The last chapters of the book of Bamidbar culminate in the final preparations to invade Canaan. They deal with demarcating the territory the Israelites will claim and allocating the land between the tribes. But the reading begins with blood and ends with blood. It starts with the destruction of the Midianites and makes very uncomfortable reading. It ends with the…
Author: Jeremy Rosen
Detached From Community
This week the Torah lists all the places the Children of Israel camped at during their 40-year trek from Egypt to Israel. The lands conquered and not yet, are then allocated to the tribes as the narrative of the Torah concludes before the final push over the river Jordan into the Land of Israel. Remember the last book of the…
Tribal Land
This week the Torah starts with a command to the Heads of the Tribes. This is unusual because normally it would either be a command to the Israelites in general or to Moses specifically. And it relates to fathers and husbands having the right to cancel vows either as a husband or a father on the grounds that one cannot…
Midian
Moses is told that before he dies, the last thing he must do is to destroy Midian because they nearly succeeded in corrupting almost the whole of the Israelite leadership below Moses and Aaron. Notice the Torah mentions Midian and not Moab but in fact they were partners from the start. The Midrash suggests that they merged. So, off the…
Reuben & Gad Negotiate
As the Israelites prepared to invade the Land of Canaan, the tribes of Reuben, Gad and part of Menashe approached Moses with a request to be allowed to stay on the East Bank where there was excellent prairie land, good for herds. Moses at first objected to splitting the people. All the tribes had been involved in conquering the territory…
Phineas
Really the incident that brought Phineas (we call him Phineas) fame took place at the end of last week’s reading. Balaam is recorded as returning home and immediately the Moabite women set about seducing the Israelites. Not a military solution of course but then Balak has already thought out of the box already. Why not try this? And it succeeded.…