was certainly to his advantage.
+The Political Circus
+Obviously, one cannot completely explain away Korach’s rebellion just by pointing to its timing. If the people were generally despondent and unenthusiastic about Moshe’s leadership, that doesn’t yet create a rebellion. How did Korach seek to translate the post-spy malaise into the overthrow of the children of Israel’s faithful shepherd? The rabbis (Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 1-2, 7) answer this by detecting an active and popular political campaign going on here. Though this is not mentioned anywhere in the text, there are many hints to it.
+First, the narrative begins with the word “vayikach,” “And he [Korach] took,” an expression sometimes used for convincing others. We next read about a troop of 250 men who stand alongside Korach as he spews his venom at Moshe. A gathering of a relatively large group such as this can hardly be a spontaneous event, especially if it consists of members of the elite, as indicated by the text (Bemidbar 16:2) and further elaborated upon by the rabbis (Tanchuma, Korach 1.) Also of great significance is the popular slogan that Korach takes to Moshe; he claims that there is no need for Moshe to be the leader because the entire Jewish people are holy. Since Korach never ended up really pursuing this approach, we can easily attribute it to politicking (although this is an oversimplification which we will soon have to explain in more detail). Thus, we have several indications that Korach didn’t simply intend to present an idea to Moshe, but rather also sought to collect a following in the process. This constituency would in turn give more credence to his position, as well as put more pressure on Moshe to cave in to his demands.
+The above supports the contention that Korach worked hard to unseat Moshe. Moreover, the evidence points to Korach’s being quite successful in his efforts, as we read that God’s anger waxes against the entire people (Bemidbar 16:20-22). Although when he petitions God, Moshe claims they didn’t sin, they have to have done something to elicit such an outpouring of Divine wrath – and whatever it was, it was almost certainly connected to the rebellion. Even later, after God destroys Moshe’s opponents so dramatically and seemingly vindicates his position against Korach, we hear a popular outcry against Moshe. Whether the people took Korach’s side is not clear, but they certainly did not rally to Moshe’s side. Thus, there appears to be not only an astute political campaign going on, but one whose impact upon the people was maximized.
+We don’t know exactly what Korach said to convince others to join his cause. That he had arguments and made appeals that are not included in the Torah is almost certain. But what about the ones we do read about? Those few arguments (including the ones from Korach’s allies) focus on the legitimacy of Moshe’s leadership and his failure to deliver on the people’s expectations. These arguments likely won favor among many of the people, but are not strong enough to completely explain Korach’s success.
+Korach’s recorded and unrecorded arguments aside, he had the one great advantage that a challenger has over an incumbent: the ability to make almost unlimited commitments. Since he is coming without an established administration and will so need to create one, he can promise many things to many people. Accordingly, commentators suggest that Korach enticed the tribe of Reuven by intimating that he would give them back the power that should go with being the tribe of the firstborn. Such an approach surely bases itself on the likelihood of Korach’s promising political rewards to potential followers.
+Beyond timing and promises, Korach had yet another advantage: it shouldn’t be forgotten that Moshe was never a popular leader in the classic sense of the word. Just the opposite; he was the antithesis of a charismatic leader. Since he had never lived with the Jewish people before the Exodus (save for a few months as a baby), he didn’t know his coreligionists very well nor did they know him. Moreover, not only was he not a master orator, the opposite seems to be true, as there is no indication that the speech impediment we read about earlier in his career ever disappeared. Finally, if there was distance between Moshe and the people to begin with, it likely only grew as he took on nearly superhuman stature after going up to receive the Torah directly from God on Mount Sinai. Although he was represented by his more popular brother Aharon, and well-loved as the latter may have been, he was ultimately only a spokesperson for the leader and not the leader himself.
+Popular or unpopular, however, there had never really been an alternative to Moshe. God’s plan included Moshe as His designated leader, and thus for the Jews, he was “an offer they couldn’t refuse.” Central to Korach’s rebellion, then, was presenting himself as a plausible alternative to Moshe. Accordingly, one of the main points in his campaign was his credibility. We will turn to this next.
+The Candidate
+We have seen that Korach used a series of effective tools and strategies to stage his rebellion, which as a result had a strong foundation. Yet even so, God’s unique endorsement of Moshe leaves us with doubts regarding how Korach was able to get as far as he did. As disgruntled as they may have been with their lot in the wilderness, the children of Israel must have recognized that God was running the show. And to the extent that Moshe was seen as an extension of God, as it were, it should have been very difficult to unseat him. Korach must have known that so long as this God–Moshe connection was in place, he didn’t stand much of a chance. Truly, the key to Korach’s success would be his ability to convince the people that it was not God whom he was challenging but only Moshe and Aharon.
+In embarking on such an initiative, Korach certainly comes with the right credentials. Like Moshe, he is from the newly ascendant Levites and specifically from the Kehati branch, which was assigned the choicest task of carrying the holy vessels of the Tabernacle on the children of Israel’s journeys. Furthermore, as the rabbis point out (Bemidbar Rabba 5:1, 4), this task was considered dangerous for someone who could not maintain the appropriate frame of mind. Understandably, some take this as an indication that Korach was a truly holy man.This is partially the basis for the positive treatment of Korach found in R. Yitzchak Luria’s (the Ari’s) comments on Pirkei Avot 5:7 and in many of the Chassidic works that followed in his footsteps. As we will see even more clearly in Chap. Four, the Torah presents us with many complex characters, in order that we encounter devout and elevated people who nonetheless are capable of major personality flaws or tragic mistakes. He wasn’t merely playing the part, he was someone of weighty religious stature.
+We mentioned above that Korach’s complaint to Moshe was a populist one. Given the current discussion, what may be even more important than its populism is its religious language. He asks why Moshe and Aharon should dominate the Jewish people when God permeates the entire congregation (Bemidbar 15:3). Indeed, if the children of Israel were holy enough to hear God’s voice at Mount Sinai, why couldn’t they lead themselves? For a nation whose major raison d’être is its relationship with God, this is an appealing idea. The claim wasn’t that they were equal to Moshe but rather that they were all sufficiently self-aware and dedicated that they weren’t in need of his leadership. It certainly seems logical that one who has mastered the self-control God wants of him needs very little governmental supervision.
+Korach insightfully plays the religion card, knowing the children of Israel will not follow him otherwise. Yet, this need not be viewed as pure self-interest. At this point in Jewish history, religion and leadership (i.e., “church” and state) are strongly intertwined, and if Korach is to replace Moshe as the national leader, he will need to replace him in the religious realm as well. Indeed, the rabbis (Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 2) have Korach challenging Moshe with halachic arguments. Ostensibly, Korach isn’t challenging Moshe’s religious premises – Korach accepts the legal and theological order represented by the Torah – but rather what he believes to be Moshe’s erroneous interpretations. Korach can have no doubt that once he replaces Moshe, the very same questions he presented to Moshe will subsequently come to him. It follows that he must see himself as the next “man of God.”
+Even when the panicked children of Israel created the golden calf in their mistaken belief that Moshe had disappeared on the mountain, they were not looking to overthrow the religious system but rather to find someone else to maintain it. All the more so is Korach associated with the religious order that the Jewish people had so powerfully accepted at Mount Sinai, and thus was not thought of as bent on replacing it. For all intents and purposes, then, Korach fits the main part of the bill regarding what the Jews expected in a candidate for leader.
+Man of the People
+Even if we assume Korach had noble motives, there is no question that he also had what to gain if the rebellion succeeded. As its head, the glory that comes with leadership of a successful revolution would largely accrue to him. Hence, even if the public image he broadcast was one of a selfless servant of the Jewish people, there is room to wonder about his primary agenda. Was Korach really in this mostly for himself, or was he mainly seeking the benefit of all the Jews? We will never know, since Korach falls into a trap of his own making, as we will now describe.
+The great popularity Korach was able to garner in an apparently short time leaves us to conclude that he was a highly charismatic personality. The danger of an evil charismatic figure is obvious; Hitler’s charisma and the fall of Germany’s Weimar republic is only the most obvious example of recent memory. But even a good charismatic personality can be a problem. The charismatic individual’s easy successes teach him that he has the ability to convince others of his opinions and ideas without much effort. Even if he starts as a humble man who wants only to advance the group’s interests, he inevitably notices that his charisma has the potential to advance his personal interests as well. Moreover, the potential rewards are almost as limitless as the list of what other people can do for him. As such, it may be no coincidence that these seducers of the masses are often discovered to be seducers of women as well. Charisma can be a wonderful means for obtaining good and noble ends, but the strong moral will required to completely avoid the temptations available via its misuse is extremely rare.
+In view of the above, it is no surprise that Korach turns out to be less of a populist than first meets the eye. Moshe’s final proposal to him gives us a strong indication that Korach’s populist fervor has quickly dissipated, whether or not it was genuine to begin with. Moshe proposes a test to see whether he and Aharon or Korach and his deputies should be the leaders. Note that the idea implicitly put on the table by Korach, i.e., that each person could rule himself, does not even appear as an option. Still, Korach and his followers are quick to accept Moshe’s test, showing that, like many “men of the people,” Korach’s populist claims end up being a self-interested ruse that will only bring the replacement of one elite group with another.
+This is not to say that Korach had a selfish agenda when he first challenged Moshe. It may have been only an unconscious desire for power that Moshe had the wisdom to uncover. On some level, the real test was not Moshe’s proposal that God choose from among the incense-offerings and decide who should be the true high priest(s). The real test was the hidden one: whether Korach’s group would accept Moshe’s challenge to begin with. If Korach had been completely disinterested, he would have rejected Moshe’s proposal and replied that his group did not seek leadership, but were merely serving as the people’s mouthpiece. His failure to do so shows that, whether consciously or unconsciously, he liked the idea of the honor and power that would accrue to him if God chose his incense-offering.
+Though he may well have started as a humble man of the people, by the time Korach actually proceeds with his rebellion we see him lacking the requisite distaste for personal advancement that the Bible teaches us to expect from proper Jewish leaders. That his charisma may have made it difficult for him to maintain such a trait doesn’t change the fact that it was missing. No matter what else he brought to the table, his candidature for leadership would be flawed.
+The Absent Model
+We don’t know how the story would have ended up had Korach really sought to represent the interests of the people. The Torah does not give a verdict about it, perhaps because it does not believe in the plausibility of such a case. For a leader to truly represent the people is no simple matter. He can speak for the masses only if he is literally of them. The problem is that as soon as he steps up to assert leadership, he is no longer one of them.
+Certainly, history is full of great leaders who have sincerely sought to represent the masses and liberate them from the domination of the various power elites that have run societies in different times and places. Yet inevitably, they have ended up merely replacing one leadership with another. Sometimes there does come a leader who is significantly better than the one he replaced. But like all other leaders, he too, will fall short of truly representing a constituency of which he can no longer be a member.
+But what of the people? Are they inevitably to be duped by self-seeking, charismatic individuals? In the short run, the answer may unfortunately be yes. In the long term, however, such leaders usually have a short shelf life. Moreover, because their leadership is so intimately connected with their own personal charisma, their death almost always means the death of their regimes and ideas as well. Yet, even more common is for the public to become disillusioned when the often illusory expectations of such leaders remain unfulfilled. The masses may be easily ignited, but they are rarely blind. In the end, they become aware when their interests are all but ignored. Educated or not, all constituencies are willing to put up only so far with a leader who is ultimately uninterested in them.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+The story of Korach is an almost universal one. All political systems need to, inter alia, contend with the problem of personal charisma. For charisma gives a politician the possibility of bringing an entire system to its knees. More prosaically, it derails the smooth functioning of a state and brings about historical detours, some longer and some shorter.
+Korach shows us just what can happen to a society and to a leader as a result of the latter’s personal charisma. True, some of the greatest Jewish leaders were also charismatic and their charisma caused neither them nor their followers to stumble. That is why the appropriate response to charisma is not automatic rejection, but caution and levelheadedness, in order that it not unduly impact on our evaluation of leaders and their policies. Instead of the hysteria that it usually brings in its wake, charisma in leaders and candidates needs to give us pause.
+Charisma isn’t the only thing to be wary of. It is easy to be swayed by slogans that seek to seduce us with unrealistic expectations and flatter us with false compliments. Who doesn’t want to hear that he is holy and thus doesn’t need any leadership? Messages that are too good to be true usually are. Leaders know how easy it is to convince people with such messages. But a truly wise public will not expect these messages from proper leaders. It will seek a leader who takes honest but difficult positions rather than popular and easy ones.
+Finally, we learn from Korach that the public must distrust itself. This is not the same as divorcing itself from politics, since Jewish tradition does give the general public a political role to play. As others have pointed out, the important covenants made by the Jewish people with God and with their leaders were made by the entire people. Moreover, ordinary Jews are supposed to have access to their leaders and be represented by them on the political playing field. If the Korach story doesn’t warn against political activity per se, it does warn of the dangers that exist in allowing those easily swayed by personal charisma too much power in choosing their leaders. In that case, direct democracy – where all decisions are decided by the general public – may well be a recipe for disaster.
+The political disaster that nearly happened with Korach’s rebellion might have been necessary within the context of the desert preparations for running a genuine state in the Land of Israel. It would be far from necessary, however, in future Jewish regimes that would require the stability needed to truly advance the public interest.
+
+CHAPTER 4 The Book of Bilam; Of Subtlety and Subterfuge
+
+The gentile prophet Bil’am presents a great problem for many Jewish thinkers and commentators. Not because he is not Jewish and God still talks to him; there are many such individuals in the Bible. The real problem is that he is both a serious prophet as well as a villain. For many Jewish thinkers, this is inconceivable.
+To relieve the dissonance created by the Torah’s rendering of Bil’am, the most obvious choices are to deny either that he was a prophet or that he was a villain. Since God commands Moshe to take revenge against Midian partly on account of Bil’am (Bemidbar 31:16), and because his death comes at the hands of the Jews specifically as a result of this divinely commanded war against Midian, it is clear that he is no hero. His apparent willingness to curse the Jews does not win him points either. Hence, given Bil’am’s at best mediocre moral character, the main strategy employed by commentators is to strip him of his prophecy. The foremost example of this is Rambam, who writes that Bil’am’s communication with God was actually sub-prophetic, and even that was only sporadic.
+Of course, to say this is to deny the simple reading of the biblical text which shows Bil’am involved in extended and profound communication with God. But agenda-driven reinterpretations that deviate from the simple meaning of the text are not a problem in and of themselves. Almost all commentators offer such reinterpretations when the simple reading goes against what we believe to be an obvious truth or a fundamental belief. For example, when we read about God’s outstretched arm in Egypt, it is nearly universally understood to be metaphoric. And in the context of Rambam’s understanding of prophecy, for a villain to be a prophet makes as much sense as for God to have a hand.
+Yet Rambam and all who follow his reading of the text here might have chosen to ignore something quite important. The narrative of Bil’am is radically different from what comes before or after it in the book of Bemidbar. The way we generally approach the rest of the book – really, the rest of the Torah – may not be appropriate with Bil’am. In terms of the current discussion, our traditional beliefs regarding how prophecy works may need to be suspended, forcing us to actually contend with a “villainous prophet.”
+Specifically here, the Torah deals with a particularly complex character in highly unusual ways. It does so in order to teach things that seem not to be conveyable in “standard mode.” Our strategy here will be to address the story of Bil’am according to the simple reading of the text, without superimposing many of the usual assumptions we make about how to understand the Torah.
+The Book within a Book
+We have already mentioned that the book of Bemidbar is unique in that it can really be split into two books: the ideal version consisting of the preparations for settling the Land of Israel and the real version which deals with all the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people’s desert journey. But this is not the only division that the rabbis allude to in looking at the book. The Talmud (Baba Batra 14b–15a) also suggests that it contains a complete and autonomous narrative that really doesn’t belong in it – the story of Bil’am. Chronologically, of course, it takes place during the time period covered by Bemidbar, and that is ostensibly why it appears there. But in terms of almost every other factor that goes into the makeup of this story, it seems to be divorced from the rest of the book.
+Besides the distinct content of what the Talmud calls “the parasha of Bil’am,” its separateness from what comes before and after it is quite evident. While it is part of the general chain of events regarding the Jews’ preparations to engage with Moav, which occurs immediately after the Bil’am narrative, the story itself is nevertheless quite independent and self-contained, starting with its own proper introduction giving us the information needed to understand the rest of the story, and concluding with a classic ending in which all the protagonists return home. Also, for the first and only time in the Torah, the scene diverges from the Israelite camp or from their ancestors’ domiciles. We see instead the inner workings of an enemy encampment and the antagonists’ rather unusual strategy to confound the approaching march of the Jews. We have no similar descriptions of Pharaoh’s palace or the events going on in the Amalekite or Edomite encampment.
+To lend further credence to the rabbis’ view that the Bil’am narrative stands apart, the whole protracted story appears as one paragraph (parasha) according to the masoretic text. Though it is not completely unprecedented for such a large section of narrative to be presented as one paragraph, whenever it does happen, it is an obvious sign of inner coherence on the one hand, as well as separation from what precedes and follows it on the other.
+There is one more thing that separates this story from the rest of the Torah – Bil’am’s oracles. The Torah does occasionally go into a lyrical mode, but does so sparingly. And of the few lyrical sections that we do find, none have quite the same tone and content as the ones we find in what we could now entitle “The book of Bil’am.” Truly, his oracles seem to gush forth from a semi-magical, inspired trance, which we see more commonly in pagan documents of the time. Granted, these types of visions are not so different from some of the later prophecies that appear in the Bible, but the particular flavor of Bil’am’s oracles as well as their placement specifically in the Torah as opposed to the later books set them apart.
