민수기 31:3의 주석

וידבר משה וגו׳ AND MOSES SPAKE etc. — Although he had heard (v. 2) that his death was associated with this matter, he did it gladly and did not delay (Sifrei Bamidbar 157:2).

וידבר משה…החלצו מאתכם, Moses said.. "mobilise from amongst you, etc." The word לאמור in this verse is puzzling. To whom were the people supposed to relay what Moses told them? Furthermore, why did Moses use the expression החלצו instead of the formulation Moses used in Exodus 17,9 when he said to Joshua: בחר לנו אנשים, "choose some men for us, etc.?" Why did he not order Pinchas to do what he had ordered Joshua to do at that time instead of addressing his command to the people at large? Another peculiarity in this verse are the words ויהיו על מדין "so that they will be against Midian." Moses should have said: "so that they will do battle against Midian." Moreover, why did Moses change G'd's instructions? G'd had told Moses נקם נקמת בני ישראל, "avenge the vengeance of the Israelites," whereas Moses told the people to exact "G'd's vengeance," i.e. לתת נקמת השם? Besides, why did Moses not send a large army but selected only 1.000 men per tribe? Who had given him authority to send such a small force of soldiers against a numerically far superior people [governed by 5 kings Ed.]? When you consider that 32.000 girls who were still virgins were left you can arrive at some idea how many there must have been originally.

החלצו מאתכם, “mobilize from amongst yourselves, etc.” It is as if Moses had said: “gird your pioneers, your vanguard, (with their swords).” The words used here reflect an eagerness on the part of Moses to discharge his part in this commandment although G’d had told him that its fulfillment would bring about his death shortly thereafter. Tanchuma Mattot 4 points out the contrast between Moses and Joshua in this matter. When Joshua faced 31 Canaanite kings he said to himself: “if I slay them I will die shortly thereafter just as Moses died shortly after the Midianites were defeated.” What did Joshua do? He commenced with attacking one of the Canaanite kings and then delayed following up on his success as we know from Joshua 11,18: “Joshua was engaged for many years in battling all these kings.” When G’d observed this He told him: “because you did this in order to prolong your life I will deduct 10 years from the life span I had allocated to you originally. You should have lived to 120 years as did your teacher Moses. Now you will live to be only 110 years.” This is the meaning of Proverbs 19,21: “Many designs are in a man’s mind, but it is the Lord’s plan that is accomplished.“

Although he heard that his demise depended… For it is written, “Take revenge… afterward, you shall be gathered to your people” (v. 2). However, if not so [that he joyfully implemented it], why is it necessary to say, “Moshe spoke,” given that ordinarily he related to Yisroel everything that Hashem commanded?

