Commentaire sur Les Nombres 26:19

בני יהודה, the sons of Yehudah. This whole paragraph (19-22) is full of allusions to the history of the Jewish people. The reason the Torah has chosen to present us with these hints when enumerating the family members of Yehudah is because Yehudah is symbolic of the Jewish people as a whole. We have learned already in Bereshit Rabbah 98,6 that when one used to ask a Jew who was a member of a certain tribe to identify himself he would describe himself first and foremost as a Yehudi, not as a Shimoni or Reuveni, for instance. When our verse starts with the words בני יהודה, the Torah has in mind the descendants of Yehudah, not just his actual sons. Er and Onan respectively are allusions to the premature destruction of both the first and the second Temple. This idea is alluded to in Song of Songs 5,2: "I am asleep but my heart is ער, "awake." This means that while the first Temple was standing G'd was very much "awake," watching over my fate. Onan is an allusion to the second Temple. The Torah refers to it as Onan, an expression denoting אונאה, deception, as many of the holy vessels such as the Holy Ark, etc. were missing during the entire period of the second Temple's operation.

The Torah goes on to say that Er and Onan died, a reference to the destruction of both Temples. Departure of the שכינה, G'd's Presence, from the Temple, is described as death. Just as death of a body is the departure of the soul, so the departure of the Holy Presence of G'd is the death of the Temple. The cause, of course, were the sins committed by the Jewish people. Instead of being filled with G'd's Presence, the respective Temples became filled with the negative spiritual forces created through the sins committed. There is also an opinion according to which the specific sins which the original Er and Onan had been guilty of became the cause of the destruction of both Temples (compare Shabbat 62). The Talmud there states that the Jews were causing their bedsteads to become evil-smelling with semen (which was not theirs), committing the same sin as Er who is reported as being "evil" i.e. wasting his semen, in the eyes of G'd (Genesis 38,7). Onan's sin which is held responsible for the destruction of the second Temple, i.e. "senseless hatred" as described in Yuma 9, was that he hated his deceased brother and did not want that his name should be perpetuated through his impregnating his brother's widow (compare Genesis 38,9). The word Onan is derived from the Hebrew אונאה which also describes mutual harassment, i.e. causeless hatred.

The Torah concludes verse 19 by mentioning ארץ כנען, to remind us that these sins were committed on holy soil and that the souls of people who died on such soil because of such sins were returned to the domain of Samael, otherwise known as Canaan. There is also an allusion of a more comprehensive nature here. It is that the reason the Israelites did not hold on to ארץ ישראל permanently was that they never completed the command to drive out or kill the Canaanites completely. Allowing the Canaanites to co-exist with them in the same land enabled the remaining Canaanites to seduce the Israelites into worshiping idols and adopting many of the abominable practices of that nation.