+If it is now clear that this section of Bemidbar stands alone, we must now ask what it is about this story that creates the need to treat it in such an unusual way. More than anything else, Bil’am’s is the story of an apparently powerful, yet comic gentile prophet who tries to find a way to curse the Jews, even though he knows that God is against it. His laughable antics notwithstanding, the Torah seems particularly interested in him, giving full coverage of both his story and his rather lengthy prophecies. By doing so, the Torah showers him with more attention than any other gentile prophet ever, with the exception of the early central figures in the book of Bereshit who predate Judaism.
+The rabbis (Bemidbar Rabba 14:20) go even further, claiming that Bil’am was a prophet equivalent to none other than Moshe himself. They make this observation as an interpretation of Devarim 34:10, a verse proclaiming Moshe’s lack of equals among Jewish prophets. The fact that the rabbis interpret a verse that speaks so highly of Moshe as the basis of comparison with none other than Bil’am underscores their surprisingly lofty evaluation of him, and makes it clear that Bil’am’s comparison with Moshe is not just to a generic, interchangeable Jewish prophet but rather to the unequaled master of all Jewish prophets. Presumably not meant to be a complete evaluation of the consummate gentile prophet, the rabbis’ assessment of Bil’am nevertheless reminds us to study his role much more seriously than we might have otherwise.
+In light of the above, we can conclude that Bil’am is a force we need to reckon with. Otherwise, Rashi’s opinion that the Bil’am story has no obvious place in the Torah becomes a very strong question indeed: if it has no integral place in the Torah, why is it there? Divine or otherwise, every book requires a certain editorial integrity; what belongs in the story is included and what does not is not. True, the Torah has to do more than tell a story. It must provide the Jewish people with all the basic information regarding understanding their mission and how to put it into action. Everywhere else, the Torah manages to do this within the narrative and on its own terms. For the Torah to alter its editorial policy only in this case means that there is something of great significance here, something intrinsically tied to the Torah’s purpose. We must now try to discover what that is.
+The Comic, Serious Contender
+We have no choice but to conclude that there was something about Bil’am’s allure that the Torah felt it needed to address. But it is not only the prophet’s appeal – sinister or otherwise – that creates a need to tell his story. Bil’am’s character is nuanced, neither purely evil nor purely good, and thus the Torah can’t treat it with simple teachings that need only to be reinforced by related laws. Deconstructing Bil’am requires the educational narrative that is his story, in order for us to understand and internalize the shortcomings of his approach.
+Other biblical narratives concerning the more blatantly flawed spirituality embodied by idol worship were written primarily for historical reasons, because Jews succumbed to such beliefs and practices. Even then, most treatments of paganism in the Bible, whether practiced by gentiles or by Jews, are more parody than anything else. The tirades with which the prophet Eliyahu lambasts his pagan foes summarize the Bible’s general attitude. When he asks the pagan priests whether their deities are taking a nap or are on a journey (I Melachim 18:27), he is mocking those that put their trust in unreliable spirits with whom they have no real communication. The Bible feels that such people and their priests are not worth taking seriously. And although Jews may have succumbed to polytheistic paganism and the worship of idols for all sorts of sociological reasons, their education in monotheism prevented the deeply serious Jew from being led astray.
+The attraction of Bil’am, however, is different. It seems that the Torah was concerned that his approach to religion could in fact lead even serious Jews astray. Given Bil’am’s claim to true prophecy – a prophecy that was sometimes even more powerful than Moshe’s – the Jews needed to know why they should follow their true prophet and not his rival. Their messages were different, and it was imperative that the Torah of Moshe not be confused with the “Torah of Bil’am.” Yet, as we will discuss, there were enough similarities between the two prophets that the Torah could not write off such confusion as only a marginal threat.
+Bil’am’s speeches show that he, like the Jews, accepts the supreme place of the universal God. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he denies other spiritual powers, but it does mean that he appreciates that it is the Torah’s God Who is at the center of the universe and its workings. This is a far cry from the typically polytheistic paganism represented by Pharaoh’s famous cri de coeur, (Shemot 5:2) “Who is God that I should listen to His voice?” Pharaoh wasn’t denying that the Jews came with their own God, he was denying His universality and superiority, effectively saying, “I have my own god, thank you!” This notion of national gods, lacking any absolute hierarchy, is satirized by the famous midrash (Bereshit Rabba 38:13) that has Avraham telling his father that one idol destroyed another during a fight. In any case, for Bil’am to recognize the power of God and to be able to approach Him in such a way as to reveal His will through prophecy must have come from great ability and sensitivity. It must have also reflected deep, spiritual insight.
+Even the differences that do exist between Bil’am and a prophet such as Moshe are more subtle than we might initially think. In fact, a superficial reading of the Bil’am narrative would likely reveal more similarities than differences. Like Moshe, Bil’am understands that God is in charge and that it is pointless to make any move without Divine approval. Like Moshe, he sings the praises of the Jewish people and their ultimate triumph. And again like Moshe, Bil’am doesn’t always take God’s word as final, understanding that He allows for some human input into His plans.
+But a careful reading shows that these similarities are grounded in radically different attitudes toward God. To understand this, we will now move beyond the superficial comparisons with which we started and turn our attention to the details of this self-contained saga.
+Talking Donkey and Schizophrenic Angel
+The story of Bil’am begins with various delegations inviting him to Moav to bring a curse upon the approaching Jewish nation. Here we will note only Bil’am’s persistence in trying to figure out a way to go to Moav, even while his chances for success on this mission appear to be close to zero. As we delve further into his personality, a better understanding of this strange behavior will emerge.
+Most revealing in Bil’am’s story is the next part, wherein he embarks upon the trip to Moav riding his donkey. After Bil’am hits his donkey for refusing to march forward, the donkey suddenly talks back to him (Bemidbar 22:28). This rather strange event has caused much commotion among readers of the biblical text. Many commentators have been perplexed – perhaps even vexed – by the conversation Bil’am has with his newly talking donkey.
+On some level, it is peculiar that commentators who are not bothered by much greater biblical miracles such as the splitting of the Sea of Reeds or the sun’s standing still are bothered by the veracity of the talking donkey story. Yet, there is something fairy-tale-like about such a lowly creature speaking like a human being. This surrealistic encounter was certainly meant to disturb the reader, if not necessarily to make him question whether it truly occurred. After all, we don’t read about talking animals anywhere else in the Bible (with the exception of the primordial serpent which one is hard-pressed to really see as an animal). It feels as if this miracle is coming from another tradition outside of the Bible. (However, given that this is a self-contained narrative, we should not be so surprised that it includes exotic elements such as this.)
+It seems as if the Torah wants us to react with a certain amount of disbelief; not in the sense that this miracle is so difficult, but rather in the sense that the reader is befuddled that the narrative would interject something so fantastic in the middle of an ultimately mundane story, the likes of which are so common in the Bible. But that is precisely one of the major points here: Bil’am completely misses recognizing the abnormal nature of the occurrence, continuing with what had been a regular flow of events. In spite of the miraculous and utterly bizarre event to which he is privy, he continues riding as he engages the donkey in conversation. His insouciance, however, only underscores the power of this unusual narrative.
+It is plain that the Torah is describing this turn of events in a way that will give the reader pause. But why is Bil’am so blind to his donkey’s unnatural verbal ability that he is comfortable speaking with it, and conversely, why is he so blind to the larger context of the story, i.e., God’s displeasure with his mission?
+Bil’am’s (usually metaphorical) vision is a recurring theme in his own prophetic utterances. He refers to himself as the one “whose eye is opened” (Bemidbar 24:3, 15) and “[who] sees the visions of God” (Bemidbar 24:4, 16) – and yet, he doesn’t “see” what is going on when his own donkey opens its mouth. And as a pattern within a pattern, neither does he see the mystical vision of the angel blocking his path (which his donkey ironically does see, and is the reason that he refuses to march forward). For a prophet, who really does “see,” to be able to miss so much is at the very least a paradox. Then again, so is Bil’am’s spirituality, but more about that later.
+In brief, what we see here is that although Bil’am might have had crystal-clear vision when it came to what he thought was important, his vision could also be heavily obstructed by extraneous, personal considerations. In this narrative, his desperate and single-minded determination to fulfill an ill-fated mission blocks his ability to even notice what should have been an extremely strange and disturbing incident. He didn’t lack the ability to see everything, he simply didn’t use it because of self-imposed limitations.
+Yet Bil’am doesn’t block out everything standing in the way of his goal. He saw that God didn’t want him going to Moav to curse the Jews, and he saw that God did want him to bless them. But if we pay closer attention to what draws his attention and what doesn’t, it appears that something more complex is at play. When God originally told Bil’am not to go to Moav and not to curse the Jewish people, this was fully expected. As a result, Bil’am “heard” it. What was not expected, however, was that after God finally sanctions his mission an angel would block that path for him. Even though God “changed His mind,” as it were, about letting Bil’am go, this too was part of a familiar pattern. Appeasing God was among a prophet’s major tasks, and once achieved, God would bestow His clemency. But God’s sending a messenger to obstruct Bil’am’s path did not have a place in his view of how things were supposed to work.
+From the above, we can reasonably determine that Bil’am was uncomfortable with anything that defied his expectations. Of course, this is a very human trait – it is quite common to deny something that is out of line with what we have come to expect. But by not allowing God to surprise him, Bil’am becomes a foil for one of the Torah’s most central doctrines, the notion of chiddush (novelty). So although Bil’am possesses a spirituality that includes awe of God and the ability to see the beauty of His works, he lacks the ability to learn from that which falls out of the expected patterns.
+Not surprisingly, this is very much in line with the religious culture of Bil’am’s time. The paganism that had all but carried the day was a doctrine that followed certain patterns. Pagans worshiped spiritual forces, both out of awe as well as out of self-interest. On the face of it, the new religion of the children of Israel did not appear to be so different. Yet, there was a crucial difference between the two, and that was that the Jews were expected to learn new things that they didn’t anticipate, and to radically change in response. This idea is already brought to the fore by Avraham when he uproots himself from Ur Casdim and follows the highly unconventional path that God dictates to him. At the time of the Exodus from Egypt, when the Jews encounter the miraculous events there and in the desert, they too learn (though not always successfully) to respond to the new conditions God presents them with. Hence, the idea was precisely not to approach monotheism as a “business as usual” type of religion. And critical to this was a willingness to be confronted with and adjust to the new and the unexpected.
+If all this is true, however, then why is Bil’am so willing to hear his donkey talk? Wasn’t this also beyond his expectations, or is it merely a question of his incredibly strong focus on the task at hand? It may well be that the latter is the case, but there might be another reason for his obliviousness to this bizarre occurrence. As noted, the donkey’s speech is unique in the Bible. However, in pagan mythology, talking animals are not at all uncommon. While Bil’am became a great prophet of God, his roots were in the pagan world of magic and sorcery. The Bible even tells us on more than one occasion that Bil’am himself had been involved in sorcery (nor is it obvious that he had completely given it up). As an erstwhile practitioner of strange pagan magic, then, it would not have surprised him to hear his donkey speak.
+In any case, Bil’am’s inability to “see” the unexpected is just one weakness in the “Torah of Bil’am.” And although it might not be the only one, it may still end up being at the root of everything else; one can grow only to the extent that he can learn, and one can learn only to the extent that he is open to novelty. The narrow parameters of Bil’am’s comfort level stunted further growth and ultimately prevented him from equaling his rival, Moshe.
+The Donkey Redux
+If, as previously mentioned, the rabbis find hints in the Torah of Bil’am’s greatness, it does not prevent them from noting his all too human weaknesses as well. In this regard, we need to look more closely at Bil’am’s donkey. We have already explored one aspect of its central place in our story, but there is another, somewhat more hidden aspect of the donkey episode to which we will now turn our attention.
+In the Bible, men generally ride male donkeys (chamorim). Bil’am serves as the only clear exception to this by riding a female donkey. That this is not simply a coincidence is made quite clear via the Torah’s constant repetition of the word for a female donkey (aton) throughout the story. The rabbis (Avoda Zara 4b) suggest that, together with another hint that they find in the text, the Torah is telling us that Bil’am would actually cohabit with his donkey.
+If the rabbinic interpretation above seems outlandish, there is a reason that other biblical men ride male donkeys. No matter how base, it is likely that sharing the journey with a female animal would provide sexual temptation for many pagan men on long journeys. Moreover, even if a man were not tempted, he would likely be under a presumption of guilt by others. And at the very least, the mere general assumption of temptation toward such an act, even without its consummation, would be a discredit to a man of God. The rabbis cannot accept that someone of Bil’am’s stature would not have been aware of this, and thus need to explain his unusual choice of a female donkey.
+Some have suggested that bestiality was part of ancient pagan practice. Were that to be the case, it could provide a reasonable explanation for the strange sexual behavior that the rabbis ascribe to Bil’am and to which the Torah may be alluding. Certainly, many pagan cults included performing ritual sexual acts, but if bestiality was among them, it is not well documented. Moreover, it was clearly not a universal rite, so that it becomes somewhat speculative to suggest that Bil’am’s ostensible cohabitation with his donkey was due to some pagan ritual. Thus the rabbinic claim is likely more a castigation of Bil’am himself and not of his vestigial association with paganism.
+Yet the rabbis may just be using a dramatic way to illustrate the impropriety of traveling with a female donkey. A man of God, even if completely virtuous, who is not concerned about his reputation, is ultimately not concerned about God’s. The notion of chilul Hashem, the desecration of God’s Name by the crimes and misdemeanors of those associated with Him, is a well-developed rabbinic theme. In fact, chilul Hashem is sometimes described as the worst of all sins. Bil’am’s lack of sensitivity to this aspect of Divine service is an indicator of so great a flaw that it needs to be described in the most extreme of terms.
+Alternatively, as suggested above, Bil’am’s remaining connection with the pagan world may be the main target of the rabbinic critique here. The talking donkey is used as a broader symbol of pagan culture. For its part, sexual relations represent the most intimate connection that one can have with someone (or something) else. Indeed, it can symbolize all sorts of connection, but the main point is clear: even as Bil’am is a Divine prophet by the light of day, he is still intimately connected to paganism under the cover of darkness.
+Such a connection is entirely consonant with what we now know historically. Ancient documentary fragments unearthed in Jordan in 1967 mention someone called Bil’am ben Be’or, a seer who had great powers. It is highly unlikely that this is not the very same Bil’am that we know from the Torah. But the Bil’am in these fragments speaks about, and to, many gods. None of this need be surprising, since the fragments could be speaking either about an earlier period in Bil’am’s life, or, if he didn’t leave paganism completely, even about the period mentioned in the Torah’s narrative.
+As with Avraham, there is no reason to believe that Bil’am was born or raised as a monotheist. The question is where his road toward some version of monotheism took him. To answer this, all we have to go on are the hints given in the Torah. The references to magic and the manipulative ways he relates to God certainly make us believe that even if he were to have moved away from the theology of idols and paganism, he did not completely move away from its approach. Accordingly, although Bil’am is generally not given any description beyond being the son of Be’or, in the book of Yehoshua we read that the Jews killed “Bil’am the son of Be’or, the sorcerer (Yehoshua 13:22)” – a severe final condemnation.
+In brief, whether the Torah is taking aim at its bizarre magical rites, its lowly sexual practices, or its trustees’ lack of sensibilities, the hybrid model of monotheism and paganism that Bil’am represents is certainly the target of the Torah’s criticism. On one level or another, Bil’am had not completely extracted himself from the world of paganism. Anticipating Eliyahu’s famous words at Mount Carmel (I Melachim 18:21), the Torah is telling us that when it comes to paganism, a choice must be made. To cling to any part of pagan thinking or practice is incompatible with serious devotion to God.
+Avraham and Bil’am: The Message and the Messenger
+Earlier we wrote about the positive similarities between Bil’am and Moshe. But Moshe is not the only biblical figure the rabbis consider when looking at Bil’am. In Pirkei Avot 5:19, the rabbis speak about Bil’am and Avraham, this time focusing on the differences rather than on the similarities. There is at least one strong reason to consider the two men together: both of them emerged from the world of paganism to recognition and worship of the universal God. But to what degree were these men able to perform the almost miraculous feat of leaving their pagan surroundings behind? A total split from their backgrounds would have been quite difficult; questioning the central values and practices of society is generally not a way to make friends! Yet it appears that this is exactly the path that Avraham takes, from the first lech lecha (“go forth”) away from his home and culture (Bereshit 12:2) to the last lech lecha to sacrifice his son (Bereshit 22:2) and make himself look crazy, even in the eyes of those whose respect he had won.
+Bil’am is also commanded by God to lech to a different land (Bemidbar 22:20), but only on his own initiative and only after God already denied his first request (Bemidbar 22:12). More important still is that as opposed to Avraham, Bil’am doesn’t walk away from idolaters but toward them. Hence, the effect generated by each character’s respective walk is diametrically opposed to the other’s.
+The difference between the two prophets’ walks is ironically highlighted by more similarities. The Torah makes a point of telling us that Bil’am walked with “shtei na’arav,” his two lads (Bemidbar 22:22), echoing the story of Avraham’s journey to sacrifice his son (Bereshit 22:3): both figures are men of stature who do not travel alone or even with only one companion. Moreover, the rabbis (Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 8) note that they both saddle their own donkeys, an action which seems to be below their station and thus can only be attributed to enthusiasm. But here too the comparison brings us to diametrically different conclusions about the two men. Avraham’s enthusiasm is to go on a mission from which he ostensibly has little to gain and everything to lose. But since this mission is God’s will, he understands that there is no greater good than doing it, all the more so when it is against his own desires.
