Chasidut su Deuteronomio 23:4
לֹֽא־יָבֹ֧א עַמּוֹנִ֛י וּמוֹאָבִ֖י בִּקְהַ֣ל יְהוָ֑ה גַּ֚ם דּ֣וֹר עֲשִׂירִ֔י לֹא־יָבֹ֥א לָהֶ֛ם בִּקְהַ֥ל יְהוָ֖ה עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃
Un ammonita o un moabita non devono entrare nell'assemblea del Signore; fino alla decima generazione nessuno di loro entrerà nell'assemblea del Signore per sempre;
Kedushat Levi
Numbers 22,3. “Moab was greatly afraid of the people because they were so numerous; Moab greatly dreaded the Children of Israel.”
Judging by the fact that the Torah distinguishes the feelings of the Moabites vis a vis העם, the “people,” and subsequently vis a vis the בני ישראל, “the Children of Israel”, we are entitled to assume that the term העם refers to the fellow travelers, the mixed multitude that had attached themselves to the Israelites at the time of the Exodus. (Compare Sh’mot Rabbah 42,6)
According to the Zohar, the fear of the Moabites was due to their having noticed that wherever the Israelites encamped (40th year near the Jordan river) many gentiles would join them and convert to Judaism, so that the word העם, here does not refer to the mixed multitude that had joined the Israelites already at the Exodus. [I have not found this Zohar, Ed.] Balak or his people were afraid that if the Israelites were to encamp near them, many Moabites would convert to Judaism and join them. [The legislation that Moabites were not allowed to convert (Deuteronomy 23,4) had not yet been made public. Ed.] The next line describing the mental state of the Moabites as being one of dread of the Israelites, explains that whereas normally, Balak could not have cared less, here the fact that the Moabites were in such dread of the Israelites caused him to fear wholesale defection among his people to the Israelites as a real possibility. Balak was a great anti-Semite.
Judging by the fact that the Torah distinguishes the feelings of the Moabites vis a vis העם, the “people,” and subsequently vis a vis the בני ישראל, “the Children of Israel”, we are entitled to assume that the term העם refers to the fellow travelers, the mixed multitude that had attached themselves to the Israelites at the time of the Exodus. (Compare Sh’mot Rabbah 42,6)
According to the Zohar, the fear of the Moabites was due to their having noticed that wherever the Israelites encamped (40th year near the Jordan river) many gentiles would join them and convert to Judaism, so that the word העם, here does not refer to the mixed multitude that had joined the Israelites already at the Exodus. [I have not found this Zohar, Ed.] Balak or his people were afraid that if the Israelites were to encamp near them, many Moabites would convert to Judaism and join them. [The legislation that Moabites were not allowed to convert (Deuteronomy 23,4) had not yet been made public. Ed.] The next line describing the mental state of the Moabites as being one of dread of the Israelites, explains that whereas normally, Balak could not have cared less, here the fact that the Moabites were in such dread of the Israelites caused him to fear wholesale defection among his people to the Israelites as a real possibility. Balak was a great anti-Semite.
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Kedushat Levi
Another dimension of the line:עתה ילחכו הקהל את כל סביבותינו כלחך השור את ירק השדה; will become clearer when we look at Rashi on this verse.
Before doing this, however, we need to explain the meaning of a few verses in the previous portion חקת. We read in Numbers 21,27: על כן יאמרו המשלים באו חשבון תבנה ותכונן עיר סיחון, “therefore the bards would say ‘come to Cheshbon, it will be rebuilt and well founded as a city belonging to Sichon.’” The same bards continue with lamenting the fate of Moab from whom this city had been conquered by Sichon. (verses 28-30) Apart from the short summary of Moab’s history and Sichon’s might in these verses, what is especially remarkable is that the future tense used in relation to the city of Cheshbon, i.e. the future tense about a city that had already been rebuilt and reinforced, seems difficult to understand. Instead of the poet wishing for rebuilding of the city, he should have wished for its continuing to endure, i.e. תהיה עיר סיחון וגו'. Furthermore, the poet quoted speaks of the inhabitants of the city formerly having become refugees and prisoners, describing the males as “refugees” and the females as “prisoners.” Why this distinction?
