TORAH SPARKS ניצוצות תורה
פרשת מסעי
PARASHAT MASEY BIRKAT HAHODESH
July 30, 2011 – 28 Tammuz 5771 – כ"ח תמוז תשע"א
Annual: Numbers 33:1 – 36:13 (Etz Hayim, p. 954; Hertz p. 714)
Triennial: Numbers 33:1 – 49 (Etz Hayim, p. 954; Hertz p. 714)
Haftarah: Jeremiah 2:4-28, 3:4 (Etz Hayim p. 973, Hertz p. 725)
Prepared by Rabbi Joseph Prouser
Baldwin, New York
Parashat Masei begins with an extensive list detailing the Israelites’ journeys – the various stops and encampments they made as they traversed the wilderness, beginning with Ramses in Egypt and concluding at the steppes of Moab, perhaps five miles from the Jordan. The next stage of this long journey is to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land. On the cusp of entering Canaan, a number of critical matters are addressed. God commands Israel to expel the inhabitants of Canaan from the land and to destroy their idols and places of worship. Failure to do so, Israel is told, will result in dire consequences. The indigenous idolaters will be “stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you.” Additional instructions are provided to effect equitable allotment of the land among the tribes and their members. The boundaries of the Promised Land are detailed, providing geographical features by which the frontiers are to be defined.
Within the Land, both towns and pasturage are to be provided the Levites, who are not otherwise granted a tribal allotment. Forty-eight such towns are to be designated, among them the six cities of refuge. These cities function to provide asylum to Israelites who unintentionally take a life, committing manslaughter. Once such a perpetrator of accidental homicide enters a city of refuge, he is safe from relatives of his victim, who might otherwise exercise the right of blood vengeance – lawfully taking the life of their loved one’s killer. The perpetrator of the manslaughter is given asylum until his lack of malice and intent is established by trial. Should he leave the city of refuge, he is vulnerable to those seeking vengeance. No monetary compensation is permitted the unintentional killer to effect release from his penal status. The “man-slayer” can be released from the city of refuge and is no longer liable to lawful vengeance only upon the death of the high priest. This of course is a period of indeterminate and unpredictable duration, perhaps dramatizing (to both society and the perpetrator) the unpredictable vagaries of the human condition that led to the accidental homicide that occasioned his legal predicament.
In addition to establishing the legal norm of trial and due process, parashat Masei also distinguishes carefully between unintended manslaughter and the heinous crime of murder, which is established by the intent, conscious action, or malice of the perpetrator. Such a criminal is not entitled to asylum and is subject to the institution of family avengers or execution. Such execution, however, can be imposed only on the strength of the testimony of two witnesses to the crime.
The parashah concludes by revisiting the case of the five daughters of Zelophehad, who, earlier, were granted inheritance rights to their father’s estate because their father left no male heirs. This precedent established this legal enfranchisement for all Israelite women in similar circumstances. Clan leaders within the tribe of Manasseh now object that the sisters, as property owners, will diminish their tribal allotment should they marry members of other Israelite tribes. At God’s instruction, Moses rules that such heiresses must marry only within their own tribe, in order to safeguard the integrity of the tribal allotments within the land of Israel. The five sisters, accordingly, marry first cousins.
The Torah is made of five books, but many scholars recognize the first four as a distinctive literary unit, even referring to this subset of the Torah as the “Tetrateuch.” By marking yet another dramatic innovation in Israelite law, the second case of Zelophehad’s daughters, with which Numbers, the fourth book, concludes, serves as an apt transition to Deuteronomy, with its sustained pattern of legal evolution and reinterpretation.
Theme #1: “Possession With Intent”
“And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the
land to you to possess.” Numbers 33:53
Study: Derash
“Since this mitzvah operates timelessly, each Jew, even the one who has made the diaspora his home, must at all times strive to make this imperative a tangible
reality in his own life.” Maimonides
“The fundamental aim of all the Torah’s precepts is to see all of Israel dwelling in the land.” Nachmanides
“I believe that the Zionist vision does not emanate from persecution, but that it is
deeply impressed in the Jewish people’s desire for national existence; in its historical willpower to maintain its independence on the soil of the homeland in which it sprouted and in which its national genius was molded.” David Ben-Gurion
“Traditional and modern sources point to aliyah as an existential need for the
Jewish people, the individual, Conservative Judaism, and the state of Israel. Each Jew’s religious imperative to reside in Israel is expressed in one of the Torah’s basic commands: ‘And you shall dwell in the land which I have given to your ancestors.’” Rabbi Joseph Wernick
“Only the Conservative movement, with the flexibility inherent in its approach to halachah, can deal with a key issue ignored to date by halachists: the bestowal of a special halachic status on the state of Israel, which would endow it with a legitimate, recognized standing within Jewish tradition. The Conservative movement is in a unique position to bring both Judaism and Zionism into a healthy and constructive relationship with the best of modern culture.” Rabbi Lee Levine
Questions for Discussion
How does a Jew living in the diaspora “strive to make the imperative” of settlement of the land of Israel a reality in her or his life? What are the unique
benefits of Jewish life in Israel? What are the unique benefits of Jewish life in the diaspora – both for the diaspora Jew and for the state of Israel? How might an Israeli
and a committed Jew living outside Israel answer these questions differently?