V. 3. אל העם וידבר וגו׳ אל העם לאמר, nicht zu den Führern; aus der Mitte des Volkes selbst heraus soll dieser Akt der Vindizierung seiner geistigen und sittlichen Integrität geschehen. Indem der Heereszug Midjan und nicht Moab galt, die die materielle Schwächung, nicht aber die geistige und sittliche Tötung Israels beabsichtigten, musste das geistige und sittliche Motiv dieses Heereszuges dem Volke mit doppelter Bedeutsamkeit ins Bewusstsein treten. Nicht wer Israels materiellen Untergang, wer seinen geistigen und sittlichen Tod herbeiführt, ist sein eigentlicher Feind, — חלץ ,החלצו: etwas aus seiner bisherigen Verbindung herauslösen, so: Steine aus der Mauer (Wajikra 14. 43), einen an den Fuß fest gebundenen Schuh nach Auflösung des Bandes ausziehen (Dewarim 25, 9). Daher so häufig: jemanden aus einer Gefahr, aus einer Enge herausziehen, retten, freimachen. החלוץ beim Heere: der "Detachierte" aus der Mitte der Truppen vorausgeschickte Vortrab (Josua 6, 7 f.). Daher חלוצי צבא: die aus der Mitte des Volkes zum Heeresdienst Entsendeten. Die Heerespflicht liegt auf allen. Sie entsenden einen Teil aus ihrer Mitte, diese Pflicht für das allgemeine zu lösen. Daher hier die eigentümliche Konstruktion: החלצו מאתכם; in החלצו ist die Gesamtheit das Objekt, durch מאתכם wird dies auf eine Auswahl beschränkt. החלצו allein stellte die Forderung an alle, sich von allen sie zurückhaltenden häuslichen Banden loszumachen und in den Heereszug einzutreten (siehe Jebamot 102b (שלופי מביתא לקרבא מאתכם beschränkt diese Aufgabe auf eine Auswahl von ihnen, die aber durch das vorangehende החלצו als die Vertreter der Gesamtheit begriffen werden. In ihnen zieht die Gesamtheit aus. — לתת נקמת ד׳ במדין, was V. 2 als נקמת בני ישראל begriffen ward, wird hier als נקמת ד dem Volke zum Bewusstsein gebracht. Es ist Gott, dem sie durch jede Trübung ihrer geistigen und sittlichen Integrität entrissen werden, Er sendet sie darum aus, seine Vergeltung an Midjan zu vollbringen. Mit der Politik der Verführung übt Midjan das größte internationale Verbrechen und hat damit vor Gott die Existenzberechtigung als Volk unter Völkern verloren.

לתת נקמת ה' במדין, “to execute the Lord’s vengeance against Midian. It is peculiar to read this, as G-d’s instructions had been to execute the Children of Israel’s vengeance against Midian. (verse 2) What made Moses change the venue?We must imagine that Moses, upon hearing the instructions, had said to G-d: “the vengeance is really Yours o Lord, as the only reason why the Canaanites, Midianites, etc hate us, is on account of You.” (B’chor shor). This is why the Israelites went to war against the Midianites, who were not part of the Moabites whose measure of guilt had not yet made them candidates for destruction by G-d. The Midianites had meddled in matters that did not concern them, and had no reason to fear the Israelites as their geographic location did not block Israel’s access to the Land of Canaan. The prophet Bileam had already stated that though he could foresee the complete collapse of Moav, he saw it as occurring in the distant future. [700 800 years later the Israelites were still involved in wars against Moav during the time of Elijah and Elisha. Ed.] At any rate, the Moabites had several reasons to fear the aggression of the Israelites so that they could be excused for acting in a hostile manner against them. One of their complaints was that the Israelites had actually conquered land that used to belong to Moav when they defeated King Sichon of the Canaanites, who conquered those lands previously from the Moabites. The Israelites had not returned it to Moav, but had settled it.

החלצו — Understand this as the Targum does in the sense of “equipped (חלוצי) for war”, armed.

Righteous men. For the Torah should not have written “men” given that it is not the nature of women to go out to war, so obviously they were men. Rather, “men” comes to teach you that they were righteous. Likewise, in Parshas Shelach (13:2) Rashi did not explain these words, “Send men for yourself” that they were righteous, because the word “men” was necessary for itself [i.e., to convey the plain meaning]. However, concerning “men” that was written subsequently (13:3) he explained that they were righteous, because the word “men” there is apparently superfluous since “men” had already been mentioned. Re’m explains that [Rashi knows this] because it is written, “From among yourselves” and since this statement was addressed to men, it is logical that those who were went to war were men. Therefore, why was it necessary to write “men”?