We will clarify all this commencing with a statement in Gittin 38 according to which the members of people of Ammon and Moav respectively had been “ritually cleansed,” i.e. permitted to be conquered by the Jewish people through their having experienced becoming slaves of Sichon. Israel had been forbidden to annex Moab and Ammon as long as these lands had retained their independence. Any part of their lands which they had “lost” to predator nations had not been included in the Torah’s prohibition. That prohibition had been designed to prevent members of those two nations to be elevated to the status of converts to Judaism and membership in the Jewish people. The concept of not being allowed to join the Jewish people through conversion, signals to the rest of mankind that these two nations are considered as the ultimate source of destruction and desolation, as they are banned by Divine decree from rehabilitating themselves spiritually. If any of these people, through having been captured in war by another nation, had felt themselves degraded, this was not so in the long run, as they had then become qualified as potential members of the Jewish people. When the poet refers to the Moabites as captives and fugitives respectively, followed by the wish that Sichon’s city be rebuilt in the future, he refers to the new hope that the Moabite victims of Sichon’s conquest can now have, since they have become redeemable spiritually if they were to convert to Judaism. When something is legally incapable of being elevated to sanctity, it is called הרוס and חרוב, in Hebrew, whereas once this legal restriction has been removed it is called בנוי, built or rebuilt. Hence the poet congratulates the inhabitants of that city as becoming “rebuilt.” At the same time the poet mourns the fact that the remainder of the state of Moab that had not been captured by Sichon will remain forever condemned to being spiritually irredeemable. Another way of phrasing what we have just explained is that the redemption of the wicked is predicated on his first having experienced defeat, capture. The anonymous poets whom the Torah quoted in Numbers 21,29 appear to have had prophetic insight for those who could attune their ears to this.
The reason why the poets spoke of the refugees in the masculine mode, i.e. פלטים, is that the males benefited by their becoming refugees, as they had been forbidden to convert to Judaism, a barrier that had been removed from them by their becoming fugitives. As long as they represented a minority of the inhabitants of Sichon’s state they would be “legally” absorbed according to Jewish law as described in B’rachot 28, and henceforth be considered as Emorites.
The reason that nowadays former Moabites and Ammonites are accepted for conversion to Judaism is that we cannot determine who is and who is not a descendant of these people, and since they form a minority of whatever people they now belong to they have benefited by that status of being “absorbed” as a minority.
Concerning the female members of Moab described by the poets as prisoners, i.e. בשבית, this means that their captivity has no hidden redeeming feature, and is absolute. This is due to the females of the nations Ammon and Moab never having been included in that ban on conversion. The Talmud Yevamot 69, ruling on that subject, based it on the Torah having written (Deut. 23,4)לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל ה' , “neither a member of the people (masculine) Ammon or Moab must be part of the community of Hashem.” The use of the masculine adjective is used by the Talmud to teach that female Moabites were never included in that prohibition, hence Ruth, David’s grandmother, could convert. They therefore did not mind their intermediate status as captives of the Israelites as the fact that they had been captive was sufficient for them to be elevated to the level of the עולם הבריאה, even by natural born Israelites, as they did not require such a major spiritual ”elevation,” as did their male counterparts.
Before doing this, however, we need to explain the meaning of a few verses in the previous portion חקת. We read in Numbers 21,27: על כן יאמרו המשלים באו חשבון תבנה ותכונן עיר סיחון, “therefore the bards would say ‘come to Cheshbon, it will be rebuilt and well founded as a city belonging to Sichon.’” The same bards continue with lamenting the fate of Moab from whom this city had been conquered by Sichon. (verses 28-30) Apart from the short summary of Moab’s history and Sichon’s might in these verses, what is especially remarkable is that the future tense used in relation to the city of Cheshbon, i.e. the future tense about a city that had already been rebuilt and reinforced, seems difficult to understand. Instead of the poet wishing for rebuilding of the city, he should have wished for its continuing to endure, i.e. תהיה עיר סיחון וגו'. Furthermore, the poet quoted speaks of the inhabitants of the city formerly having become refugees and prisoners, describing the males as “refugees” and the females as “prisoners.” Why this distinction?
