The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

So here we go again. The continuity of the narrative is broken even before it gets underway. As we move toward the conclusion of B’midar with this week’s parashah, Mattot, there is some unfinished business to attend to. Vengeance is yet to exacted from Midyan, so that needs to be done. Then there’s the matter of what is to be done with the land of Sichon and Og, extensive tracts of land taken by Israel in battle but, alas, located on the wrong side of the tracks. So, nu, let’s get to work!! Not so fast. First, Moshe must relate to the heads of the tribes the laws of vows and their annulment, with special reference to one’s daughter or wife. “Now, Moshe?”, I imagine the heads of the tribes asking as they tap their feet impatiently. “Now we need to learn about vows? Now’s not the time to talk - all the more so to talk about talk - now’s the time to do!” Yet that is how our parasha begins. Following the initial verse regarding the singular importance of not desecrating any vows or ...

One of the Torah scrolls in the aron kodesh of any shul is always rolled to Parashat Pinchas. That is because this week’s parashah is the unlikely locus of the passages detailing the holiday sacrificial offerings which we read for Rosh Chodesh and for maftir on the various chaggim. As such, it is convenient, when there is more than one Sefer Torah in a shul, to leave one rolled and ready to go. But why are these sacrificial offerings brought just now? This is a question we can and have been asking all throughout Chumash B’midbar, as time and again a halachic passage intrudes into the narrative. Here, as we come toward the end of B’midbar, it is a particular curiousity. In Parashat Emor, in the midst of Vayikra, the offerings are detailed for the various holidays – why shouldn’t this passage be either redundant or mentioned there? What do these offerings have to do with the protective covenant which Hashem extends to Pinchas in exchange for his holy zealotry at Shittim? Naturally,...

" Mah Tovu Ohaleicha Ya'akov, Mishkenoteicha Yisrael" . How good are your tents, Ya'akov; your dwellings, Yisrael! These words, some of the first we utter each morning as we enter the Beit Knesset for Shacharit, are the opening words of the third and climactic blessing that Bil'am utters in place of the curse he was summoned from afar to place upon Israel. Though Bil'am was intent on cursing Yisrael one way or another, and sought some subterfuge through which to slip in a curse, Hashem placed His word in Bil'am's mouth like a bit in the mouth of a donkey, and compelled him to follow His original, unchanged instructions of blessing Israel. See Ramban, who explains that Hashem's consent to Bil'am's journey was predicated upon the latter's understanding that he may well end up blessing Israel in Balak's presence! So Bil'am knew he was going to be compelled to bless, and yet he went anyway, and uttered some of the most lofty ...

This is the week where forty years passes in the blink of an eye. One minute we’ve been speaking of the rebellion of Korach – a rebellion which takes place not long after the investiture of the Levi’im, at Mt. Sinai – and the next thing we know, Miriam has passed away in the fortieth year of wandering. One generation is replacing its predecessor, and no one will be spared – including the other siblings, Aharon and Miriam. The demise of both is announced in this week’s parashah, Parah, in the wake of the incident at Mei Merivah. A sin at once so heinous that it brings on the death of the holiest of Am Yisrael, and on the other hand, is considered a sin of significance only for someone on the level of Moshe – but what is it? The Torah is silent. It is true that in several places the sin is referred to, but in each case, it is referred to in general terms: You did not sanctify Me before the people, you violated My instructions, etc. What, precisely, is it that they did? ...