- Avenge the vengeance (31:2)
The double terminology indicates that before the nation of Midian can be defeated, its supernal “minister,” which embodies the spiritual essence of Midian, must be vanquished.
(Keli Chemdah)
The Hebrew word midian means “strife.” Midian is the essence of divisiveness, which is the root of all evil.
Thus our sages speak of “groundless hatred” as the greatest of evils. In truth, all strife is groundless hatred: the so-called “grounds” that people and nations have for hating and destroying each other are but the various façades of the divisive “I” of Midian—the ego that belies the common source and goal of humanity, and views the very existence of others as an encroachment upon the self.
On the cosmic level, G‑d is the ultimate oneness, and everything G‑dly in our world bears the stamp of His unity. All evil derives from the distortion of this oneness by the veil of divisiveness in which G‑d shrouds His creation.
(Maamar Heichaltzu 5659)
- They warred against Midian, as G‑d commanded Moses (31:7)
When laying siege on a city to conquer it, we do not surround it from all four sides, but only from three sides, leaving a way to escape for anyone who wishes to flee for his life. As it is written: “They warred against Midian, as G‑d commanded Moses"; it has been handed down by tradition that this is what G‑d had commanded him.
(Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings and Their Wars 6:7)
- So did your fathers . . . (32:8)
If Moses initially saw their request as the equivalent of the spies’ shunning of the Holy Land, why did he at the end agree to their proposal, and even expand on it, by adding half the tribe of Manasseh to the tribes of Reuben and Gad?
The fact that they pledged to participate in other tribes’ conquest of the Land answered only the first part of Moses’ complaint to them—“Shall your brethren go to war, and you sit here?”—but not the other, seemingly more grave, accusation—namely, that they are repeating the sin of the spies in spurning the Land, which had caused that entire generation to die out in the desert!
The explanation is to be found in the first words of the response given by the men of Reuben and Gad to Moses: “We will build sheepfolds here for our sheep, and cities for our young.”
Chassidic teaching explains the sin of the spies as resulting from a reluctance to assume the mission of “settling the Land.” Though they knew that the very purpose of creation is to “make for G‑d a dwelling in the lowly (i.e., physical) world,” they believed themselves incapable of carrying out this mission. “It is a land that consumes its settlers!” the spies cried upon their return from their survey of the Land. How could they be sure that once they involved themselves with the Land, they would not be overwhelmed by its corporeality? How could they know whether they would indeed exploit its lofty potential and not instead sink into the morass of material life?
When the people of Reuben and Gad came forward with their request, Moses thought that he was again meeting with a refusal by a group of “spiritualists” shunning the divinely ordained mission to develop the Land.
In truth, however, it was not the dread of the material that motivated these two tribes to remain east of the Jordan. On the contrary: they wanted to settle these lands, to build cities and ranches, to raise their sheep and cattle on its pastures. Their plea, “Do not take us across the Jordan,” did not express a reluctance to seek out the potential for holiness contained in the Land, but an attraction to even more remote—and thus even loftier—“sparks of G‑dliness.”
After all, the land west of the Jordan, though material, was the “Holy Land”—a land where even the most mundane pursuits are touched with a spiritual glow. Outside of the Holy Land, the physical world is more lowly, and thus contains sparks of divinity that derive from an even higher source. The tribes of Reuben and Gad were convinced that their mission in life was to pursue, extract and elevate the “sparks” inherent in this more spiritually distant corner of creation.
(From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe)
- You shall be guiltless towards G‑d and towards Israel (32:22)
The sages taught: Always appoint at least two people together as trustees over public funds. Even Moses, who enjoyed the full trust of G‑d—as it is written, “In all My house he is trusted”—figured the accounts of the Sanctuary together with others, as it says: “By the hand of Itamar the son of Aaron” (Exodus 38:21).
- Moses said to them . . . “Build cities for your young, and sheepfolds for your sheep” (32:20, 24)
They, on the other hand, had said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our sheep, and cities for our young” (v. 16), giving precedence to their cattle over their children. Said Moses to them: Not so! Make the primary thing primary, and the secondary thing secondary.
(Rashi)
My thoughts precisely.
- These are the journeys of the children of Israel . . . (33:1)
The forty-two “stations” from Egypt to the Promised Land are replayed in the life of every individual Jew, as his soul journeys from its descent to earth at birth to its return to its Source.
(Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov)
- These are the journeys of the children of Israel going out of the land of Mitzrayim (Egypt) . . . (33:1)
It would seem that there was only one journey which took the Jewish nation out of Egypt—their journey from Rameses to Sukkot. The other “journeys” listed in our Parshah were between points outside of the geographical borders of Egypt. Why, then, does the Torah speak of “the journeys”—in the plural—“of the children of Israel going out of the land of Mitzrayim”?
Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word for “Egypt,” means “borders” and “narrows.” On the spiritual level, the journey from Egypt is a journey from the boundaries that limit us—an exodus from the narrow straits of habit, convention and ego to the “good, broad land” of the infinite potential of our G‑dly soul.
And the journey from Mitzrayim is a perpetual one: what is expansive and uninhibited by yesterday’s standards, is narrow and confining in light of the added wisdom and new possibilities of today’s station. Thus, each of life’s “journeys” is an exodus from the land of Mitzrayim: having transcended yesterday’s limitations, we must again journey from the Mitzrayim that our present norm represents relative to our newly uncovered potential.
(Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi)
- They journeyed from . . . and they camped at . . . (33:3–49)
Our chapter opens, “These are the journeys of the children of Israel.” However, it then proceeds to recount not the journeys, but the forty-two encampments at which they stopped during their sojourn in the Sinai Desert!
Yet these encampments were not ends unto themselves—only way-stations and stepping-stones to advance the nation of Israel in their goal of attaining the Promised Land. So the stops themselves are referred to as “journeys.”
The same is true of the journey of life. Pauses, interruptions and setbacks are an inadvertent part of a person’s sojourn on earth. But when everything a person does is toward the goal of attaining the “Holy Land”—the sanctification of the material world—these, too, are “journeys.” Ultimately, they are shown to have been the true motors of progression, each an impetus to the realization of one’s mission and purpose in life.
(From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe)
- Moses wrote down their goings out to their journeys, by the command of G‑d (33:2)
This is comparable to a king whose child was ill, and he took him to another place to heal him. On their return journey, the father recounted all their stations: “Here we slept,” “here we caught cold,” “here your head hurt.” By the same token, G‑d said to Moses: Recount for them all the places where it was that they had angered Me.
(Midrash Tanchuma)
The journey from Egypt to the Holy Land was a one-way journey: the Israelites did not physically revisit their encampments in the desert. What, then, is the significance of the “return journey” made by the king and his child in the above-cited parable by the Midrash?
As the people of Israel travelled through the desert, they experienced their forty-two encampments as interruptions, even setbacks, in their progress towards the Promised Land. But on the eve of their entry into the Holy Land, they were able to “return,” to look back upon these encampments and re-experience them in a different light: not as a people venturing from slavery toward an unknowable goal through a fearful wilderness, but as a people who, having attained their goal, could now appreciate how each way station in their journey had forged a particular part of their identity and had contributed to what and where they were today.
The great desert we each must cross in the journey of life is the product of what the Kabbalists call the tzimtzum (“constriction”): G‑d’s creation of a so-called vacuum within His all-pervading immanence, a bubble of darkness within His infinite light that allows man the choice between good and evil. For in order that our acts of goodness should be meaningful, there must also be the choice of evil.
#free_will{.tag .is-dark} Three conditions are necessary to create the possibility of free choice in the heart of man:
- There must be a withdrawal of the divine light and the creation of the “vacuum” that allows the existence of evil.
- It is not enough that evil exist; it must also be equipped with the illusion of worthiness and desirability. If evil were readily perceived for what it is—the suppression of light and life—there would be no true choice.
- On the other hand, an absolute vacuum would shut out all possibility for choosing life. Thus the Tzimtzum must be mitigated with a glow, however faint, of the divine light that empowers us to overcome darkness and death.
Therein lies the deeper significance of the three stations in the Midrash’s metaphor: “Here we slept,” “here we were cooled,” “here your head hurt.”
“Here we slept” refers to the withdrawal of the divine vitality in order to create the tzimtzum. “Here we were cooled” refers to the mitigation of the tzimtzum with a faint glow of divine light. And “here your head hurt” is a reference to the many contortions that cloud our minds and confuse our priorities, leading to a distorted vision of reality and misguided decisions.
All these, however, serve a single purpose: to advance us along the journey of life and to imbue the journey with meaning and worth. Today we can only reiterate to ourselves our knowledge of this truth; on the “return journey,” we shall revisit these stations and see and experience their true import.
(From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe)
- They journeyed from Etzyon Gever, and camped in the wilderness of Tzin, which is Kadesh (33:36)
Hence journeys 1 through 11 were in the first year following the Exodus, and journeys 32–42 in the fortieth year, meaning that there were 19 journeys in the intervening 38 years. According to the Midrash, 19 of these 38 years were spent in Kadesh, and the other 19 wandering through the desert.