+Bil’am’s alacrity signals the exact opposite. He is seeking to do what he alone desires even though God, as it were, has placed His own will to the side. True to form, Bil’am shows that he has not completely extricated himself from his roots; after all, paganism was a way to get the gods to do man’s will. One of the radical teachings of biblical monotheism is that true communion with a true God requires the opposite, which is most dramatically expressed in Avraham’s excruciating test with Yitzchak. By “pushing” God into going against His will, Bil’am shows that he doesn’t fully understand the ramifications of his own words about doing “everything that God says" (Bemidbar 23:26).
+If Bil’am doesn’t completely understand God’s ultimate expectations for man, his biography is not without its inspiring lessons. Certainly, one could draw an encouraging message for the individual from his saga. The individual is told that he doesn’t have to reach the heights of Avraham or Moshe to attain a deep understanding of God and a close relationship with Him. Bil’am shows that God doesn’t expect perfection or even near-perfection in order to make Himself available to man. Certainly, this doesn’t mean that creating a relationship with God is easy and open to anyone who simply wills it. What it does mean is that true spirituality is more accessible than we might think.
+Nonetheless, the message for society is quite sobering. The story of Bil’am shows us that we need to be aware that a true spiritual master can possess serious personal flaws. If so, we cannot let down our guard in front of just anyone who carries such a distinction. In other words, since not everyone who has been able to get significant insight into spirituality can be trusted unilaterally, a community must exhibit great care in choosing its religious leaders and teachers. The Torah doesn’t just leave it at this, but gives us practical guidelines as to how to find our way in this. The bottom line of these guidelines is to be wary of spiritual leaders who bear traits similar to those of Bil’am.
+In our study, we have noted several imperfections in Bil’am’s character as revealed by his actions. Were he to be a storekeeper, these imperfections could be overlooked. But given his prophetic powers, the rabbis put him in the league of men like Avraham and Moshe. In this company, the loftiness of its members’ vocation requires that they be more upstanding than shopkeepers. Since they represent God and translate His word, they need to be people whose lives are fully in line with God’s will. For them to be otherwise leads to mistakes on their part and disillusionment on the part of their followers. The rabbis (Chagiga 15b), in fact, distill this admonition into a more poetic recipe that faithfully reflects it. It is reported that Rav Yochanan told his students that one should learn Torah only from someone who resembles the ministering angels.
+By now it is clear that Bil’am’s disqualification as a true leader is primarily based on his actions. That being the case, we can understand that the Torah would want to hit hard at his behavior, even while remaining honest about his accomplishments and powers. Perhaps the strongest way in which the Torah does this is via our talking donkey. Returning one last time to this famous biblical passage, the fact that God makes a dumb animal speak is an obvious swipe at Bil’am, who, as many commentators pick up, is actually being compared here to a donkey. “God opened the donkey’s mouth” (Bemidbar 22:28) is not fundamentally different from “God placed words into Bil’am’s mouth" (Bemidbar 23:5). The opening of a prophet’s mouth – meaning the very act of prophecy – is as dependent on Divine intervention as is the opening of a donkey’s mouth. This could be said about any prophet, but it is not, and that is the vital difference.
+Via prophecy man can, and often does, reach the heights of spirituality and ethics. Yet even prophecy is not a sure conduit. The main point of the donkey’s speaking is that we shouldn’t let Bil’am’s truly great prophecies distract us. Instead, we should notice that in many ways Bil’am is no different from an animal. And lest we think that since he’s chosen by God we must ignore his shortcomings, the story shows that even a four-legged animal can be “chosen” by God.
+The proof of a spiritual leader’s integrity is not in this superficial chosenness but rather in the extent that this chosenness has transformed him. This is what ultimately made Avraham and Moshe our teachers and guides, not just because they were privy to God’s word. When a man fails in his spiritual mission, his similarity to an animal becomes highlighted. Thus not only is prophecy not a sure vessel to elevated human refinement, when it is not used to fulfill a person’s maximum potential, it can even turn into an obstacle allowing him to more easily attain his animal desires and thereby wallow in them.
+Just like Korach’s charisma discussed in the previous chapter, Bil’am’s prophetic knowledge can also easily be used for personal advantage. In Bil’am’s case, his knowledge of, as well as his ability to impact on the future could fetch a high price, which is of course made clear from the promise of great riches that Balak repeatedly holds under Bil’am’s nose. And again just as with charisma, the self-control needed not to misuse the gift of prophecy for personal advantage must certainly be very great indeed. The problem is that once misused, prophecy becomes commercialized and sullied, something the prophet tries to manipulate in order to please his customer. Perverting the gift of publicizing God’s word and will doesn’t raise the renegade prophet but rather brings him down even further.
+The Anti-Bible’s Place in the Bible
+The strange, pagan-like elements in the Bil’am narrative create the indelible impression that the story doesn’t belong in the Torah. (This echoes the earlier rabbinic observation that it is a “book” in its own right.) Indeed, for all intents and purposes, it is a pagan mini-document in the middle of one of the most anti-pagan documents known to man. While the main protagonist appears to be some type of monotheistic prophet, his values, customs, and behavior come right out of the pagan world. But Bil’am is only a proto-monotheist, a half-baked version of Avraham and Moshe. Moreover, the Torah purposely uses classic pagan behaviors to describe Bil’am’s life and personality, since it is imperative that we see his religiosity for what it is – an immature form of monotheism, easily exchanged for a bribe and often perverted by lack of true commitment. While adhering to monotheism is itself a step in the right direction, it is far less than what God wants from the Jews.
+Since Bemidbar is a book of preparation for living in an actual country surrounded – and sometimes even permeated – by paganism, it must inform the Jews of what to expect. In the Land of Israel they would meet compromisers, both Jewish and gentile, who would seek to moderate the monotheistic revolution by incorporating “inoffensive” pagan elements into it. As we will discuss further in Chapter Six, identity is almost never pristine. Foreign elements inevitably seep in from a given culture’s contact with others. One need only compare synagogue architecture with that of churches and mosques from the same time and place to see that this is the case. This is not a condemnation, as not all gentile religious forms need to be avoided. However, in the case of pagan culture, religion had become so debased as to require very radical surgery – if anything could be salvaged at all. In such a context, the Jews would need to be highly vigilant about the integration of any elements of pagan culture that might come their way.
+If we think deeper about the place of Bil’am’s story in the Torah, we can see that it closely resembles an inoculation. As with a vaccine, a small dose of the illness is released into a healthy body in order for the body to recognize it and build up defenses against it, should the body ever cross paths with it again. In terms of the biblical Jewish nation’s encountering compromises engendered by their proximity to paganism, this was far from theoretical. The Jews would repeatedly come across this dangerous threat through the many false prophets who would condone the worship of God via intermediaries and idols, and through priests and kings who would seek salvation in foreign religious practices.
+Inoculated though they might have been, however, the Jews would not always succeed in fending off these threats. An educational inoculation does not always work. Since there is much more of a human element at play, the Torah can only bring us to water but it can’t make us drink. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the Torah did its job. Through its teachings, it gave the Jews the means to contend with the Bil’am-style threats that they would encounter later on. Whether they would use them or not would be their own choice.
+Remembering Bil’am
+The children of Israel first encounter Bil’am in the famous Torah narrative discussed above. (Later in the book of Bemidbar, they encounter him again at the war against Midian.) They hear of a strange and powerful man who rivaled Moshe, but since they had no direct dealings with him, he was never seen as true rival of Moshe’s. Instead, he became the symbol of many potential religious rivals and alternatives that the Jews would face once they settled in the Land of Israel. Thus the story of Bil’am provided the Jews with a yardstick against which to measure all of their prophets, teachers and sages, as well as with an event by which to remember that the basis of a teacher’s standing lay not in their knowledge and power, but in their behavior and ethical conduct.
+It goes without saying that a teacher must have something to teach us, but unless a religious leader is also a holy man, he is intrinsically flawed. At best, his doctrines can be studied from the side and at worst he is to be pitied as we would pity a simple animal.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+At the beginning of this chapter, we mentioned how the story of Bil’am defies many of the Torah’s usual conventions, which alerts us that it would contain unusually significant teachings. One central teaching is that even proper desires which aim to bring us closer to God can mislead us. This is what is meant by the phrase “subtlety and subterfuge” in the chapter’s subtitle.
+When we get to this stage of the book of Bemidbar, we enter a gray, rather shadowy world. Gone is the clear light of Moshe’s Torah pushing away the darkness of evil and ignorance. In contrast, the “Torah of Bil’am” is a mixture of light and dark – a spiritual tohu vavohu (chaos) that we must enter long enough to understand its complex and confusing allure as well as its seductive danger.
+Our responses to the confusion created by Bil’am can be varied, however, and even what begins with light can end up in darkness. Whether it is following Bil’am as a model or wanting to study his “Torah,” or even going in the opposite direction and ignoring his existence, it can all come from very good intentions and end up leading us down the garden path. Any mistake we could make in any direction is subtle, and for that reason, all the more dangerous. Yet, precisely because it is murky, we must be more deliberate in coming to terms with the lessons from this story.
+In our study we saw that Bil’am refused to open his eyes to new patterns and messages. We also contended that this is far from limited to Bil’am. It is truly quite common, and likely something that we can recognize in ourselves. On a religious plane, resistance to the new is sometimes even made into a virtue. After all, religions are grounded in tradition, and a major role of tradition is giving value to the following of pre-existing patterns and behaviors. But that doesn’t mean that tradition is meant to smother all innovation. In the Bil’am story, we see that God can also be the source of innovation, which means that if a true religious tradition does not make room for innovation, it will shut itself off to part of the Divine. Likewise, a sincerely religious person can ill afford to shut his ears to what he might not expect or what he might not be used to.
+One could argue that this lesson is not transposable to subsequent generations, as Bil’am was not yet aware of God’s new Torah; today we have known it for thousands of years. Thus, there is nothing new to learn about man or God. One could argue further that even if there have been new lessons learned after the Torah was given, since we no longer have prophecy there is no longer anything new to which we have to pay attention.
+This would be true only if God’s teaching, once already given, was static. It doesn’t take much to realize the fallacy of this position. If for no other reason, new circumstances create new situations to which the Torah must be applied and which automatically cause us to understand it in new ways. But it is more than new situations that bring about the expansion and development of Torah. As mentioned above, the notion of chiddush, novelty, is part and parcel of the Jewish religious experience, both during and after the prophetic period. Throughout history, countless Jewish saints, prophets, and sages have enriched Judaism with their novel understandings and observations. On the most basic level, to ignore such innovations and to say that nothing has changed is to invoke Bil’am’s ultimately tragic mode of behavior.
+In the Modern period, receptivity to change within Judaism has become more complicated. In light of Reform Judaism’s use of changing social, economic, technological, and historical conditions as a premise for changing just about everything within Judaism, many Orthodox leaders responded by becoming much more hesitant about modifying anything at all. Yet, this should not be confused with a fundamental position about the workings of Judaism.
+Whether as individuals or as a community, thinking that what we did yesterday should repeat itself exactly today stunts us. It is like learning the same thing over and over again. At a certain point, it becomes rote – and at that point there is no more growth. It goes without saying that this hinders or even prevents our goal of religious development. This is what prevented Bil’am from growing, and if we aren’t careful it can easily prevent us from growing as well.
+But receptivity to unexpected novelty is not the only subtle lesson we learn from the Bil’am narrative. When we consider certain rabbinic scandals that have occurred in recent years, we are embarrassed to discover that like Bil’am, some of the rabbis involved in them were highly knowledgeable and accomplished men. The cognitive dissonance in such situations is great. It’s hard for us to understand how someone so infused with Torah knowledge can also be involved in such base immorality. Yet, the story of Bil’am teaches us that it is quite possible. In fact, the straight, simple reading of the Torah we have taken in this chapter indicates that Bil’am had a stronger connection with God than any contemporary rabbi. Accordingly, Bil’am’s failure tells us that no one is immune from baser instincts, and no one is immune to stumbling in them if they do not work on themselves.
+The biggest problem in this regard is that we tend to associate Bil’am exclusively with the gentile world. We expect our rabbis to be not among the “students of Bil’am,” but of the “students of Avraham,” and to follow exclusively the ways of the latter.
+If Bil’am teaches us the dangers of an imperfect spiritual guide, it is the sages who give us guidance concerning what we need to do in order to prevent stumbling in this area. While the first step is simply to be aware that the “Bil’am syndrome” can be present even among the Jewish people, still more important is to make sure that our appropriate thirst for Torah doesn’t allow us to forget our story’s central lesson: Someone who doesn’t live an exemplary life in line with the expectations of God is almost certainly not able to fully grasp His will as laid out in the Torah. If one nevertheless feels the need to study Torah from a “Bil’am,” it should be done with great care and caution. It requires awareness that these teachings need to be held in suspicion until we are sure that they were not tainted by their transmitters.
+The final lesson to take from our analysis is to note that the Torah took risks in presenting a pagan story right in the middle of one of its five books. It risked giving legitimacy to Bil’am’s pagan ways. After all, he is presented as someone who does get real prophecy and who is highly regarded by several nations. One might expect that the Torah would have denied Bil’am a platform and sought to belittle and qualify his prophecy – as we noted that many later Jewish commentators did. But the Torah is not afraid of the truths that rival claims possess; it would rather give us limited exposure to these claims so that we can better defend ourselves against them. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is not an effective strategy in the long term.
+As per our analogy of a vaccine, we see that the Torah took calculated risks. But lest we think that our application of this analogy is obvious and straightforward, we should not forget that vaccines are also dangerous. Too large a dose may be as bad as the illness itself. Too little a dose may not be effective. In the same way, exposure to competitive claims must be handled with great care, especially when we teach them to our children. Yet, not teaching about competing ideologies at all is to leave the next generation unprepared. The Torah teaches us how to steer the course between foolish overexposure that results in too little educational gain on the one hand, and a sheltering that cannot be sustained on the other.
+There are many who, out of religious zeal, would ignore anything positive to be found in the gentile world. Acknowledging the positive can be dangerous, prompting some to check out the competition, which may truly sometimes lead to attrition. But as Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe once recounted about the shock one yeshiva student experienced when he met some monks and found out that they were fine people, after being told otherwise for so long, too much sheltering or deliberate misleading can also have disastrous consequences. In terms of the Bil’am narrative, the Torah seems to say that there is certainly what to lose by concealing that there is good in the gentile world. If we are convinced of the truth of the Torah, we should not need to present every competitor as a straw man. Rather, being unafraid to compare our teachings to those of others means to present their strengths as well as their weaknesses.
+The children of Israel needed preparation for the “real world” they would encounter once they crossed the Jordan. We too have “real worlds” for which we need to prepare. Whether it is participation in academia, or in the workplace, or just exposure to what is transmitted though even the most careful of media, the Torah’s way is not to avoid all exposure and thereby to take no chances. For if victory in the short run comes at the expense of victory in the long run, it is a very illusory gain indeed.
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+CHAPTER 5 Reuven and Gad; The Two Lost Tribes
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+Having looked at some of the themes common to all the tribes, it is time to return to the Torah’s interest in their differentiation. Some tribes are barely mentioned in the Torah, and in those cases we will not attempt to create something from nothing. Instead we will concentrate on the many tribes that are described in ways that allow us to absorb concepts that the Torah seems clearly interested in our understanding. We will devote the remaining chapters of the book to those tribes.
+In Chapter One, we noted that the Reuven degel formation was made up of less successful tribes. While the story of Gad and Reuven’s request to settle in Transjordan stands at the center of the issue and thus begs our evaluation of it, there are several other reasons for God’s choice of specifically Gad and Shimon to complete Reuven’s formation. Since Reuven and Gad chose a common path, we will discuss them in this chapter. We will get back to the other member of the formation, Shimon – together with Levi – only in a later chapter.
+The Decline of Reuven
+As we discussed earlier, the Torah hints to the inferiority of the tribe of Reuven by placing his formation behind that of Yehudah, as well as by positioning him strategically in the various tribal listings such that even though he is the firstborn he is often not at the top of the list. We also pointed out that the decline of the tribe of Reuven parallels their progenitor’s earlier fall from leadership. In the book of Bereshit, Reuven seems to be tortured by the prospect of leadership. Understanding the responsibility that traditionally accompanies the firstborn but not having the requisite character, Reuven often responds to crises in a rash and emotional fashion. We see this when he tears his clothes and bemoans his own fate after returning to the pit to find Yosef missing. We also see it when, while trying to convince Ya’akov to let the brothers go back to Egypt, he offers his father the right to kill his own children if he comes back without Binyamin. And finally we see it in Reuven’s disgrace of Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant and one of Ya’akov’s wives. As a result, his father proclaims him to be as “instable as water.” Thus it follows that Ya’akov designates Yehudah, and to a lesser extent Yosef, to take Reuven’s natural position of leadership. Turning our attention to his descendants in the book of Bemidbar, we will not surprisingly note a similar ambivalence regarding leadership which ultimately leads to the tribe’s complete withdrawal from such a role. We will now see how this plays itself out.
+The only individuals from the tribe of Reuven that we know much about are Datan and Aviram, whose fame – or infamy – stems from their being among the major players in the Korach rebellion. Together with Ohn ben Pelet, they are described as bnei Reuven, sons of Reuven, a rather rare description of specific individuals within a tribe. This term stands out further because it appears right before the mention of other members of their party, who are described as bnei Yisrael. Some commentators note that the Torah is emphasizing Datan and Aviram’s tribal identity to explain why they objected to Moshe’s leadership. Quite simply, they had neither accepted nor recognized the transfer of leadership away from their own tribe – of whom they were leaders – to Moshe and the Levites. (Abarbanel even suggests that Moshe was prepared to make concessions to them in recognition of this, in his opinion, understandable claim.)
