Summary of Mattot Massei

I said this on Zoom Shabbat 2020

This is a very short summary of this week’s Torah Portion Mattot -Mase’ei.

Here is some context. It comes right at the end of the Book of Bamidbar, just before we start the Book of Devarim. It’s the end of one thing and just before the beginning of another. Its takes us right to the edge of the journey from the forty years in the desert to the next stage in our adventure in the promised land. You could title this combined parashah of Mase’ei Mattot: ‘we’ve come a long, long way together, through the hard times, and the good’

It starts with some ground rules, concerning with vows and oaths. If married women make vows, their husbands can annul them and if young girls make vows their fathers can annul them. But the good news is that vows of widows and divorced women hold. It says: “whatever she has imposed on herself, shall be binding on her too”

But before you get too excited about that, it goes rapidly downhill.
Moses makes an awful demand on his officers in his military campaign against the Midianites. He insists they kill all the women and children except for the virgins. Moses distributes the booty to the tribes including the cattle, the asses and the people who are virgins. I’m just going to leave that there.

The rest of Mattot discusses the very interesting story of the tribes of Reuven and Gad who don’t want to cross over to the Promised land. They don’t want to move across the Jordan with the other tribes. They like it where they are, thank you very much. Moses is furious.

He says: “Now you are a breed of sinful men, have replaced your fathers, to add still further to God’s wrath against Israel. If you turn away from Him and he abandons them once more in the wilderness, you will bring calamity on all this people”

But they come to an agreement. Moses makes them an offer they can’t refuse. Moses says: If you do this and agree to join the battle with the other against the Amorites and other local tribes, you can stay where you are in the land across Jordan. He says, if you don’t do this, know that your sin will overtake you. The last Parashah, Mase’ei, starts with a recap of the 42 steps and encampments that made up our long, long journey from Egypt to where we are now in our story. So, as we go forward, we look back at where we’ve come from.

Then God gives Moses further instructions to give to the people before they go into the land of Canaan. He says, destroy their Gods, and dispossess all the inhabitants of their land because if you don’t, they will be stings in your eyes and thorns in your side. God then defines very clearly the boundaries of the land of Israel. North, South, East and West. Having sanctioned bloodshed in war, God then goes on to forbid it very strongly and with lots of detail for the next 28 verses. This is more like it. There is a distinction made between unintentional murder and deliberate murder, with very different penalties. Unintentional murderers should flee to cities of refuge (Arei Miklat) where they should stay until the death of the High Priest. This is because we don’t want more blood spilled by avenging relatives. Straight-out murderers on the other hand, face the death penalty after a proper trial with more than one witness.

God says: “you shall not pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land.” “You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I myself abide, for I the Lord abide among the Israelite people”

וְלֹ֧א תְטַמֵּ֣א אֶת־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֤ר אַתֶּם֙ יֽשְׁבִ֣ים בָּ֔הּ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י שֹׁכֵ֣ן בְּתוֹכָ֑הּ כִּ֚י אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה שֹׁכֵ֕ן בְּת֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל:

The very last law discussed in the very last chapter that takes us out of the desert is once again about women. It says that the daughters of Zelophehad can marry whomever they like but it must be within their tribe if they want to inherit their father’s estate. It names them. They are: Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah.

The parashah ends with: “These are the commandments and the ordinances that the Lord commanded the children of Israel through Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan at Jericho” אֵ֣לֶּה הַמִּצְו‍ֹ֞ת וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר צִוָּ֧ה יְהֹוָ֛ה בְּיַד־משֶׁ֖ה אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל בְּעַרְבֹ֣ת מוֹאָ֔ב עַ֖ל יַרְדֵּ֥ן יְרֵחֽוֹ

As President Josiah Bartlet once said: “What’s Next?”