Parashat Matot - Second Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Almost the end of the road. Moses hears from God: the next mission is also the last. “nekom nikmat bnei Yisra’el me’et hamidyanim achar te’asef el amecha” (Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites; afterward you shall be gathered to your people, Numbers 31:2). This is not a war like all other wars. It is a war of mission. The vengeance of God, against those who harmed the people not only in body but in soul.
Moses commands to send a thousand fighters from each tribe, twelve thousand soldiers, to the war against Midian. At their head goes Pinchas son of Elazar the priest, with the sacred vessels and the trumpets for sounding. The priest, the emissary of holiness, leads the army of Israel not only by the power of weapons but also by the power of the spirit.
The campaign ends in total victory. All the males are killed, including the five kings of Midian, and also Balaam son of Beor, the same Balaam who tried to curse and ended up blessing, yet in the end advised how to lead Israel into sin. His punishment comes becharev (by the sword).
The children of Israel take great spoil: women and children, livestock and cattle, and all their wealth. The cities and palaces are burned with fire. And everything is brought to Moses and to Elazar, to the plains of Moab, by the Jordan at Jericho.
Rashi (Numbers 31:3) highlights the change of language in Moses’ words: God said “nikmat bnei Yisra’el” (the vengeance of the children of Israel), while Moses says to the people “nikmat Adonai” (the vengeance of Adonai). And so Rashi explains: “one who stands against Israel is as if he stands against the Holy One, blessed be He”. The Sifrei (Bamidbar 157) expands the idea: this vengeance is not the vengeance of flesh and blood, but the vengeance of “the One who spoke and the world came into being”.
There is a deep insight here: the enemies who saw in Israel a body discovered they were fighting a spirit. When the children of Israel go in the name of God, the struggle is not merely political or military; it is the repair of a moral and spiritual wrong.
The wars of the spirit in our days are not fought with a sword, but they demand the same courage: to stand for the sanctity of values, for the boundaries between truth and falsehood, for the purity of the inner camp. And sometimes the hardest war is waged within ourselves, against the little Balaam inside us. Not out of anger but out of mission, not out of vengeance but out of clarity.
More Questions on the Parsha
What does the division of the spoils teach about the bond between those at the front and those who stayed behind?
The Torah divided the spoils of Midian between the warriors and the whole congregation. An interpretive look at how there is no front without a home front, and that the victory belongs to all of Israel and to the sacred service, not only to the warriors.
Does the impurity of war describe only a halachic state, or also a psychological and spiritual wound?
In the plain sense, the corpse impurity that follows battle is an objective halachic state. But as a spiritual reading, it can also be seen as a recognition that contact with death leaves a mark, and that returning from war demands time and a boundary.
Why does Moses reverse the words of Gad and Reuben, mentioning the children first and only then the flocks?
Gad and Reuben placed their flocks before their children, and Moses flipped the order. A look at the small gap that reveals a large inner shift in priorities.
What does the fact that only a thousand warriors from each tribe were sent to war teach us?
Each tribe sent a thousand warriors equally, twelve thousand against a nation of hundreds of thousands. An interpretive look at shared responsibility, the limited force, and the fact that not one of them was lost.