+The notion that these Reuvenite leaders are particularly disturbed by someone outside of their tribe holding the reins of leadership is reinforced by their emphasis on the leadership issue when they refuse to meet with Moshe. They ask rhetorically whether Moshe was to rule over them, in view of what they saw as a record of failure. Korach and his other followers, in contrast, had seemingly different, albeit related, concerns.
+As opposed to what he would say later, Korach’s opening demand that there be no leadership whatsoever likely resonated most powerfully with the Reuvenites. True, it would have also taken power away from the tribe of Reuven, but this might not have been as unwelcome to them as we might think, considering that it was not necessarily out of jealousy that they resented Moshe’s ascendance. Rather it was a constant reminder of their own incompetence, which was reinforced right after the affair of the spies. There, true leadership had been shown by the delegates of the ascendant tribes of Yehudah and Ephraim (Yosef) as opposed to Reuven.
+Any tribe taking Reuven’s place in leadership always reminded the tribe of their failure to execute that which was expected of them as the firstborn. From this perspective, then, abolishing any hierarchy could be a way to erase their shame. What we see here is a manifestation of an inner turmoil which no other tribe would have to deal with. Thus, their alliance with Korach’s original public stance comes as no surprise.
+It follows naturally, then, that once Korach moves away from his initial position of anarchy and agrees to a contest for the priesthood, Datan and Aviram separate themselves from his cause. That is why Moshe makes a separate appeal to them, only to be rebuffed by a stronger and more emotional tirade than anything we hear from Korach himself. In this, they remind us of the emotional instability that Ya’akov identified in their ancestor. Yet, what is most important here is that the Reuvenite leaders return to Korach’s first position, which reveals that their only real interest is in dethroning Moshe. Since they don’t view themselves as candidates for the priesthood, the proposed contest between the Korach contingent and Aharon will not help them. The only thing they are interested in is the complete abolishment of leadership – and with it, their shame.
+Moshe and Aharon held two types of leadership in the desert, that of the king and that of the high priest, respectively. As the contest for leadership from which Datan and Aviram distanced themselves was centered on the latter, it became an inner Levite affair between Korach and Moshe/Aharon. This should not surprise us, since the priestly rites had previously belonged to all firstborn males regardless of which tribe they were from. That means that this role had never belonged to Reuven. Hence, the fact that the test was over ritual leadership and not political and social leadership could also be a reason why Datan and Aviram were uninterested in the contest. Yet, this alone does not explain their behavior; why didn’t they ask for their own showdown over what did have meaning for them? It seems more reasonable to conclude, then, that Datan and Aviram were against the establishment of any new leadership – for them, Korach would be just as bad as Moshe. The pair’s concern was to pursue an exclusively negative campaign against the concept of leadership altogether. Once Korach and his adherents veered from this, they pursued the struggle on their own.
+It is tempting to see this approach as a key to the particular and peculiar punishment meted out to Datan and Aviram. As opposed to Korach’s followers, for whom the contest over the priesthood resulted in their being burned alive, Datan and Aviram, together with their constituency, were swallowed up by the earth – which was to leave no trace of them. On some level, this is an appropriate response to what the Reuvenites really wanted – an end to their shame. Neither is it so different from what eventually happened to the rest of their tribe: their withdrawal to the other side of the Jordan, tucked away in the southeastern corner of Jewish habitation and out of sight from the rest of Israel and its new leaders. One way or another, then, the fate of Reuven was essentially to disappear.
+As we continue in the story, we see still more evidence that Datan and Aviram’s claim against Moshe was based on his presumed usurpation of their tribal claim to leadership. As a sort of footnote to the struggle, the test involving the tribal staffs brings more testimony to what was really in question. Once Moshe’s other opponents, i.e., the 250 adherents of Korach who took part in the fire pan contest, had been killed, the prince of each tribe was told to lay his staff in the tent of meeting in order to see which one would miraculously bloom.
+The “staff test” is a clear sign that there was confusion in the camp regarding who should have the right to the national leadership altogether. Had it only been a question of which Levite should preside over the ritual service, this test would have been out of place. Rather, even though the earth’s swallowing up Datan and Aviram had already demonstrated to the Jews that Moshe’s leadership was divinely sanctioned, it wasn’t enough. Apparently, a new, intertribal test was required in which Moshe would need to be completely passive, since there were those –especially in the tribe of Reuven, presumably – who still contested his and his tribe’s leadership.
+It is worth noting that the next time the Levites take power by appointing one of their own as the political leader, i.e., at the time of the Hasmoneans, their action was criticized by the rabbis as a Levite usurpation of power that was reserved for the tribe of Yehudah. Still, the two cases are quite different. In the desert and into the early days of the Israelite commonwealth, political leadership had not yet been given to one tribe alone. Until such a situation emerged and the Davidic line would firmly consolidate the sociopolitical leadership for Yehudah, it could be taken on by anyone capable of the task, including the Levites. Accordingly, the Shofetim, the early political leaders in the commonwealth, came from many different tribes. This was likely the position that the other tribes accepted even when they were in the desert, but it was apparently not accepted by Reuven, whose opposition was coming from a position of assumed entitlement.
+Given Datan and Aviram’s enthusiastic support of Korach’s original call for political anarchy discussed above, the recalcitrant Reuvenites who survived them were no more interested in reclaiming the leadership for Reuven than they had been before. They too felt a guilt-induced inclination to protest its being taken by others, whether from one specific tribe or from any of them. Since the very notion of leadership reminded them of their own perceived failure and resulting anxiety, they would have been likely to protest almost anything having to do with leadership at all.
+Whether the tribe of Reuven desired their own leadership of the Jewish people or no leadership at all, their desert defeat and its subsequent confirmation via the staffs was a watershed event for their aspirations — or at least, for their pretentions to leadership. Since it had now been fully established that Reuven had no particular claim to the leadership, the tribe would need to forge a new identity in line with the changed reality. Although we don’t hear anything more about Reuven until nearly the end of the book of Bemidbar, when we do it appears that the transformation had indeed taken place.
+The next mention of Reuven, which narrates their decision to settle in Transjordan together with Gad, should be viewed as their formal abdication of any claims to leadership. Not only is this obvious from Reuven’s geographical separation from the other tribes, it is also indicated by the order of the two tribes that confront Moshe here. Many commentators note that as the head of the degel formation and the firstborn, Reuven should have appeared before Gad. While at the beginning of the Transjordan narrative we do find Reuven before Gad, immediately afterward and throughout the discussion between the two tribes and Moshe, we see Gad before Reuven. For these commentators, this means that Gad is the leader of the initiative and Reuven merely the follower. Below we will discuss how Gad came to such a position, yet still such a move is hard to imagine had Reuven not shrunk back, taking on a secondary role even within its own formation. One can actually imagine Gad doing the talking as Reuven sullenly watches, hoping for permission to be left in peace and isolation.
+Understanding the background makes us now more sensitive to the events that caused Reuven’s decline. Yet the firstborn tribe’s early exile, which we will soon explore, indicates that it did not fulfill its critical new task of showing humanity how to deal with frustration and disappointment. Not everyone is born for leadership, but everyone is born to fulfill a meaningful role. Figuring out that role can be a lifelong project, but dropping out is simply not an option.
+Gad – The Tribe of the Nouveau Riche
+In contrast to Reuven, we have little information about Gad beyond their request for Transjordan, and thus will have to work harder at looking for clues regarding their characteristics and motivations. Fortunately, the Transjordan narrative gives us much insight into them.
+We begin by noting the one verse of narration preceding the actual conversation between Moshe and the tribal leaders: “The sons of Reuven had much livestock, and the sons of Gad had very much.” We can understand this verse to mean that although Reuven also had much livestock, Gad had an unusually great amount. How the tribe of Gad amassed their property is an interesting point of conjecture, but more to the point is the clear interest they must have had in the accumulation of such wealth. After all, it is reasonable to assume that this type of unusual wealth did not come about without serious effort, and it is difficult to imagine any group putting out the necessary effort without a conscious interest in creating this wealth. Perhaps the sons of Gad saw this as preparation for settlement of the land, when material wealth would come in handy. Still, one needs to ask why Gad seems to have been the only tribe with such an interest. It is possible that others were also interested but simply didn’t succeed, but nevertheless, putting Gad’s tremendous wealth together with various other indications brought the rabbis to the conclusion that this tribe had an atypically materialist streak.
+In fact, it may not be so difficult to uncover the motivation for Gad’s likely materialism. Wealth has traditionally been the great equalizer. It is what has allowed those lacking in pedigree (aristocracy) or in accomplishments (meritocracy) to attain power and influence. Given Gad’s unusual assignment as the rearguard of Degel Reuven, and considering that it was the only tribe that stemmed from one of the maidservants to be in a formation with tribes descended from either Rachel or Leah, we should not be surprised that they wanted to find a way to gain some prestige. We can only speculate about the relationship between the tribes of Reuven and Shimon and the tribe of Gad, but it is likely that Gad felt acute social disparity and discomfort – all the more so since Reuven and Shimon had other weaknesses which they would have been able to camouflage by virtue of their pedigree. Hence, they may have emphasized this disparity in their relationship with Gad, who would have likely been conscious of it even in the best of circumstances.
+It is hard to know what is the cause and what is the effect of Gad’s being placed with Reuven and Shimon; meaning whether Gad was put together with them because the tribe had sufficient ambition to deal with the situation, or whether Gad’s ambition was a result of the association. But what is clear is that, like Reuven, the tribe of Gad had a reason to be at least somewhat uncomfortable with the role that it had been given. But here the comparison ends, for if Reuven had chosen the path of decline and isolation, Gad would attempt to raise itself up.
+Yet, if wealth is the easiest road to establish parity with aristocrats, it is not necessarily the only one. Moshe’s eventual blessing to Gad indicates that the tribe could have also tapped into its courage and military prowess that it had shown when offering to go from rearguard to vanguard in the fight for the Land of Israel. (Again we are assuming that what we hear from Gad and Reuven is coming primarily from Gad.) Yet, even if Moshe’s blessing strengthened the nobler tendency he saw in Gad, it apparently did not completely replace their materialistic streak. As such, his blessing might have paradoxically made matters worse, since prowess alongside materialism is a dangerous combination: the same courage used to settle conflicts on the battlefield can also be used to settle the many internal conflicts generally endemic to a materialistic society. It should therefore come as no surprise that the Talmud mentions the unusually high level of manslaughter in Gad.
+Menashe – Odd Man Out
+Before we turn to what actually happened when Gad and Reuven petitioned Moshe to settle in Transjordan, there is an additional character – albeit very secondary – who needs to be mentioned. One of the strange features of this story is Moshe’s inclusion of a section of Menashe together with Gad and Reuven in the Transjordanian settlement. It is an unusual and unprecedented move for three reasons: first, we have no indication that Menashe requested to live there; second, Moshe sends only part of the tribe over the Jordan, creating an unprecedented intra-tribal division; and finally, we have no real indication that Menashe would have fit in with the somewhat negative picture we have of Reuven and Gad.
+But things are never as simple as they seem. While Jewish history would generally bear out our conceptual dissociation of Menashe from Gad and Reuven, in truth the picture is more complicated. If Menashe doesn’t fit in with Gad and Reuven, neither is it a perfect match with the tribes of its own degel – nor with any of the other tribes for that matter. But we will need to hold off on this until the next chapter, where we will discuss the turmoil Menashe experiences determining the fate of its inheritance. There also, we will try to get a better handle on that tribe’s unique character. It is only then that we can get to the bottom of Menashe’s association with the other Transjordanian tribes.
+In the meantime, however, it might be helpful to follow Netziv’s approach – at least its general contours. Netziv speculates that Moshe sent Menashe to Transjordan in an educational and watchdog capacity, to try to raise the shaky spiritual state of the other two tribes. While Netziv’s reasons for finding Menashe capable of such a role may be speculative, his assertion that they were settled there for completely different reasons from Gad and Reuven is hard to contest. Thus, whatever insights about Menashe that we will discover in our next chapter, they will primarily be in contrast to the new partners Moshe gave the tribe. In the meantime, our study here will continue to focus only on Gad and Reuven.
+Now that we know more about our protagonists, we are in a better position to fully understand the near-debacle launched by Gad and Reuven’s request to settle in Transjordan. It is true that on some level the entire Reuven formation was a powder keg; a disaster waiting to happen. That means that the problem was not limited to Reuven and Gad but extended to Shimon as well. We will discuss the threat from Shimon and its mitigation later in the book. In the following sections, however, we will look more carefully at what happened with Reuven and Gad and how the federalist approach we discussed in Chapter One was already able to reap dividends for the Jewish nation at this crucial juncture in its history.
+Israel and Jordan
+The symbol of Menachem Begin’s Irgun militia and other similar organizations includes a map of what is now Israel and Jordan. The map makes the point that the Jewish nation’s ancient homeland included both sides of the Jordan River. And yet, correct as this claim may be, this territory – named by its relationship to Israel (Transjordan = across the Jordan) – has always held a problematic place in Jewish history.
+The territory to the east of the Jordan River was not designated as part of the original Promised Land. It was neither where the forefathers sojourned nor inhabited by the seven Canaanite nations that God planned to expel. Rather, it became part of the Jewish homeland as a result of a rather unusual turn of events: the land’s inhabitants were vanquished after trying to attack the Jews. The default expectation, however, was that the Jews would continue their march on to their own homeland on the western side of the Jordan while other nations would eventually take the place of the vanquished peoples on the east. Instead, the tribes of Gad and Reuven requested to settle it, ostensibly to find ample grazing for their livestock. While initially taken aback, Moshe eventually grants it to them with the stipulation that they participate in the war of national conquest on the western side of the Jordan. Even from this thumbnail sketch we see that the hasty annexation of these lands lacks the pedigree evident in the settlement of the Land of Israel proper. When we focus on the details, however, we will truly appreciate the actual ambivalence of the Jewish tradition toward this territory.
+Moshe’s conversation with the leaders of Gad and Reuven is not an easy one. To say that he is initially upset with their request would be an understatement. Perhaps most significant is Moshe’s allegation that Gad and Reuven are a new version of the infamous spies whom we know from Chapter Two. The reader will recall that it is they who caused the Jews to remain another thirty-eight years in the wilderness, as well as almost the entire adult generation of the time to die during that period. As we discussed at that point, there is reason to describe this as the worst calamity suffered by the Jews in the desert, and perhaps in all of Jewish history. To compare Gad and Reuven with the spies, then, is to place the strongest of accusations at their doorstep.
+Upon reflection, it is difficult not to share Moshe’s surprise at the audacity of Gad and Reuven’s request. Especially in view of the incident of the spies, the centrality of the Land of Israel should have been so clear as to make their request only slightly short of heresy. Moreover, the wording of their request, “Do not bring us over the Jordan,” sounds as if they may well have been rejecting the Holy Land which the spies had rejected earlier.
+As mentioned earlier, the book of Bemidbar is really made up of two separate strands, the second of which begins only with the Jews’ first complaint at the beginning of Chapter 11. Before that point, we see only the “ideal Bemidbar” of the Jews preparing to enter their land. From that nondescript complaint on, however, the “ideal Bemidbar” moves over to share the limelight with the “real Bemidbar,” which describes the obstacles and challenges that meet the children of Israel along their way to the Promised Land. When we look at the latter strand, we see that the narrative of the spies (Chapter 12ff.) and the narrative of Gad and Reuven (Chapter 32ff.) – the two challenges to the land’s desirability – serve as near bookends. More than this, they can be viewed as the first and last major events of the “real Bemidbar.”
+The symmetry of the two stories in question is buttressed by the converse ratios of tribes that are “pro-Israel” to those that are “anti-Israel.” In the episode of the spies, only two tribal leaders encouraged the march over the Jordan. In the episode of Gad and Reuven, however, this is turned on its head, as only two tribes voice resistance to the march forward. In the same way as the rabbis noted the strength represented by the number ten in the case of the spies, one could equally point to the force of the ten tribes that register no interest in the words of Gad and Reuven here. Given this artful setup, it appears that the Torah wants us to note the contrast between these two bookends and appreciate how the contrast came about.
+We can now understand that when Moshe calls Gad and Reuven the descendants of the spies – a phrase he repeats for emphasis – he is tracing the history of a critical sociopolitical movement which defines much of the “real Bemidbar.” Moreover, the very denouement of the entire book of Bemidbar and the Jews’ final readiness to enter the land is largely related to the withering of the movement the spies first set into motion.
+It is important to realize that the bottom line of the anti-Israel movement is resistance to God’s plan for the Jewish people. Its adherents are looking for a way to exclude themselves from a Divine trajectory for which they do not feel prepared. Being that the aim of the spies was to counter God’s plan, we understand why He had wanted to wipe out the Jewish people when they followed the spies’ lead. In response to Moshe’s plea, however, God settles for the destruction of that generation only and not their children. For his part, Moshe likely realized at that point that his new and central challenge was to educate the children to think differently from their parents regarding the Divine plan.
+In the ensuing years, Moshe is largely successful in his educational strategy. Still, thirty-eight years later, when the story of Gad and Reuven takes place, Moshe learns that he had been only partially successful with the new generation. Although most of the tribes adapted to the desired new mentality, two tribes had maintained the lineage of the “tarbut anashim chata’im,” the culture of sinful people.