What specific contributions does the Conservative movement offer the state of
Israel? Societies outside the state of Israel? The individual practitioner of Jewish tradition?
Should – or how should – Jewish day schools and congregational religious schools address the option of aliyah as a serious lifestyle option and as a critical
issue of religious decision making to their students? Is it proper for religious leaders who have made their homes and careers in the diaspora to identify settlement in the
land of Israel in terms of a “religious mandate” or “existential need”? (Rabbi
Wernick, who uses these terms, above, is a long-time resident of Jerusalem and a
Zionist leader.)
What place should Zionist activities have in our congregations? Can a Jew who is absolutely committed to staying in the diaspora claim to be a Zionist?
What is the “national genius” of the Jewish people to which Ben-Gurion refers?
How are we to respond to those who would claim that the Jewish state came about only as compensation for Jewish suffering in the Holocaust?
Contemplate Nachmanides’ statement above. How would you complete his statement: “The fundamental aim of all the Torah’s precepts is to….”
Theme #2: “An Offer You Can’t Refuge”
“The Lord spoke further to Moses: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:
When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you shall provide yourself with places to serve you as cities of refuge to which a manslayer who has killed a person unintentionally may flee. The cities shall serve you as a refuge from the avenger, so that the manslayer may not die unless he has stood trial before the assembly.” Numbers 35:9-12
Study: Derash
“To any Jew who has had the misfortune of having slain a man by accident and is
therefore so abjectly crushed that he can no longer find his place in the world, the Lord says, ‘I shall appoint a place for you,’ a city of refuge where he will be safe from the avenger and find peace. But as for him who is not so greatly stricken by what he has done and who can still find his place, there actually is no safe place and the cities of refuge will not offer him asylum.” Rabbi Isaac Meir Alter, Chiddushei Ha-Rim
“The Torah values human life. To kill intentionally is to deny another’s humanness; perhaps the Torah believes that in doing so the murderer has hopelessly compromised his own humanity. Murder is an outrageous crime; to accept monetary compensation would be to place a fixed value on that which is priceless. In the case of accidental death, the community may protect the killer, but the gravity of his act must be recognized through exile. The Torah cannot prevent human beings from killing each other. It reminds us, however, that each human life has infinite value and that no life can be taken without consequences.” Devora Weisberg
“He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.” John Milton
“Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.” Francis Bacon
“Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.” Percy
Bysshe Shelley
“Revenge is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.” Albert Schweitzer
Questions for Discussion
How does the Torah’s prescription of cities of refuge benefit the bereaved
families of manslaughter victims?
Rabbi Alter suggests that the cities of refuge reflect the emotional condition of the psychologically healthy and morally lucid perpetrator of accidental homicide. In
addition to preventing their own murder (no small matter), what further benefits do the cities of refuge represent to those who are exiled to such facilities?
Consider the various definitions of revenge offered above. Wherein lies the moral failure in the desire for revenge: its interference with emotional closure (Milton)? Its
anarchic tendency (Bacon)? Its uncivilized and idolatrous nature (Shelley)? Or its self-destructive impact (Schweitzer)?
What did Shelley mean by describing revenge as a “naked idol”? How is revenge inconsistent with monotheism? With the historic mission of the Jewish people?
Is revenge for lesser offenses (personal insults and indignities, physical injuries, romantic betrayals, professional setbacks) also morally objectionable? How are
these issues to be distinguished from homicide?
If the perpetrator of an accidental homicide merits the protection of a city of refuge, why are the victim’s relatives permitted to kill him if he leaves? Why does
the Torah specifically prohibit monetary compensation for a homicide?
Historic Note
Parashat Masei, read on July 30, 2011, prescribes the cities of refuge, intended to curtail the practice of blood vengeance whereby the killing of a family member would be avenged by summarily executing the perpetrator. On July 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued
what was popularly referred to (in language aptly borrowed from the Hebrew Bible) as the “eye-for-an-eye” order. Southern forces were warned that a Confederate prisoner of war would be executed in retribution for any black Union soldier who was murdered in captivity, and that a Confederate prisoner would be sentenced to life at hard labor for every black Union soldier
who was taken prisoner and then sold back into slavery.
Halachah L’Maaseh
Parashat Masei, and therefore the book of Numbers, concludes with the marriage of Zelophehad’s five daughters to “their father’s brothers’ sons” – that is, to their first cousins. Marriages between first cousins – as, too, between an uncle and a niece – are perfectly
permissible in Jewish law, and were not only quite common but considered particularly desirable among Ashkenazi Jews throughout the European diaspora. (See BT Yevamot 62B; Rambam, Mishneh Torah Issurei Biah 2:14; Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 2:6.)