However, as we already mentioned in our introduction, this expedition was based on the attackers' moral superiority over its adversaries as evidenced by G'd's instruction to "avenge." Moses had to mobilise the kind of soldiers whose fantasies had not run wild at the time of the debacle in Shittim. How was he to know which one of the Israelites had indulged in sinful thoughts at the time? Moses therefore advised each man of military age to examine himself in this matter. This is the meaning of החלצו מאתכם, "separate yourselves from your own selves," i.e. examine your conscience if you are morally fit to take part in such a punitive expedition of the morally superior against the morally inferior. Only those who knew that they could qualify under this heading would be considered for the contingent of 1.000 per tribe. The word לאמור is a hint that these people should all "speak to their inner selves on this subject." Perhaps the very word לאמור was even an allusion to the sin of גלוי עריות as we find in Sanhedrin 56 "the word לאמור refers to illicit sex." According to Midrash Tanchuma on our verse these men were all righteous. Although we have explained elsewhere that one can only derive such a conclusion from the word אנשים when this word is superfluous in the text, in our instance there is independent support for the theory that the אנשים mentioned here had to be righteous men. Seeing this was so they had no reason to worry although they would be far outnumbered by the Midianites. Moreover, they were not only righteous but they qualified for the appellation חסידים, "pious," because they had been confronted with a powerful temptation and had conquered it. Zohar Chadash volume 3 page 195 states that this is the basis for someone being described as pious. This then explains Moses' considerations as to whom to select and how many to select.

אנשים MEN — righteous men, and similar is, (Exodus 17:9) “Choose men for us”, and so, too, (Deuteronomy 1:13) “men wise and well-known” (Midrash Tanchuma, Matot 3).

It is as if he stands… Rashi wishes to answer the question: Why is it not written “revenge of Yisroel”?

ויהיו על מדין, "and they will be against Midian." We can best explain this expression by reverting to a statement of the Kabbalists that sanctity is the mystical foundation of spiritual ascent, whereas the קליפה, the source of negative spiritual forces are the mystical foundation of spiritual descent of a human being. Once a person commits a sin, part of the קליפה, attaches itself to him and becomes part of his nature causing him to become degraded. We have explained this already at the beginning of Parshat Ki Tissa in connection with Exodus 30,12 (my translation page 814). The words על מדין then mean that these pious soldiers should be able to be "above Midian," i.e. be spiritually superior. None of the forces of impurity which cling to the Midianites would cling to these soldiers.

‎'נקמת ה‎ “THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD” — [This is really equivalent to the expression God had employed (v.2), “the vengeance of the children of Israel”], because whoever attacks Israel is as though he attacks the Holy One blessed be He.

לתת נקמת השם, "to execute G'd's vengeance." This too was part of Moses' astuteness, his endeavour to achieve the objective of avenging the sin the Midianites had caused the Jewish people to commit. Moses commanded these soldiers that their motivation should be to avenge a wrong done to G'd whose commandments the Midianites had caused the Jewish people to violate and neglect. Their vengeance should not focus on the fact that the Midianites had caused the death of so many Israelites. If that were to be their motivation in going to war against the Midianites this would not be a מצוה which would help them succeed in this campaign without sustaining casualties. It is true that G'd Himself had told Moses that the Israelites were to avenge what the Midianites had done to them. However, the Torah does not say that G'd told Moses to convey this thought to the Israelites. In G'd's conversation with Moses He left it to Moses to figure out the best way to achieve the result G'd had in mind.

Our verse may also be understood thus: There would be no need for these soldiers to actually fight a battle; all they had to do was to be there physically. G'd would do the fighting on their behalf. The reason was לתת נקמת השם, it was to be a vengeance which G'd exacted from Midian. The situation was similar to Exodus 14,14 when Moses told the people not to worry, but that G'd would fight the Egyptians on their behalf.

וימסרו מאלפי ישראל אלף למטה, One thousand men per tribe were handed over from amongst the many thousands of Israelites, etc. This means that everyone who was certain that he fulfilled the qualifications needed volunteered to be part of the thousand men from his tribe. Once the number 1.000 in that tribe had been reached no further volunteers were asked for. Moses deliberately limited the number in each tribe to one thousand so as not to create a situation which would be embarassing, such as when one tribe would field many more volunteers than another.