We will clarify all this commencing with a statement in Gittin 38 according to which the members of people of Ammon and Moav respectively had been “ritually cleansed,” i.e. permitted to be conquered by the Jewish people through their having experienced becoming slaves of Sichon. Israel had been forbidden to annex Moab and Ammon as long as these lands had retained their independence. Any part of their lands which they had “lost” to predator nations had not been included in the Torah’s prohibition. That prohibition had been designed to prevent members of those two nations to be elevated to the status of converts to Judaism and membership in the Jewish people. The concept of not being allowed to join the Jewish people through conversion, signals to the rest of mankind that these two nations are considered as the ultimate source of destruction and desolation, as they are banned by Divine decree from rehabilitating themselves spiritually. If any of these people, through having been captured in war by another nation, had felt themselves degraded, this was not so in the long run, as they had then become qualified as potential members of the Jewish people. When the poet refers to the Moabites as captives and fugitives respectively, followed by the wish that Sichon’s city be rebuilt in the future, he refers to the new hope that the Moabite victims of Sichon’s conquest can now have, since they have become redeemable spiritually if they were to convert to Judaism. When something is legally incapable of being elevated to sanctity, it is called הרוס and חרוב, in Hebrew, whereas once this legal restriction has been removed it is called בנוי, built or rebuilt. Hence the poet congratulates the inhabitants of that city as becoming “rebuilt.” At the same time the poet mourns the fact that the remainder of the state of Moab that had not been captured by Sichon will remain forever condemned to being spiritually irredeemable. Another way of phrasing what we have just explained is that the redemption of the wicked is predicated on his first having experienced defeat, capture. The anonymous poets whom the Torah quoted in Numbers 21,29 appear to have had prophetic insight for those who could attune their ears to this.
The reason why the poets spoke of the refugees in the masculine mode, i.e. פלטים, is that the males benefited by their becoming refugees, as they had been forbidden to convert to Judaism, a barrier that had been removed from them by their becoming fugitives. As long as they represented a minority of the inhabitants of Sichon’s state they would be “legally” absorbed according to Jewish law as described in B’rachot 28, and henceforth be considered as Emorites.
The reason that nowadays former Moabites and Ammonites are accepted for conversion to Judaism is that we cannot determine who is and who is not a descendant of these people, and since they form a minority of whatever people they now belong to they have benefited by that status of being “absorbed” as a minority.
Concerning the female members of Moab described by the poets as prisoners, i.e. בשבית, this means that their captivity has no hidden redeeming feature, and is absolute. This is due to the females of the nations Ammon and Moab never having been included in that ban on conversion. The Talmud Yevamot 69, ruling on that subject, based it on the Torah having written (Deut. 23,4)לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל ה' , “neither a member of the people (masculine) Ammon or Moab must be part of the community of Hashem.” The use of the masculine adjective is used by the Talmud to teach that female Moabites were never included in that prohibition, hence Ruth, David’s grandmother, could convert. They therefore did not mind their intermediate status as captives of the Israelites as the fact that they had been captive was sufficient for them to be elevated to the level of the עולם הבריאה, even by natural born Israelites, as they did not require such a major spiritual ”elevation,” as did their male counterparts.
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Kedushat Levi
Deuteronomy 23,4. “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the congregation of the Lord……because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt.”
We know that G’d has described the Jewish people to Pharaoh as “My first born son”. (Exodus 4,22) What this really means is that the Jewish people are the conduit through which G’d channels His largesse to the world. Ammon and Moav denied the principle that the major objective of channeling largesse to mankind was for the glory of Israel, who would be perceived as the most important single link in that chain, indirectly benefiting all of mankind. By describing the Ammonites and the Moabites as not offering “bread and water” to the Jewish people, the Torah hints that they did not recognize the existence of the Jewish people as something beneficial for all of mankind.
We know that G’d has described the Jewish people to Pharaoh as “My first born son”. (Exodus 4,22) What this really means is that the Jewish people are the conduit through which G’d channels His largesse to the world. Ammon and Moav denied the principle that the major objective of channeling largesse to mankind was for the glory of Israel, who would be perceived as the most important single link in that chain, indirectly benefiting all of mankind. By describing the Ammonites and the Moabites as not offering “bread and water” to the Jewish people, the Torah hints that they did not recognize the existence of the Jewish people as something beneficial for all of mankind.
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