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Parashat Matot Massei: Recognizing Enemies, Recognizing Leaders

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Recognizing Enemies, Recognizing Leaders
By Daniel Pinner

“And Hashem spoke to Moshe saying: Avenge the vengeance of the Children of Israel from the Midianites, and afterwards you will be gathered up to your people. And Moshe spoke to the people saying: Hasten forth armed men from your midst, that they be upon Midian, to wreak Hashem’s vengeance on Midian… And they went forth to war against Midian as Hashem had commanded Moshe, and they killed every male. And they killed the kings of Midian together with the rest of their dead: Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian; and Balaam, the son of Beor, they killed by the sword.” (Numbers 31:one-eight).

This is a fitting end to those who fought against us as we were poised to enter the Land of Israel. But there is an obvious question here: if G-d commanded us to take vengeance against Midian and against the Aramean prophet Balaam, then why were Moab and Balak, its king, spared? After all, Moab and Balak fought against us as much as Midian and Balaam did.

Let us make this question more powerful: G-d specifically commanded us not to harass Moab and not to wage war against them, and stated explicitly that He would not grant us any of their land (Deuteronomy 2:9). This is in stark contrast to the recompense meted out to Midian.

Balaam merited the title “Bil’am ha-rasha” (“the wicked Balaam”), and thus he is referred to throughout the Talmud and the Midrash; Balak merited having an entire Parashah named for him. Balaam was killed by the sword; Balak’s grandson was Eglon, the Moabite king who ruled over, and oppressed, Israel for 18 years in the early period of the Judges (Judges 3:12ff), and Eglon’s daughter was Ruth the Moabitess (Sanhedrin 105b). Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David, the progenitor of the Mashiach. So Balak, king of Moab, merited that the Mashiach came forth from his lineage. Clearly, it is debatable which of the two – Balak or Balaam – was the more evil; but the treatment that each one merits, and their later destinies, are polar opposites.

So why this difference between two leaders who, on the surface, seem to be on an approximately equal level of evil?

I believe that the answer is summed up in the simple words, “And Balak son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time” (Numbers 22:4). The function of a king – his single most primary function – is to protect the interests of the people over whom he rules. King Balak had seen how we had fought against and defeated the Canaanite king of Arad (21:1-3), Sihon king of the Amorite (vs. 21-25), and Og, king of Bashan (vs. 33-35). On the other hand, he had seen how the king of Edom had refused Israel permission to cross Edomite territory, and how as a result Israel had turned aside and taken a longer route around (20:14-21). So now, faced with this same nation, Balak protected his subjects’ interests. He was not willing to risk the life of a single Moabite; indeed, he was not willing to uproot a single Moabite from his home, even temporarily – certainly not for the sake of a foreign nation who wanted to avail themselves of Moabite territory. He was not willing to disengage, even temporarily, from even a single Moabite highway. And for that, not only could he not be faulted – he had to be rewarded.

By contrast, neither Midian and their kings nor Balaam were defending their own interests by opposing Israel. Midian was not on our route into the Land; and Balaam came from the banks of the River Pethor, hundreds of miles to the north in Aram. They had no part in the [potential] territorial dispute between us and Moab. The Israelite-Moabite dispute was – or should have been – irrelevant to them. These were foreign powers who decided to join the fight against Israel for no other reason than wanting to see Israel defeated. And for that, they deserved to be destroyed.

There was, of course, another crucial difference between Moab’s and Midian’s war against us: Moab was an honest enemy who wanted to destroy us physically; Balaam and Midian, however, fought against us by trying to destroy us spiritually. Moab tried to destroy us in this world; Balaam and Midian tried to destroy us both in this world and in the world to come. Each protagonist was punished measure for measure: Moab, though they no longer exist as a nation, will nonetheless have their echo in the future time, when the Mashiach will be a descendant of Moab. But Balaam and Midian have no remnant at all, not in this world and not in the time of Mashiach – may he come speedily in our days, Amen.
 
SHABBAT SHALOM

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