+Following this line of thinking, Moshe’s accession to Gad and Reuven’s request – with certain conditions – is not based on approval or even agreement but rather upon resignation. He comes to terms with the fact that he can’t totally subdue resistance to God’s plan in his lifetime. Instead, he holds up Gad and Reuven only to a standard of basic decency, which had been his first claim against them when he said, “How could it be that you will desert your brothers in their fight over the Jordan after they helped conquer your new land on this side?”
+Yet Moshe’s resignation actually reveals the near-complete success of his educational project. He has experienced only partial failure in the face of overwhelming success. At the end of the day, he was able to quarantine the danger, limiting it to just two tribes and putting them on the defensive as well. And he could have done so only if the rest of the camp was basically on board with him. Thus, even assuming that Gad and Reuven’s petition was a threat equal to that of the spies, it wouldn’t compromise the nation’s mission. And now that the threat had been defanged, Moshe (and God) could afford to be more indulgent.
+If Moshe is more forbearing with Gad and Reuven, still it doesn’t mean they got off scot-free. One could argue that Moshe was telling them: “It’s only appropriate that you get what you asked for – an inheritance outside the Holy Land. Indeed, just as your spiritual fathers, the spies, were not allowed to inherit the land, you will suffer the same fate. But whereas they received this decree as a Divine punishment, you will be getting it at your own request!”
+It is truly interesting to contrast the punishment of the spies with the punishment/reward of Gad and Reuven. We know from the book of Bereshit that there are two ways to get rid of troublemakers: death and banishment. Whereas the spies get the former, Gad and Reuven get the latter. As in Bereshit, and indeed in general, the decision between banishment and death is often made according to the relative threat of the opponent in question. In the case of Bemidbar’s bookend narratives, the spies actively tried to convince the rest of the nation, whereas Gad and Reuven did not. Although the Jewish people were likely to be more convincible at the time of the spies and Moshe was less prepared for their threat, their campaign to win over the rest of the people remains the bottom line there. Exerting influence is a double-edged sword. For those who do it for a good purpose there is almost no limit to their reward, but for those who misuse it, as Korach and the spies did, the opposite is equally true.
+Knowing, however, what we know about Gad and Reuven, we can surmise that their lack of a campaign to convince the other tribes was based not only on lack of opportunity. As opposed to the spies who were from the leaders of all the tribes and presumably influential men, the tribes of Gad and Reuven did not carry much weight and, given this reality, were more focused on themselves. (To some extent and as we will soon note, all the tribes were now more focused on themselves than they had been earlier in the journey.) Thus, when they asked for Transjordan, they were not looking to persuade others. They were really in it only for themselves.
+Yet, even if Gad and Reuven did not have the same interest as the spies in winning over others to their cause, it doesn’t take away from the importance of the common ideology at play between the two groups. Even if it was Moshe that associated the two renegade tribes with the sin of the spies, it could be that the spy incident was even more intensely on the minds of Gad and Reuven than on his. As discussed above, these tribes were coming with a great ambivalence to the role in which they felt they had been placed. Reuven was a fallen leader who simply wanted to dissociate itself from the rest of the nation, and Gad had expended most of its energies into building its wealth and status, which would not carry much weight in the context of the Jews’ ultimately spiritual mission. Neither tribe would likely be motivated by the prospect of new adventures that would no doubt mark the settlement of the Promised Land – all the more so if its conquest required both spiritual discipline and physical sacrifice. They knew that the Land of Israel was supposed to be different; its purpose was to enhance their connection to God. Gad and Reuven likely felt that they would not have much success with this focus, just as the children of Israel felt they would not meet with success in the Holy Land after the spies brought back their report. To Gad and Reuven, the spies might have been seen in a quasi-heroic light, as men who tried to derail a spiritual adventure, the pursuit of which did not interest them.
+If we are correct in our understanding of Reuven and Gad’s mindset, Moshe’s campaign to educate the rest of the new generation to reject the scouts’ ideology must have only alienated the two renegade tribes even further. The result of Moshe’s efforts was that they had no one to turn to for sympathy. Such an atmosphere drew them into their own shell, which they could now manifest physically by remaining across the river, away from the other tribes. The separation turned out to be so great that it fostered a complete lack of trust between the tribes on one side of the Jordan and those on the other. This is painfully apparent only one generation later when Reuven, Gad, and the Transjordanian section of Menashe are wrongly accused of worshiping idols and threatening the entire Jewish people with Divine retribution. Even more disturbing, the accusation is immediately accompanied by an undisguised threat to go to war against them. In response, the Transjordanian tribes explain that the monument they built, and which was the source of the suspicions, was created so that the other tribes would not forget that these tribes, too, are part of the Jewish nation. More serious than the negative impression the Transjordanian tribes had clearly made on the others, they clearly anticipated a time when they would not even be viewed as Israelites!
+Getting back to our story, when Reuven and Gad came to Moshe they were unsure of his reaction, but they must have known that they could not expect sympathy for a cause he himself had fought so strongly against. Their hope must have been to get Moshe to allow them to chart their own course, to create a mini-state with values slightly different from the rest of the children of Israel. With the threat that these two tribes might infect the others already moot as their lack of influence showed, perhaps Moshe would allow for such a project. In the end, and with certain caveats, Moshe did just that. But what they didn’t realize was that by doing so Moshe was really expressing his complete opposition to their ideology. By letting them split off, he was allowing them to choose the poison that they had so badly wanted . . . far from the main populace.
+Given what we have seen, we should not be surprised that the rabbis are highly critical of Gad and Reuven, and point out that their “rush to inherit land is connected to their being the first to be disinherited.” Though property and livestock is a blessing that God wants to bestow on His people, there is a time and place for everything. Rushing toward material wealth in the desert represents a lack of proper focus. This is presumably what allowed the two tribes to acquire more livestock than the others, who were likely preparing for entry into the Land of Israel in more rarified ways. To draw a contemporary analogy, to check one’s investment portfolio on Yom Kippur can only reveal a gross lack of perspective.
+Putting too much emphasis on wealth is likely to lead to other mistakes as well. Certainly it is a great mistake to trade God’s land for another, no matter how good the latter; even the early, secular-dominated Zionist Congress was not prepared to take the British offer of Uganda as a more practical substitute for their ancestral land. For Reuven and Gad – and indeed, for any Jew living in the Diaspora – there would be at least one major practical disadvantage: living in Transjordan and away from the large Jewish settlement bloc would mean being in closer contact with foreign nations and their negative influences. And it is precisely these types of influences that would prove to be the Jews’ greatest nemesis in trying to hold on to God’s favor, and consequently, to their political independence.
+Given that God allowed Reuven and Gad to live on the other side of the Jordan for many generations, the picture is not as bleak as we may have painted it. Though we have focused on the negative, these two tribes certainly carried many of the good traits of the rest of the Jews and certainly even unique, positive traits of their own. Still, the worrisome materialistic streak coupled with their self-doubts regarding their place within the Jewish people – along with living constantly among the other nations – would lead their descendants to sin more quickly than their brothers. And as noted above, that is why they would be the first that God would send into exile.
+The Federalist Project Revisited
+So far we have contrasted the spiritual and educational conditions of the Jews in the earlier and later periods of the desert experience. We will now look at other critical differences, this time related to tribal identity and affiliation.
+At the time of the spies, we see greater cohesion among the elites – i.e., the spies – than among each individual tribal grouping. In other words, there is little tribal consciousness during this early period of tribal consolidation. While the twelve spies nominally represent the twelve ancestral groups, we have no evidence that the split opinion among the scouts led to a similar split among their constituents. On the contrary, the majority verdict seems to be accepted by all the people, including those represented by Calev and Yehoshua, who themselves had favored a different approach. Moreover, since Calev and Yehoshua are singled out as the two individuals who would be spared the general punishment, it stands to reason that they were not followed by their tribes.
+In contrast to the situation at the time of the spies, Gad and Reuven come to Moshe toward the end of the period of tribal consolidation, a project which had now been almost forty years in the making. During this time, the Jews marched and camped with members of their own tribe in a much more rigid fashion than before the incident of the spies. They were counted according to their tribes and otherwise reminded of their tribal identity on many occasions. Hence, it makes sense to expect more intra-tribal and less inter-tribal cohesion at this point than was the case earlier. Not surprisingly, then, when Gad and Reuven come to Moshe, though it’s likely that the Torah is speaking about a leadership delegation, the fact that it does not confirm this is significant. The implication seems to be that even if it was only a delegation from Gad and Reuven that came to Moshe, it was as if the entire two tribes had come. This is a clear sign that the connection between tribal leaders and their followers had significantly developed since the time of the spies.
+Returning to the theme of federalism that we discussed in Chapter One, it is paradoxically in quasi-secessionist tribal challenges like that of Gad and Reuven that we see the strength of the organizational system created by the Torah. A more unified structure means that the state can fall with its weakest elements. Since all are together, overcoming a significant minority becomes more difficult. Like a sick organism, it either gets healthy or it dies.
+In a federal system, however, it is not all or nothing, as the federated sub-units are able to make more autonomous judgments regarding their fate. In the best-case scenario, the problematic minority is persuaded by the majority to go along with it. But if it is not persuaded, the majority can easily jettison itself, separating the two camps’ fates and causing less damage to the whole. Likewise, the majority can also place an ultimatum before the “sick” element, giving it the choice of going along with or further separating itself from the entire unit. (Incidentally, Gad and Reuven prove that this need not mean complete secession, as we see that they chart a separate course for themselves without dissolving the bonds of confederation that link them up to the rest of the commonwealth.)
+Though the impact of Reuven and Gad’s decline was limited by the federal structure of Shivtei Yisrael, the tribes of Israel, their secession still represents a tragedy of major proportions. If we are left with ten tribes in good standing, this is far from the ideal. A group functions at maximum capacity only if all of its members are accomplishing their tasks. Hence, Reuven and Gad’s settlement on the east bank of the Jordan River was not just a tragedy for them; it was a tragedy for the entire Jewish people.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+In our study, we noted how both Gad and Reuven came to their tragic preference for Transjordan due to discomfort with their God-given positions. Reuven didn’t know how to be a firstborn who was unequipped to be a leader; Gad didn’t know how to be in a group where it would be disadvantaged because of its lack of pedigree. We are all challenged by situations that are not of our choosing. Some are born into families into which they don’t “fit.” Others find themselves with responsibilities they wish they didn’t have. Still others are stuck with an image that they would prefer to dispel. There are many things that can be changed, and many others that cannot. One’s adaptation to undesired, unavoidable circumstances is often the most significant factor in his success. We are all familiar with stories that illustrate this point: crippled athletes or wounded veterans who find new careers with passion and enthusiasm, to name but two.
+Reuven and Gad’s predicaments are actually the stuff of everyday life. Their tragedy is really the tragedy of all who become defined by their circumstances. No one is given a life where everything falls into place magically. It is our task to take control of our lives regardless of the situation in which we find ourselves. Ultimately, the failure of Gad and Reuven is that they neither coped nor adapted. Via their tragic, downward spiral, the Torah seeks to warn us about what can happen when we don’t take control of that which is in our power. That it happened to them should remind us that it need not happen to us.
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+CHAPTER 6 The Daughters of Tzelofchad and the Elders of Menashe; Identity, Interests, and Differentiation
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+The first two chapters of Redeeming Relevance in the Book of Genesis discussed the Bible’s interest in teaching us about real-life trade-offs. We already know from our own lives that we truly cannot “have our cake and eat it too.” And because we would prefer to ignore this truth, the Torah makes a point of frequently repeating the notion that we must make choices about what is the most valuable – or alternatively, the least undesirable – course of action. This means that biblical characters rarely live “happily ever after.” They make difficult choices and have to live with the resultant consequences. Yet, had it been otherwise, the Bible would have been a book of fairy tales that would not have had the tremendous transformative and inspirational power that it has had for so much of human history.
+In the book of Bemidbar, the theme of trade-offs is examined again with the petition of the five daughters of Tzelofchad from the tribe of Menashe and the subsequent counter-petition of that tribe’s elders. These fatherless, brotherless sisters come out of nowhere, questioning an assumed status quo that their late father’s portion in the Land of Israel will go to the male next of kin. They are successful in their petition, and God reveals that the assumption was actually faulty and that it is, truly, daughters who are next in line in such a situation. Several chapters later, the tribal leaders from Menashe challenge the new status quo with their own concern: that if these women marry men from another tribe, their birth tribe will end up losing part of its inheritance. They too are successful, and the women appear to be commanded to marry only within their tribe. But whether this is an actual commandment or not, the story goes on to tell us that the daughters of Tzelofchad do indeed follow God’s preference and marry within their own tribe.
+Although it ends with everybody seemingly getting what he or she wanted, the narrative highlights the tension that is always created by conflicting needs, which are well nigh impossible to meet to everyone’s satisfaction. A man succeeded by daughters and no sons creates a situation wherein tribal interests are in conflict with familial and personal ones. In a make-believe world of perfection both interests would be completely satisfied, but in the real and finite world within which the Bible positions itself there is a bona fide conflict that will require compromise from at least one of the sides. For the daughters of Tzelofchad, their petition to keep their father’s territorial inheritance within his nuclear family results in their either having to limit their choice of mate to members of the tribe of Menashe, or for the tribe to lose part of its allotment to the tribes of the men they marry. (The third choice is for the sisters to keep the land in their own name and within their birth tribe. This, however, was neither practical nor even culturally conceivable, and hence is not treated as a live option.)
+That the original decision regarding the sisters’ petition is challenged by the tribal elders makes the conflict even more obvious, as they would not have taken that step had they not felt the greater tribal interests threatened. Once their own petition is accepted and the sisters’ choice of spouse becomes limited, it is the sisters’ interests that have now been compromised. We will soon see that this tilt toward tribal interests is eventually reversed back in favor of the original petitioners, but our point right now is not who has the upper hand but the fact that there is no way for both groups to be completely happy here.
+A Split Decision
+Though the trade-off presented above is similar to many others in the Torah, the resolution of the conflict is not. Unlike almost all of the Torah’s decisions on conflicts of interest, which are meant to be lasting and permanent, here the Torah (at least according to its legal, rabbinic interpretation) surprises us by issuing a temporary decision: Whereas tribal interests needed to take precedence in the generation that entered the Land of Israel, and thus daughters from this generation would have to marry from within their own tribe, this law would be limited to that generation only. In other words, in the future, the personal interests of women inheriting their fathers’ land would trump the broader, tribal interests. As opposed to almost everywhere else in the Torah, here we have a split decision, favoring one group in one set of circumstances and the other in a differing set of circumstances.
+Now that we have seen that tribal interests outweigh those of the daughters of Tzelofchad only temporarily, i.e., when the land is first divided, we must seek to understand why. To do this we will enlist the help of Ramban, who tells us (Ramban on Bemidbar 36:7), “More strictness was observed during the time of the division [of the Land of Israel] so that the tribes’ inheritances would not become mixed up, since afterward the inheritances were already known and there was no need to maintain them with such rigidity.” In other words, since the sisters’ desire to marry the men of their choice was a truly vital interest, it could be displaced only by tribal concerns of the first order such as those that existed in the first generation to enter the Land of Israel. That being said, further analysis is required to understand why the prohibition against transferring land out of a tribe in the first generation but not in subsequent ones constitutes such first-order interests.
+The mixing up of tribal land should presumably still be an issue even after the first generation, if admittedly somewhat less so. But whether in the first generation or later, we are dealing with a marginal phenomenon that would always only slightly compromise tribal integrity. To take the case of Tzelofchad, were his five daughters all to marry men from the tribe of Binyamin, there would be a small bloc of Binyaminite territory in the middle of Menashe’s tribal land. Were two more nearby families to marry Binyaminites under similar circumstances, one would quickly have a sort of “Chinatown,” or better, Binyamintown, situation on Menashe’s tribal land. Again, this is not likely to destroy the tribe’s social fabric, nor is it generally a question of exposure to negative influences; rather we are dealing with a slight dilution of tribal character. Yet, to the extent that the transfer of tribal land is an issue, it should always be seen as an issue. But why is the dilution really an issue at all?
+Although exposure to differing cultural influences can sometimes be positive, we have already seen the Torah’s strong interest in creating distinct tribal entities. Each tribe has its own unique contribution to make, and that contribution would be compromised by any weakening of tribal identity. Beyond the Torah’s interest in federalism, which would thrive only when there are strong distinctions between the tribes, the Torah also foresaw that only if each tribe is able to develop its own particular identity would the Jews reach their maximum potential. Thus, while other interests may sometimes take precedence, the Torah wanted the tribal entities to reinforce themselves robustly.
+The Torah displays an interest in tribal differentiation throughout the five books, but there is a difference between foreign influences on an identity that is already formed and on one that is not yet formed. Only after tribal identity has gelled will it have the resilience to fend off outside influences. A strong argument can be made that the tribal identity the Torah pushes so strongly in the book of Bemidbar, meaning in the nearly forty years before the Jews entered the Land of Israel, would not become fully realized until each tribe created a distinct territorial enclave for itself. And in order for these territories and thus tribal integrity to be taken seriously, each identity-in-formation required pristine territorial embodiment in the generation that settled the land. Once that transpired, a more solid base of identity formation had taken place.
+It is clear that processes such as these never really end and that identity is always evolving; what was set in motion in one generation would continue indefinitely. Nevertheless, it is critical to establish a cutoff point at which identity is strong enough to allow the interplay of other variables. Apparently, for the Torah this happens after the division of the land into its tribal components.
