Parashat Masei - Third Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
The children of Israel stand at the threshold of entering the land. The camp of Israel rests in the plains of Moab, looking toward the Jordan, seeing in its mind’s eye the Promised Land that lies just across the river. And then comes the command, not a command to depart, but a command of inheritance: the people will not only enter the land, but will take possession of it, inherit it, dismantle from it the remnants of pagan culture, and begin to build a new reality of holiness.
The third aliyah opens with a double command: to dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and to destroy the symbols of idolatry within it. The Torah emphasizes that an external conquest is not enough; a deep clearing is also needed. And if not, “vehayah asher totiru mehem… vetzareru etchem” (those you leave of them… shall harass you, Numbers 33:55).
Immediately afterward, the Torah details the borders of the land. From the Great Sea in the west to the Salt Sea in the east, from the north down to the border of Egypt in the south, the land is bounded and defined. Not as a vague dream, but as a concrete space, with borders and with responsibility.
What lies beneath the dry descriptions of the borders?
The command to dispossess the inhabitants of the land is not only a geographical instruction, but an inner demand. Entering a new stage is not merely entering; it requires making room. What remains without clearing, unpurified influences of the past, may become “lesikim be’eineichem velitzninim betzideichem” (thorns in your eyes and pricks in your sides, Numbers 33:55). What is neglected tends to return and to hurt. Renewal demands cleansing, clarification, decision.
And the borders? They come to teach that even in the land there is a place for every tribe, every family, every soul. Each one enters his precise place. Not everything is open, and not everything is random. The Torah emphasizes: “begoral” (by lot), and not by logic alone. There are borders, and there is a precise portion destined for each one to inherit, rather than grasping at everything.
And the question before us: will we conquer only the territory, or will we truly cleanse it as well?
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