This Week's Torah Portion: Numbers 33:1 - 36:13

Again, because it falls during the summer, we rarely hear about or study this portion.  Within the portion is a total accounting of each leg of the journey from Egypt, with the location of each and every pit-stop along the way.  It is, for this next generation, an accounting of their parents' historic 40 year journey.

Take the time to read the next section which gives, in excruciatingly minute detail the boundaries of God's "promised land" ... This part of the Torah is a legal document, and gives the exact lines of demarcation of the new country  where the Jews are to live.

After being given their new map, God goes on to explain how they need to conquer the land. Given the current state of affairs in Israel, it is extremely unsettling to read the ancient dictate:

 ⁵¹ Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, ⁵² you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land; you shall destroy all their figured objects; you shall destroy all their molten images, and you shall demolish all their cult places. ⁵³And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess.

....But if you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land, those whom you allow to remain shall be stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land in which you live; ⁵⁶ 

As the French say, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Please remember the State of Israel in your thoughts and prayers.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose

This week's Torah portion: Mattot Numbers 30:2 - 32:421

"(the meat of the portion starts with chapter 31)

"And now... for the bloody truth about acquiring the Promised Land. 

"People in Torah Study groups are often amazed, conflicted, caught unaware, and pretty much blown away by Mattot in the Book of Numbers. Because this parasha is read in the summer, when we weren't in Hebrew School, it isn't often taught in Hebrew School. So, we, as adults, are shocked to find out how bloody the conquest of "The Promised Land" actually was.  In Mattot we learn the details of this amazing military campaign. God lets Moses know that after Moses "avenges the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin. "There is a "call up" of 12,000 soldiers from the tribes.Thousands upon thousands of Midianites are slaughtered... including women and children. Curiously, when the fighting is over, it is discovered that not a single Israelite was killed.  

"There is also some interesting psychological manipulation done when two of the tribes, who keep cattle and find good grazing ground on the near side of the Jordan, announce that they prefer to NOT cross the Jordan.  God pretty much says... you can't just "not go" and leave your brothers to hang!  So, cattle, wives and children are left behind in fortified encampments while the men cross over and fight alongside the other tribes to conquer the land.

"Certainly there is enough drama here for an HBO series."

Shabbat Shalom, 
Rabbi Rose