+Before we move on, we should note that the desert was a near-perfect laboratory setting for the rigid tribal symmetry that defined the Jewish camp and allowed for tribal identity to gel. Whatever happened in the desert, and especially in the book of Bemidbar, should be seen as an ideal staging ground for the type of nation-building that would need to reach a certain stability once the journey would be finished. Empty and almost featureless, the desert allows for a rarified division, whereas the highly diverse Land of Israel cannot. Indeed, any inhabitable land is not a parcel that can be divided in the same way that the desert camp formation was.
+In view of the above, it becomes even clearer that the desert tribal model was suited to a limited period in Jewish history, and not for practical implementation once the Jews would settle the Promised Land. Hence, that model was used only until the end of the generation that entered the Land of Israel, when there would still be no room for the transfer of land from one tribe to another. By the next generation, a new mode of existence would come into play that would allow for more flexibility, which would include, among other things, such transfers of land.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+Now that we have a better understanding of the rationale for the Torah’s compromise between competing interests, we are in a better position to understand the broader implications of its split decision. Ultimately, it teaches us that the Torah sees both personal and group interests as valid and legitimate. Similarly – but perhaps even more important – we learn that there is no automatic prioritization of the group over the individual, or vice-versa. The Torah’s bottom line is that our identities are complex. Therefore, drawing the lines as to which part of our identities takes precedence in any given situation is a difficult and nuanced matter to which there is no universal answer. This desert truth will always be basic to the human condition.
+Text and Context
+The general contours of the stories of Tzelofchad’s daughters and their tribal elders follow a not uncommon pattern (other examples of which we will soon mention), wherein Moshe is asked to rule on an issue to which he doesn’t know the correct halacha, consequently seeking a Divine answer – which ends up being in agreement with the petitioners’ preference. Yet there are some interesting idiosyncrasies in the parallel narratives of the daughters of Tzelofchad and their tribal elders. The first is that the two stories are separated by several chapters, even though they are conceptually one unit and likely to have followed quickly one after the other. This creates a clear division between the two stories. Yet the other idiosyncrasy of note, the clearly parallel language of the two stories, has the opposite effect of reinforcing the thematic connection of the two stories.
+Much of what drives our two narratives can be better understood if we take stock of the larger context, i.e., that they come as part of a series of challenges given to Moshe by other members of the camp. The first such story and the model for subsequent challenges of this type comes from an anonymous group of Jews who, like the daughters of Tzelofchad, are placed in a disadvantaged situation by laws; in this case, concerning coming into contact with the dead. Like the five sisters, these men challenge an assumed status quo they believed to be unjust. Since this group had taken care of burying the dead, they were disqualified from taking part in a central and fundamental Jewish observance, the eating of the Passover sacrifice. As a result, they question (Bemidbar 9:7) why they should be excluded from being “among the Jewish people,” and imply that by not participating in this universal Jewish rite they would be effectively disenfranchised. Their argument could be buttressed by the fact that their impurity was not only not their fault, it was the result of performing a commandment as well as an act of kindness. The group thus challenges Moshe by asking a rhetorical question meant to make their point, after which he takes their question to God. The result is the creation of Pesach Sheini (second Passover), vindicating these men and allowing those unable to participate in the Passover sacrifice at its given time to do so a month later.
+While the men connected with this narrative end up being right, and indeed praiseworthy for their desire to be included in the Jewish people and its Torah, it is important to note the unprecedented nature of their appeal. On the face of it, their challenge could appear downright rude: If God had wanted them to eat from the Passover offering, He certainly could have made provision for it, either by originally informing Moshe of the second chance they would ultimately be given via Pesach Sheini or in some other way. What gave these men the sense that the status quo was open to question?
+Given the temerity required for such a challenge, it is likely that the petition wasn’t directed at God but rather at Moshe. What these men were challenging, then, wasn’t God’s justice but rather Moshe’s understanding of God’s Torah on this point. The logic was that since God’s law is perfect, the only problem could be in its transmission. Yet challenging Moshe was not a simple endeavor either. If Moshe wasn’t a reliable conduit of God’s will, who was?
+Yet, even had the petitioners’ question been for God, their behavior would not have been unprecedented. We encounter a similar situation with Avraham when he argues in defense of Sodom (Bereshit 18:23-33). Furthermore, the Jews had already seen Moshe defend them to God on more than one occasion. New here is that neither a leader nor a prophet but men of the people are presenting the challenge, and this makes all the difference in the world. It’s one thing for men of great stature to make such challenges, but another thing entirely for simple men to do so. Not everyone has the wisdom to know when it is in place to argue with the Master of the Universe.
+What is true about challenging God is also true about challenging Moshe, but obviously on a lower level. It is not by coincidence that the Torah would later be called Torat Moshe, the Torah of Moshe. At the end of the day, no matter who was the target of their challenge, the men who buried the dead went out on a limb in a very big way. The fact that they went through with their claim shows that they must have been quite convinced of its legitimacy, in spite of their lowly position vis-à-vis their supreme leader. It must have been clear to them that if one stands to be hurt by a problematic status quo, there is room for sincerely questioning it. However, this might not be obvious to those who read the story. Thus, the Torah emphasizes this point by following it up with other successful challenges.
+The related stories that follow this one are important links in this chain of connected narratives. This is because each of the stories would require further refinement. For example, although the men of Pesach Sheini charted important new territory, by doing so they also opened a Pandora’s Box. Their success would certainly invite imitation and would bring less valiant challenges in its wake. Two prominent cases are the rebellion of Korach and his group, and Reuven and Gad’s request. Hence, we see the need for other appropriate challenges that will serve to refine and refine again the initiative taken by the men who buried the dead. Taken as a whole, these episodes together create guidelines for the Torah’s view on appropriate and inappropriate petition of religious authority.
+The Pesach Sheini Paradigm
+The differences between the various challenges are reflected in the initial verbs used in each episode. In all three of the appropriate requests (the men who came into contact with human corpses (Bemidbar 9:6), the daughters of Tzelofchad (Bemidbar 27:1), and the elders of Menashe (Bemidbar 36:1)), we are told that they approached (vayikrevu) the authorities, whereas Korach’s group rose up (vayakumu) before them (Bemidbar 16:2), and Gad and Reuven simply came (vayavo’u) before them (Bemidbar 32:2).
+Yet while the word “approached” is used in too many other contexts to come to any definitive understanding, the fact that it is not used in the two problematic stories of Korach’s rebellion and Reuven and Gad’s request is noteworthy. Even without this, we can plainly see that in the cases where petitioners approach Moshe they don’t display the same aggressiveness as those in other cases where other, stronger language is used. In the “approach” cases the petitioners make their claim and await an answer, presumably reconciled to whatever it may be. In contrast, Korach’s group is insistent from the get-go; the questioning of authority itself their primary goal, with any specific request being secondary. Though not as extreme, Reuven and Gad’s request also lacks the appropriate deference as they, apparently casually, come in front of the authorities. The problematic nature of their case is reinforced in both their loquaciousness and their inability to take no for an answer, which we will take up more fully in the next chapter.
+Now that we have discussed these five petition narratives in the book of Bemidbar, we can see that their order is quite instructive. The Pesach Sheini story, along with that of Tzelofchad’s daughters and Menashe’s tribal leaders, sandwich the most objectionable counter-stories of the Korach rebellion and Gad and Reuven. The first narrative in this cycle is that of the men who buried the dead. This is followed by the story of Korach and his assembly. Like the sisters, the tribal elders and the men of Pesach Sheini, Korach and his followers challenge Moshe, basing their rhetorical question on what they perceive as injustice. Yet, unlike the other groups, theirs is not a request that Moshe should take their query to God as much as a request that Moshe relinquish authority altogether. In other words, they take the lesson of Pesach Sheini and corrupt it. Once they see that the rules are open to change in response to popular critique, they challenge the fundamentals of the system altogether.
+The Korach narrative is then followed by the daughters of Tzelofchad, who once again remind us of the correct way of doing things. Their petition is somewhat more detailed than what we saw with the men who buried the dead, the latter of whose lack of detail causes Korach and his followers to get the wrong idea and thus distort it. The sisters’ narrative reminds us of the parameters of appropriate challenge and shows us that not everything is open to question. Without solid, systemic foundations, anarchy would ensue. And although this seems to be exactly what Korach is after, it can’t be seen as a realistic alternative to Mosaic Law for a people that clearly still needs guidance.
+Instead of a total challenge like Korach’s, the daughters of Tzelofchad present a limited and specific request. Similar to the men who buried the dead as well as the tribal elders, they are only seeking parity with their peers. They emphasize this by saying that the status quo will lead to their giraon (lessening). In contrast, Korach finally seeks either to bring down Moshe and/or the priests, or to elevate himself and his followers above the rest of the community. What the daughters of Tzelofchad add to the Pesach Sheini paradigm that had not been presented by the first petitioners is their explanation as to why their status should not be less than that of their peers, i.e., because their father was not part of Korach’s group. Additionally, Tzelofchad’s daughters were very clear about the reasons for their request, while Korach’s group was not. And as the latter’s narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that his stated goal is not in line with his unstated ambitions.
+However, although the subsequent refinement of the paradigm by the daughters of Tzelofchad provides a return to this first petition story, it paradoxically also provides more opportunity for the petitioners to err. While the sisters present more background to their claim, they also present it as a demand (“Tena lanu . . .”); they were so certain of its veracity that they felt it to be their right. About this they were apparently correct, since God validates not only their claim but even their speech (Bemidbar 27:7). Yet the sisters’ clarity of vision is not the lot of most people, and perhaps that is why others stumble shortly thereafter.
+Based on what we have discussed up until now, had the Torah ended with the story of Tzelofchad’s daughters, we could be left with the wrong impression. Because their claim was only a partial model for appropriate challenge of authority, it takes the next story, that of Gad and Reuven, to determine what can and cannot be gleaned from the sisters’ narrative. Ultimately, like Korach’s, Gad and Reuven’s request represents a misunderstanding of the Pesach Sheini paradigm.
+At this point, the principle of appropriate challenge has now been somewhat obfuscated by the sisters’ detailed and novel explanation to back up their petition, as well as by their claim to land. Under the impression that one of the keys to getting what they want is to elaborate on their claim, the tribal leaders of Gad and Reuven speak a great deal. In this they were partially correct, but they substituted clarity of information, which was important, for long-windedness, which was not. They also learn from the sisters that Moshe will recognize a Jewish group’s right to territory if it feels entitled to it. After all, since Moshe acceded to the request of five women who felt a need for a portion of their tribal land, it stood to reason that the desire of two entire tribes for a specific piece of land would be even more legitimate.
+Unfortunately, Gad and Reuven’s petition is fundamentally flawed, so much so that Moshe is shocked by it. As discussed in the previous chapter, the audacity of Gad and Reuven is not in confronting authority, it is in asking for something clearly against God’s will.
+As a result, the Torah must present a last corrective in order to leave us with the authoritative model for how a challenge must take place. Accordingly, the last story, that of Menashe’s tribal elders, presents the final word on this topic. Unlike the petitioners in the first three narratives, but like Gad and Reuven, the elders of Menashe do not pose a rhetorical question. Gad and Reuven articulated their claim in a neutral way (length of speech and territorial claims) based on a positive source (the daughters of Tzelofchad); the elders of Menashe incorporated a positive form of speech (making their claim as a request and not a demand) from a negative source (Gad and Reuven). As in the Gad and Reuven narrative, they simply present the facts and allow Moshe to reach his own conclusion (Bemidbar 36:2-4). This goes one step further than the daughters of Tzelofchad, and shows greater respect for authority. As the rabbis (Kiddushin 32a) prevent a child from directly challenging his parents due to the respect he owes them, so too respect for authority should preclude us from demanding what we think is our due. To do otherwise is to flaunt our belief that we have greater insight than those in the position of authority.
+Via the elders of Menashe we learn that respectful speech is not enough. Although the men of Gad and Reuven also spoke respectfully to Moshe, his silence forced them into the situation where they had to either drop their claim or ask him directly for what they wanted. To present the facts as they did, namely that they had much livestock and that the lands east of the Jordan were good pastureland, and to think that Moshe didn’t understand the desire behind it, would be a great insult to the latter. Since the simplest reader is aware of what Gad and Reuven want, it isn’t likely that the two tribes believed Moshe didn’t understand. And since Moshe didn’t respond to their not-so-veiled request, it should have been equally clear to them that the answer was no. When they continue to ask for what Moshe has refused with his silence, they are ultimately challenging his authority. They already knew that if someone brought up a good idea, Moshe would accept it. We see this early on in his implementation of Yitro’s advice to appoint judges, as well as in the narratives of Pesach Sheini, the daughters of Tzelofchad, and, possibly later on, the elders of Menashe.
+Gad and Reuven’s insubordination is made even clearer when Moshe answers their more explicit petition in the negative, and yet, they continue to negotiate an alternative (Bemidbar 32:16-19). Moshe’s ultimate agreement to their new proposal should not be read as a sign that their tenaciousness paid off. Rather, it should be seen in the same light as God’s ultimate agreement to Bil’am’s continuous petition that he be allowed to go to Moav (Bemidbar 22:21); it is less a sign of capitulation than a decision to allow a person to bear the consequences of his inappropriate desires. Thus, what begins as a show of respect when Gad and Reuven avoid asking Moshe anything directly, ends up as great disrespect when they are not prepared to accept even an unequivocal response that they don’t like. In this, they are not so different from Korach’s group who, after the law of Pesach Sheini is enacted, no longer see Moshe as the unequivocal leader.
+Beyond incorporating proper respect, the elders of Menashe also add the final ingredient to the paradigm: recognition of the nature of Torat Moshe. The manner in which they make their claim attests to their acknowledgment (Bemidbar 36:2) that “my master was commanded by God.” Any subsequent petition within the Jewish people must display awareness of this important fact.
+Now looking back at the five narratives we have discussed, we see a clear pattern which distills an important but dangerous idea about Jewish governance, namely that there is room – perhaps even a need – for the respectful airing of grievances. The order in which the book of Bemidbar puts the narratives is critical to establishing the parameters of what we have referred to as the Pesach Sheini paradigm. Hence, even if the story of Gad and Reuven took place chronologically after the story of Menashe’s elders, as some commentaries hold, it was important that the narratives were presented in the order that we find in the Torah. Moreover, this final narrative of the elders of Menashe dramatically establishes closure to the topic.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+Before continuing, we should briefly take stock of the important applications of the above discussion. We have seen that the Torah not only allows for but even encourages challenges to the status quo. At the same time, it makes clear that it is equally important that such challenges not be directed against authority itself. All concerned should be aware that there is room for positive change. Leaders as well as followers should never assume that the application of the law is right simply because it is in place. Furthermore, once a problem has been felt, it must be raised to those best suited to make decisions for the group as a whole and not simply answered or insisted upon by the petitioners.
+It should be clear from the narratives explored in this chapter that there is no room for taking the law into one’s own hands. One may question certain norms, but he should not change actual practice without first getting requisite permission from the appropriate religious authorities. But this also means that authorities must truly listen to petitioners and realize that correct observations can come from anyone. Laymen and religious authorities alike must see themselves in partnership to establish that which is “good and straight.” About this there should be no conflict of interest.
+Why Menashe? A Postscript
+Above we noted that the two requests that came from the tribe of Menashe, one from the daughters of Tzelofchad and the other from its elders, appear to be artificially split within the book of Bemidbar. We concluded that this was due to the creation of the Pesach Sheini paradigm and its subsequent, step-by-step refinement starting with the first Menashe episode and ending with the second. But more than this, the non-contiguous placement of these two closely related narratives fits in well with other things that we know about this rather idiosyncratic tribe.
+Even without the issue of the split narrative, we would be remiss if we did not ask ourselves why these “bookends” in Bemidbar feature specifically the tribe of Menashe. After all, given the size of the Israelite camp, it is highly likely that other women were in the same predicament and yet did not step forward. Presumably, they were prepared to accept the status quo which did not allow for daughters to inherit at all. And while the daughters of Tzelofchad may well stand out as individuals, the parallel language used in the narrative of the tribal elders (including full genealogies of both groups, tracing them back to Yosef) gives us at least one reason to believe that they acted in ways particularly suited to their tribe. Let us try to better understand the attributes of Menashe that led the sisters and the elders to behave in a similar manner.
+We don’t know a great deal about the tribe of Menashe beyond the clues revealed in the narratives we are discussing. We do know that Menashe was Yosef’s firstborn, and that Ya’akov placed his brother, Ephraim, before him. We also know that this tribe later became one of the more important in Jewish history, although not always for positive reasons. Most striking, however, is Menashe’s unique geographical division, which the Torah mentions between their two petitions.
+We have no real clue as to why Moshe appends half of the tribe to join Reuven and Gad on the other side of the Jordan. It goes without saying that the strategic placement of this detail between the two narratives can hardly be ignored. Menashe’s is a division in the midst of a divided story, which leads us to the conclusion that the notion of division is itself central to what the tribe is all about. Menashe’s intra-tribal division means that this tribe may have been more comfortable than others with sub-tribal identity. In other words, whether as a result of familial loyalty or loyalty to their villages or provinces, the members of Menashe would have been less tied to the greater, unified tribe than members of other tribes were to theirs.
+Thus, it makes sense that women from Menashe would petition Moshe for the right to hold on to their own land even when this brought the possibility of taking away land from their greater birth tribe. Even if the tribal elders had never warned of the ramifications of the sisters’ request, it is clear that the latter’s claim shows a great deal of autonomy (i.e., separation) from their tribe. As inheritors, they will take the place of their nonexistent brothers who would have been the land’s stewards for the tribe. That they suggest an arrangement which may lead to just the opposite, i.e., transfer of the inheritance to other tribes, shows that tribal affiliation was not their greatest concern.
+But from where does Menashe get this resistance to tribal unity? The truth is that there were deep roots for it in his family tradition. Going back to Ya’akov, the progenitor, we notice that much of what transpired in his life was based on the principle of productive bifurcation. Thus, for example, he had two names, married two women, and fathered two leaders (Yehudah and Yosef), who would ultimately be the ancestors of two different states (Yehudah and Yisrael).
+On more than one occasion, the rabbis find solid evidence to suggest that Yosef, Menashe’s father, carries a special likeness toward his own father, Ya’akov. Consequently, it is quite likely that Yosef mirrors Ya’akov’s central characteristic of duality, which is most crucially embodied in their respective legacies to their children. Thus, alone among Ya’akov’s children, it is Yosef whose portion is divided into two, with both Menashe and Ephraim taking on the status of separate tribes. Likewise, the portion of Yosef’s firstborn, Menashe, is also divided into two – if not by name, then by territory. It seems the legacy of continuous bifurcation must live on in this line.
+Now that we have a better sense of Menashe’s character, we are in a better position to note that the autonomy displayed by the daughters of Tzelofchad is not a unilateral cause for admiration. It should be remembered that the story comes in the midst of tribal identity formation which we have seen to be so central to the Israelites’ desert experience. So while there were good reasons for the sisters to ask for and receive their inheritance, their ostensible lack of concern for the greater tribe during this key period was a problematic element in an otherwise correct request. That it was less than ideal is attested to by the fact that it would be fixed by the request of the elders at the very end of the book.
+We might have failed to understand just how problematic the sisters’ claim really was had Moshe not sent part of the tribe to live over the Jordan. Like Gad and Reuven, Menashe was penalized for a destructive characteristic, albeit different and less dangerous than its co-Transjordanians. Measure for measure, Menashe’s problematic lack of tribal cohesion that the daughters of Tzelofchad embody means that the tribe needed to be divided in practice to match their approach in theory. Yet since Menashe’s deficiency was not on the scale of Gad’s and Reuven’s, their exile is far from total (especially since for them, division rather than exile is the main point). Thus, only part of the tribe was sent to live across the Jordan, while the majority was allowed to remain on the western side together with the other nine tribes.
+As mentioned earlier, the consolidation of tribal identity would become less important as time went by, and thus with the march of history Menashe’s intra-tribal division would become more acceptable. Moreover, the bifurcation to which Menashe is heir is an example of a potentially healthy process of creating new sub-identities. Even as this trait was problematic when it was first exposed through the daughters of Tzelofchad, the Jewish nation would require it in the future, because if no new identities were ever created, the people would be ill-equipped to meet all of the challenges placed in their way.
+So whereas eleven tribes needed to generally preserve and develop their identities during the desert period, there was one tribe whose business it was to create constantly new identities. That tribe was Menashe. All the other tribes had certain attributes to offer the nation as a whole, and only by developing their own identities would they be able to contribute to the Jewish people most effectively. But in the case of Menashe a paradox exists, by which one of the central attributes it has to offer can be accomplished only by sacrificing the solidity of that very identity.
+We have seen that the daughters of Tzelofchad are the true bearers of Menashe’s exceptionality, and perhaps this exceptionality more than anything else is Menashe’s legacy. While no two tribes are the same, Menashe’s identity is more different from any of the others. And it is this uniqueness that was to be reinforced by the tribe’s permanent territorial division on the two sides of the Jordan. Thus, even while this division was a punishment for not subduing their autonomous character at this critical time, it was also a badge of Menashe’s essential identity. Moreover, the tribe would be expected to bear it proudly and for the betterment of the nation as a whole.
+Ultimately, the daughters of Tzelofchad carried with them the knowledge that even at times when unity and conformity are at a premium, there must be one part of the nation that stands to the side and takes a slightly different stance. Perhaps their timing was slightly off or perhaps it was their delivery that was slightly off, but theirs was still a trait that needed to be expressed. And more than their father’s land, their unique character was their true inheritance.
+
+CHAPTER 7 Shimon and Levi; The Brothers Divided
+
+In Chapter Six, we dealt with two members of the problematic Reuven degel formation, Reuven and Gad. In this chapter, we will look at Shimon, the least successful tribe of all, and its eminently successful alter ego, Levi.
+Most fundamentally, the story of Shimon reveals that even something as basic to the Jewish nation as the existence of twelve tribes is not set in stone. We see that from the fact that once they reach the Land of Israel, Shimon never really gets off the ground. Granted, other tribes would also have problems as time progressed, such that the continued existence of all of the tribes would also one day become precarious. Yet Shimon has such an issue from the very outset.
+Shimon’s difficulties begin with his progenitor. Shimon, the second-born of Ya’akov, who is one of the three sons rebuked by their father on his deathbed (the other two being Reuven and Levi). In Shimon’s case, Ya’akov’s censure (Bereshit 49:5-7) has a strong and lasting effect. It ends up foreshadowing the inability of most of his descendants to create an adaptive approach to life both in the desert and in the Land of Israel, the net result of which would be the tribe’s dissociation from the rest of the people. By the time we get to the end of the Torah and the next set of tribal blessings (Devarim 33), we see even better where things are going: Moshe doesn’t even mention him, thereby singularly excluding Shimon from the blessings he gives to the tribes at the end of his life and setting the stage for the latter’s ultimate disintegration soon thereafter.
+Indeed, Shimon’s problematic status, both as an individual and as a tribe, makes the tribe a perfect candidate for inclusion in the Reuven formation. That said, Shimon charts its own unique course within this formation. But avoiding Reuven and Gad’s agenda is no show of independence and strength. Rather, more than anything else, it shows us about Shimon’s dependence on the national leadership. As will be discussed, by the end of the desert trek, when Reuven and Gad make their petition to Moshe regarding settling the land on the other side of the Jordan, this fallen tribe will be so shaken by its own failure as to become an obedient follower. Its confidence destroyed, it prefers to follow the tried and true leadership of Moshe and the Levites rather than engage in any new tribal adventurism.
+Even toward the end of the desert experience Shimon still has a chance of redeeming itself. When Shimon is the tenth voice needed for the approval of the Land of Israel against Gad and Reuven’s possible rejection of it mentioned in Chapter Five, the Torah is hinting that the tribe can actually play a positive role in the subordinate mold that it would have by then acquired. Of course, such a role is certainly not easily assimilated and, from the rest of the story, it appears that the traditionally hot-blooded Shimon simply could not accept it.
+Intermarriage in the Book of Bereshit
+The key incident in Shimon’s decline is the rebellious act of their leader, Zimri, summarily executed by Pinchas, himself (take note) a Levite (Bemidbar 25:7-8). It is no coincidence that the issue at hand is the permissibility of problematic marriages with non-Jews. As we will see, it is primarily this issue that leads both Zimri’s and Pinchas’s forbears to summarily execute the entire town of Shechem in the book of Bereshit (Bereshit 34). Indicative of that whole story is their final salvo, accusing their father of allowing their sister Dinah to be considered a zonah, a licentious woman. They appear to be saying here that this would be the consequence of his going along with the plan to have her marry the foreign prince who raped her. At that time Ya’akov does not answer them, and were it not for his criticism later, we might think that he is actually won over to their way of thinking. Independently of Ya’akov’s judgment, however, the Torah finds a different way to evaluate their actions. It does so by involving their descendants in stories that also concern questionable sexual liaisons and violent responses. But before we discuss these stories, let us look again at Ya’akov’s initial response.
+Ya’akov’s silence toward Shimon and Levi can be interpreted in several ways. On the one hand, it could mean acquiescence, the way silence is generally interpreted by the rabbis. On the other hand, it could also be a case of not speaking up when the other party is not ready to hear. This too is in line with rabbinic thinking. Yet, there is a third, more nuanced way of understanding Ya’akov’s silence, one which resonates most strongly with the larger context. It could be that Ya’akov is taking a “wait and see” approach. This would, after all, be an entirely appropriate response to ambiguous behavior. When an act can be understood in two different ways, one positive and one negative, the wisest policy is to withhold judgment until one is able to better understand exactly what took place. In this Ya’akov would be in line with the Torah’s narrative which does not render a clear and obvious verdict on Shimon and Levi’s zealotry. And in so doing the Torah draws us into a larger discussion of the issues at hand, which we will now seek to address.
+Our discussion will begin with the question of zealotry. If the Torah is ambiguous about Shimon and Levi’s, it is not always so. We see that when Pinchas is moved by the same feeling, the Torah (Bemidbar 25:10-14) is quite clear about its approval. This means that even violent zealotry has its place, and judging from the story of Pinchas, one such place is in the destruction of unions that threaten the moral fiber of the Jewish people. We realize this because the story that comes immediately before we meet Pinchas shows the imminent and catastrophic consequences of the type of union Pinchas was fighting. In that story, the verse that speaks about Israelite men cavorting with Moabite women is immediately followed by the sudden and dramatic return to idol worship that ensues in its wake (Bemidbar 25:1-2).
+The Torah’s approval of Pinchas’s zealotry cannot be understood to mean that all liaisons with foreign-born women are seen as a threat. Just the opposite; as we will soon see, other stories show that marriages with women from the vilest nations can truly bring glory and refinement to the Jewish nation. To mistake the latter case for the former would be a tremendous problem, and if the confusion would cause mistaken zealotry it would be more than just a problem, it would be the most heinous of crimes. It would bespeak a gross and callous inability to go beyond the association of an individual with his nation and to recognize his personal virtue and even heroism.
+Getting back to the story of Shimon and Levi and the town of Shechem, the Torah leaves us wondering about the sincerity of Chamor, the prince/groom’s, repentance as well as that of his city. Apparently the brothers are skeptical as well, and all except Shimon and Levi thus concoct what appears to be the safest plan: they will simply steal their sister away from Shechem so as not to take any chances. On the face of it, this is the wisest course of action, as it embodies the rabbinic notion, shev ve’al ta’aseh adif, that when one is in doubt he should refrain from acting as much as is possible. Hence, the brothers try to find a way to prevent the marriage without any loss of life. But on some level their plan is inadequate. If Chamor and the inhabitants of Shechem have truly repented, it is not clear that the marriage was such a bad thing. Though the concept of repentance this early in biblical history was still essentially an untried road, why should it have been rejected out of hand? Moreover, a case could be made that, details of Chamor’s act against her notwithstanding, Dinah’s marriage to a non-Jewish prince who had vowed to circumcise himself and his entire dominion was as good a match as could be expected. As the Midrash (Bereshit Rabba 84:21) points out, Dinah’s only other option might have been to – not unproblematically – marry one of her brothers. Conversely, if the repentance was only feigned, then Dinah’s alliance with Chamor could be viewed as an existential threat that had to be destroyed in a convincing way – as can only be done through the type of zealotry that Shimon and Levi displayed.
+Whatever the correct course of action may have been, what seems to have motivated Shimon and Levi on a very basic level was the issue of intermarriage. In meta-legal terms, the position they seemed to have been taking was one of opposition under any circumstances to Jews marrying non-Jews. The Bible would show that such an extreme position, however, was ultimately untenable, and the issue would actually return to Shimon and Levi’s descendants to resolve in a better way. The lack of resolution can also be seen in Ya’akov’s parting words to Shimon and Levi on his deathbed. Even as he chides them, Ya’akov does not judge; rather, he indicates that their righteous zealotry is still unproven and must be watched carefully for fear of its highly dangerous misuse. The nature of that zealotry would need to be clarified by their descendants.
+Though Ya’akov metes out the same warning to both brothers, one can see the possibility that Shimon and Levi are not completely of one mind about intermarriage already in Bereshit. In the list of Ya’akov’s family (Bereshit 46:8-27), there is no mention of his sons’ wives, with two exceptions – one is Yosef, whose wife is already identified due to the unusual circumstances of his marriage. The other is Shimon, whose sixth child is cryptically known as Shaul the son of the Canaanite woman (Bereshit 46:10). Who this woman is and whether she is really a Canaanite is secondary; more important is that the Torah identifies Shimon as having a different approach to intermarriage from that of the rest of the brothers, including Levi.
+Following the simple meaning of the verse, it seems shocking that Shimon would be the only one to marry from the reviled Canaanites. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to understand. What we see here is a sort of all-or-nothing approach which we will witness again in the Zimri story further on in this chapter. According to this approach, once there is no choice but to marry outside of the family, Shimon loses any sense of discrimination, as if to say all foreigners are the same. But even if we follow the opinion of the Midrash that the Canaanite woman is none other than Dinah, we still see a unique position staked out by Shimon, and one that is not identical to Levi’s.
+Given this background, the zealotry of the tribe of Levi, as embodied by Pinchas, against the tribe of Shimon, represented by Zimri (and perhaps Shimon against Levi as well), serves as a perfect denouement of the original story at Shechem. What unfolds is nothing less than a confrontation on the original issue that brought the two brothers together to begin with.
+Intermarriage in the Book of Bemidbar
+We will now look at the details of the story of Zimri and Pinchas and its connection to the story of Shimon and Levi in the book of Bereshit in order to better understand what the Torah is trying to tell us here in Bemidbar. For starters, we must confess that the story of Pinchas’s act of zealotry is quite perplexing. Even the facts of the story are unclear, and when we do get clear information it comes out only in fits and starts (a highly unusual literary flourish which we will discuss later).
+Immediately after the strange story of Bil’am, who was hired by Moav, in cooperation with Midian, to curse the Israelites, we are told about the Moabite women enticing the Jewish men to worship their god. In the middle of this story, we suddenly read about an anonymous Jewish man who “brings close” an anonymous Midianite woman “in front of Moshe and the Israelite congregation.” The next thing we know is that the pair is executed by Pinchas. Soon afterward, the identities of Zimri, the prince of Shimon, and Cozbi, the Midianite princess, are revealed. At that point (Bemidbar 25:18), the Jews are commanded to attack the Midianites for their role (something never completely clarified) in the worship of Ba’al Peor and for “the matter of Cozbi.” Putting the pieces together is quite difficult, but even before we get to understanding the story as a whole we are at a loss to understand Zimri. What could bring a Jewish tribal leader to couple with a Midianite princess while the nation of Moav was trying to ensnare the Jews in idol worship?
+The rabbis (Sanhedrin 82a) suggest an interesting scenario which may be the most likely understanding of this rather cryptic story. They note the parallel between Zimri’s choice of a Midianite woman and Moshe’s own wife, Tzipporah, being a Midianite. We should add that the fathers of both women were not just commoners but Midianite leaders. In other words, Zimri’s public liaison with Cozbi was meant to mimic Moshe. The rabbis hold that Zimri was issuing a direct challenge to Moshe in order to defend the straying of his own tribesmen, who seem to have made up most of those killed in the plague that resulted from the worship of Ba’al Peor and the straying with the women of Moav that immediately preceded it. In effect, he was protesting the punishment being meted out for the crime of intermarriage by highlighting Moshe’s own marriage to someone from outside the Jewish people.
+Yet, there is some confusion here. It is important to remember that the main issue in our story is not the Jews’ liaisons with the Moabite women per se but the idol worship that it led to. Since Zimri had no way to defend this most grievous of all sins, he tried to deflect the issue by focusing on the issue of intermarriage. From the reaction of Moshe and the people, it appears that he was quite successful in redirecting the discussion. More important for us to recognize, however, is that by doing so, he brought himself, his tribe, and the descendants of Levi, back to the roots of their original alliance.
+Technically, there is no comparison between Moshe’s taking a foreign woman before the Torah was given and Zimri’s doing so afterward. Nevertheless, in view of Shimon and Levi’s history regarding pre-Sinaitic intermarriage, it is likely that Zimri was making a meta-legal point. Since Levi had so strongly opposed this very notion in the past, and Moshe, the Levite national leader, was now betraying the cause, it was up to the leader of Shimon to protest. For up until this point it appears that there was an unspoken agreement between these two tribes to take difficult stands when such was called for; they had continued in their zealotry even though their actions had been challenged by their father twice (Bereshit 34:30 and Bereshit 49:5-7).
+Accordingly, when Moshe called for zealotry after the sin of the golden calf, it was his own tribesmen who responded and who were subsequently rewarded. In the case of Shimon, though less directly clear from the biblical text, rabbinic tradition holds that his zealotry did not end with the story of Shechem either. Now, by imitating Moshe’s marriage to a Midianite woman, Zimri was emphasizing Moshe’s weakening of the iron front Shimon and Levi had established in the past. It was another way of saying that Moshe was unable to show zealous leadership specifically in the area where it had all started. (On some level, by threatening the moral and social fabric with his own act, Zimri anticipates the need for zealotry, of which he would be the ironic victim!)
+If a pattern emerges, not all of its details are immediately obvious. For example, how Zimri’s protest is a defense of his tribesmen requires explanation. Perhaps his goal was to make a point vis-à-vis Moshe and the Levites; to shock them into reconsidering their new openness to the integration of converts. Or maybe the plan was to get Moshe’s attention in order that he defend the Jewish people before God even though they had just sinned. After all, Moshe had successfully done this many times before. According to this approach, Zimri’s act was a way of reconstituting the alliance between the two tribes on a lower plane. Zimri may have been saying in effect, “Let’s give up our old position to defend what our ancestors once had so strongly opposed – let’s adopt a new position for a new time.”
+Though the exact content of Zimri’s defense of his tribesmen is uncertain, his larger disagreement with the Levite leadership is consistent with his ancestor’s inability to distinguish between marrying a Canaanite and marrying another gentile. In line with this, the language that the rabbis put in the mouth of Zimri’s supporters, i.e., that there was no difference between the permissibility of Tzipporah and the Midianite women who were enticing the Jews to idol worship, resonates deeply. For Zimri, if one is wrong then so is the other, and if Moshe is by his own marriage declaring Midianites to be acceptable, there should be no limits. In this, he appears to be simply proclaiming the essentially all-or-nothing approach which had characterized Shimon all along.
+While Moshe disagrees with this approach, his inability to respond is eerily reminiscent of Ya’akov’s earlier silence. Like Ya’akov, Moshe displays a reticence to judge Shimon and an overly indulgent willingness to withhold final judgment. In this context, Pinchas’s zealotry is the tribe of Levi’s correct response. If Moshe might feel slightly biased due to his own marriage, Pinchas is able to actualize what Moshe surely knows to be true. What is appropriate in one context (Moshe’s marriage) is not appropriate in another (the desire of the Shimonites to take Moabite and Midianite women indiscriminately). As in many other realms, the Torah insists that an act be defined not in isolation but by its context and intentions. With his daring act, Pinchas finalizes the difference between Shimon and Levi, forever breaking the silence of Ya’akov and Moshe. Accordingly, he receives the priesthood – the office dedicated to maintaining Israel’s purity.
+The story of Zimri brings us back to the roots of Shimon and Levi’s original alliance of violence and finally dissolves it in violence. Only with the harsh reaction of Pinchas was Levi able to square the circle and create the distinction between Moshe’s intermarriage and the behavior of Shimon. Through his killing of Zimri and Cozbi, Pinchas clarifies that which Ya’akov was not able to ascertain in his lifetime: Shimon and Levi may both have been involved in the same zealous act at Shechem, but if one was qualified to perform it, the other was not. That Moshe could marry a Midianite and Pinchas could kill one showed that Levi understood both when there is a call for zealotry and when that same act would turn into an abomination. In marked contrast, Zimri’s actions end up showing that Shimon had not internalized this critical prerequisite for action.
+Midian, Moab, and Yisrael
+As noted by the rabbis and stressed by the Torah itself, the Midianite women have a critical role in our narrative. It is precisely because Cozbi is a Midianite that Zimri is able to challenge Moshe. Not all nations are equal, and the fact that Moshe’s wife (and father-in-law) are from Midian gives Zimri a more pointed opportunity to question Levite policy.
+In light of Midian’s centrality in the Ba’al Peor story, it pays to remember the unusual place this nation has in the formative experiences of the Jewish people. The odyssey begins with Moshe’s sojourn in Midian, when he is taken in by Yitro and offered the latter’s daughter in marriage. Marriage to a foreign noblewoman in a foreign land is not unique to Moshe; it parallels Yosef’s experience in Egypt. But neither is it common. In fact, given that the idea of keeping marriage “within the family” is stressed by both Avraham (Bereshit 24:1-9) and Yitzchak (Bereshit 28:1–9), marriage with a foreigner is usually far from the ideal.
+We have already discussed how the case of Chamor and Dinah was the source of great controversy and an example of how the sons of Ya’akov looked at intermarriage. In line with this, subsequent intermarriage with the Egyptians was also almost nonexistent. Nonetheless, later contact with the Midianites would represent a more likely candidate for intermarriage than the despised nations of Canaan and Egypt, with whom marriage would remain more deeply problematic. As such, Midian would represent a possible bridge between the Jews and the gentiles.
+Although Midian may have originally been less controversial a source for Moshe’s spouse, the fact that Moshe married any foreign woman deserves our attention. The future Jewish national leader’s marrying a foreigner is nothing short of revolutionary. Indeed, its revolutionary nature creates an Achilles’ heel for Moshe, which is exposed even before Zimri’s challenge. When Aharon and Miriam criticize Moshe (Bemidbar 12:1), they mention that he married a “Cushite” woman,
+It is important to stress again that Moshe’s marriage was not a generic one. The Torah’s choice of Midian should draw our attention even more once we see that God singles out this nation for Israelite enmity (Bemidbar 25:16-18). If Moshe marries into such a nation, it can hardly be accidental.
+In trying to better understand Moshe’s connection with Midian, we will need to draw a wider circle and examine Midian’s alliance with the equally reprehensible Moav (a nation that nonetheless can also be viewed as a possible bridge between Israel and the gentile nations). It is really much more than an alliance that Midian and Moav share: just as a Midianite woman was the source of both blessing (Tzipporah) and curse (Cozbi) for the Jewish people, the story of Ruth would show the same to be true of Moav (whose women brought on the debacle with Ba’al Peor) as well. Such a link to the Jews is uncommon among most nations. Accordingly, the fact that it was specifically Midianite and Moabite women who were involved with Jewish men shows that an existential bond existed between these nations and Israel. There was an attraction which likely went beyond the physical. The Jews sensed the potential for greatness that both Midianite and Moabite women carried. And that potential was actualized in Tzipporah and Ruth.
+Yet, Israel’s connection to Moav is distinguished from that to Midian by the unusual ban God places on attacking the former (Devarim 2:9). In line with the simple reading of the Ba’al Peor story, the rabbis (Baba Kama 38b) point out that were it not for this ban, Moav would have been the main target of the war God commanded against Midian. After all, the explicit entrapment of the Jews comes from the daughters of Moav, not from the daughters of Midian. Aside from Cozbi, we don’t discover that Midianite women may have been involved in enticing the Jewish men until later (Bemidbar 31:16) – and, even then, the possibility is revealed only by insinuation. Although in parashat Balak we already see that Midianite chiefs are allied with Moav to stop what they see as the approaching Jewish threat, still, the brunt of the action comes from Moav. That being the case, the fact that the Jews are commanded to attack Midian and not Moav requires explanation.
+Moav is actually one of three divinely protected nations (the others being Edom and Ammon). But as opposed to the other two, Moav plays an unusually central role in the Jews’ desert trek. It is adjacent to their land that much of the book of Bemidbar and all the book of Devarim take place. Likewise, one of the few things that we know about Moshe’s burial place is that it is in the land of Moav (Devarim 34:5-6). Nor is there an Edomite or Ammonite equivalent of Ruth, the Moabite princess who becomes the most important source for the integration of foreigners into the Jewish people.
+The Torah explains that the ban on attacking Moav is because their land is promised to the “sons of Lot.” The rabbis, however, give an additional reason (Baba Kama 38b): that had the Jews attacked Moav, they might have killed Ruth’s ancestors. In truth, the need for such an explanation itself needs an explanation, but more germane to us is the vital connection between Ruth and her people. This is likely what underlies the rabbis’ discussion regarding Moav to begin with. A question raised by several later commentaries provides a key here. They ask why an entire nation needed to be left in peace just to bring about the birth of one woman; God could have directed the Jews to spare Ruth’s ancestors and kill everyone else.
+While various answers are offered, I would like to suggest that the Talmud means to say that had Ruth been the product of a few Moabite refugees, she would not have been the same Ruth. Perhaps this is also the significance of her often being referred to specifically as Ruth the Moabitess. Although her nation was largely immoral, it must have also embodied certain traits essential to Ruth’s development, personality, and destiny. Thus when the rabbis comment on the need to preserve Moav so that Ruth can be born, they are explaining the Divine wisdom in allowing this nation its peace. Taken a step further, this is also saying that the Jewish people truly need such nations, even while they remain existential threats.
+In the end, even if Moav may have been more dedicated than Midian to the destruction of the Jews, they were also more critical to their future. Without Moav, there is no Ruth and without Ruth there is no David and without David there is no messianic chain.
+Up until now, we have discussed the positive side of Midian and Moav. But what about the bitter enmity they show the children of Israel? Understanding the former might actually give us insight into the latter. For one, the relationship of the Jewish nation to Midian and Moav shows that these two nations are capable of more greatness than other nations. Yitro and Tzipporah are not just gentiles, they are Midianite gentiles, and Ruth is specifically a Moabitess. The awareness of such potential could frighten and ultimately threaten these two nations. That Ruth can come from Moav, for example, means that, at least theoretically, others like her could come out of that nation as well. Once that is possible, then to fall short is a failure which Moav would prefer not to confront. Instead of dealing with the potential, these nations may well have preferred to make it irrelevant. Given that the source of the discomfort is ultimately the Jews and what they represent, one way to eliminate that discomfort is to eliminate the Jews. Such has been echoed only too often by those who fault the Jewish nation for holding up mankind to an “unreasonable” standard.
+Yet, there is something more that would be clarified only long after the Jews encountered Moav and Midian in the desert. The book of Ruth makes a subtle point about the difference between the fates of Ruth and Tzipporah that we could easily skip over without the background just presented. As mentioned above, Moshe’s marriage remained controversial throughout his life. What we did not mention is that the marriage may well have continued to be a source of controversy even after his death. It is well-known that Moshe’s offspring did not follow in his highly illustrious footsteps – something that could have easily been attributed to his choice of spouse. It was important to eventually dispel such a notion. And that is why the book of Ruth ends with a rather pointed description of her progeny, ending with David, as if to say the case is now closed; her marriage to Boaz was not only blessed, it was divinely ratified.
+Hence, the story of Ruth would bring the issue of intermarriage full circle. It would show once and for all that non-Jews who take on Jewish nationhood and religion cannot have their foreign background held against them. On the contrary, what Moshe had to defend against Zimri in much murkier circumstances, Ruth would be able to show for the rest of Jewish history: that the Jewish nation cannot stand alone. It requires specifically the Tzipporahs and the Ruths of the other nations for its perfection. And on some level, problematic as this may be, it requires their nations as well. Lest we get carried away, however, the teachings from the story of Ruth are counterbalanced by Pinchas, who showed that one must nevertheless take a very cautious and case-by-case approach to the nations. His lesson is that going too far in the other direction and indiscriminately welcoming all potential converts will undermine the very essence of the Jewish nation.
+The Midianite Mystery
+Before we return to Shimon and Levi for the last time, we should briefly discuss the strange way the Jews’ interaction with Midian is presented in the book of Bemidbar. As mentioned earlier, much of the information in the Pinchas narrative comes to us via flashbacks, after the actual story has taken place. In particular, Midian’s role in the whole incident is the most hidden, never completely coming to light. Only later, after the Jews have attacked Midian, do we hear that specifically the women and not the men of Midian were responsible for some sort of action against the Jews. Furthermore, the wording of the Torah here (Bemidbar 31:15-16). implies that we should know that it has to do with Bil’am and Ba’al Peor.
+Commentators generally reconstruct the events by suggesting that Bil’am advised the leaders of Midian to send their women to ensnare the Jews and bring them to idolatry. This would have occurred either in tandem with the women of Moav, or after they set the example. Of course, the fact that the actual narrative mentions the daughters of Moav and not the daughters of Midian remains highly curious, as does the mysterious, unexplained hint that it is all Bil’am’s doing. The strange silence concerning Midian doesn’t end here, however. The other major biblical treatments of the Jews’ last sojourn in the desert (Devarim 1-3 and Yehoshua 2:10) skip right over the war with Midian. Granted, these narratives also skip over other events, including the incident of the Moabite women and Zimri. Still, since they mention the other wars that immediately preceded the war against Midian, the latter’s absence seems pointedly anomalous.
+Perhaps, in line with our previous discussion of Moav and Midian, the Torah’s unusual presentation of Midian’s misdeeds is an expression of its ambivalence with regard to what occurred. The nation that produced a Yitro and a Tzipporah was meted a punishment so severe that it was described as the vengeance of God (Bemidbar 31:3). Yet, the Torah does not want us to be so impressed with this as to forget what Midian was capable of accomplishing. Indeed, the severity of the punishment is in proportion to the greatness of its recipient. Hence, this “vengeance of God” could be due to His disappointment with a nation that could have actually accomplished so much more.
+Forever Divided
+Getting back to the tribal context of this affair, God’s approval of Pinchas represents a final conclusion to the saga of Shimon and Levi. Once He takes the side of Pinchas, there is little left for Shimon to do except to go along with the national leadership. This it does, but in a weakened and unconvincing fashion. Hence, the zeal showed earlier in the story of Dinah and again with Zimri would never resurface in Shimon again.
+But this denouement and especially the brit shalom, the covenant of peace that Pinchas receives from God, is even more significant for Levi than it is for Shimon. The idea that there is a need for some sort of peace with God can be explained in the context of Shimon and Levi’s shared zealotry. Until Pinchas turns against Shimon, there could be no peace between God and Levi. With all of Moshe and Aharon’s accomplishments, there still had been no resolution regarding zealotry. It is true that Moshe had raised the status of his tribe by having them take God’s vengeance for the golden calf, but that was not enough. There had to be zealotry for God against other zealots. (Make no mistake; the suddenness and violence of Zimri’s act was no less zealous than Pinchas’s reaction.) It was only with the employment of proper zealotry against misguided zealotry that there could be atonement for Levi’s alliance with the ultimately renegade Shimon, and thus, peace with God.
+A graphic illustration of what we have discussed in this chapter appears in the important transition that occurs between Ya’akov’s foundational blessing to the brothers and Moshe’s concluding ones. Ya’akov identifies only Shimon and Levi as “brothers,” i.e., they are coming with the same perspectives, ideals, and tendencies. Yet Ya’akov also feels that their unity is dangerous and so must be checked by separating them from one another. The prescribed division also seems to require that each tribe be scattered altogether and not just removed from the other tribe’s proximity. Thus, Levi is spread out among all the tribes, Shimon amidst the powerful tribesmen of Yehudah.
+If the brothers are treated identically by Ya’akov, the same is definitely not true when it comes to Moshe’s blessing. This time Levi would get an unusually uplifting blessing (Devarim 33:5-11), while Shimon would get none at all. Of course, this is only a reflection of the fact that the two tribes had nearly nothing left in common.See Sifri on Devarim 33:8, which makes a similar observation.
+The two tribes’ diverging paths had their roots in the words of Ya’akov. The division that would be a curse for Shimon would turn out to be a blessing for Levi. Hence, Levi is not only able to refine its trait of zealotry, it uses its diffusion to benefit the Jewish people, serving as priests and religious functionaries. This is not to say that theirs would be an easy path, but rather than bewail their challenges, the Levites flourish and attain complete acceptance by and even leadership of the Jewish people. They adapt to the “handicap” placed upon them by Ya’akov and use it to their advantage.
+Shimon is a completely different story. Not only doesn’t the tribe move forward, it actually regresses. What began with its forbear’s zealotry against impurity would turn into zealotry to defend impurity. Even if we want to stretch and find some sort of noble motivation for Zimri’s act, there is no denying that it destroys the very barriers that the tribe’s ancestor was so desperate to erect.
+Once defeated, the tribe of Shimon has nowhere left to go. Perhaps with the intention of keeping this hapless tribe on the straight and narrow once they are settled in the Land of Israel, the Torah mandates that Shimon be attached to the much larger and more powerful tribe of Yehudah. However, for lack of blessing and lack of a role to fulfill, it doesn’t take long until Shimon completely disintegrates. In fact, once the tribe makes its last positive contribution by casting its vote against Reuven and Gad when the latter challenged the centrality of the Land of Israel, it apparently has nothing left to offer and so, curiously, disappears into oblivion.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+The story of Shimon and Levi serves as an apt ending to our Book of the Tribes. Although we have already discussed Reuven’s inability to properly channel his role and his character, it is with Shimon and Levi that we see most clearly what can and cannot be done with the constraints we inherit from our past. Levi’s ability to use his tribal traits to his great advantage is only magnified by Shimon’s complete inability to know what to do with his ancestral characteristics.
+Whereas other tribes can be measured only against their own hypothetical potential, we can measure Shimon and Levi against each other. In doing so, we see the most dangerous trait of zealotry brilliantly channeled in the character of Pinchas and his Hasmonean descendants, and uncontrolled and squandered in the wildness of Zimri.
+Yet even such a yardstick is unfair. As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch points out, Levi was the first of Ya’akov’s children born into a situation of familial harmony. His two elder brothers, Reuven and Shimon, did not have this good fortune, which could not but have had consequences on their personality formation in their early childhood. Truly, a comparison between any two people or groups necessarily falls short. What does remain constant, however, is the need for all to accept who they are and to work within the limitations thereby created to become the best they can be.
+◆ ◆ ◆
+Achad Ha’am once pointed out that an assimilated Jew continues to embody much of the Jewish national character, whether he is aware of it or not: “Despite themselves, the spirit of Judaism comes to the surface in all that they attempt, and gives their work a special and distinctive character.” Achad Ha’am continues to make an impassioned plea to such writers and artists to return to “the environment which gave [them] birth and endowed [them] with [their] special aptitude . . . and implanted [their] fundamental ideas and feelings,” warning of “the want of harmony and wholeness” that would otherwise be the estranged artist’s lot.
+But even if we are comfortable with our national character, we must also learn to be just as comfortable with all parts of our given identity. In the words of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, we must come to accept that what we are “able to do and say intelligibly as an actor is deeply affected by the fact that we are never more (and sometimes less) than the co-authors of our own narratives.” Though not of our own choosing, we are born into specific communities, specific families, and specific circumstances.
+As with Levi, we must learn to use even that which we wish were not part of our identity and make it truly great. For it is the tribe of Levi which teaches us that true greatness is not born of fantasy but out of realistic self-assessment. Likewise, not to come to terms with the parts of our narrative of which we are not the author is a recipe for disaster. Whether this means running away from ourselves like Reuven, trying to artificially remake ourselves like Gad, or simply not working it through like Shimon, the pitfalls are many.
+At the end of the day, the Torah is a book of real people showing us the paths and choices available to them . . . and to us. As Leon Kass expresses it, more than telling us what happened, the Torah’s narratives tell us what always happens. The details may change but the human condition does not.
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