פרשת כי תצא תש"ל - ההתרחקות משני העמים

because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Aram-naharaim, to curse thee.

Because they met you not with bread and with water we find (Deut. 2:28-29) "Thou shalt sell me food for money that I might eat and give me water for money that I might drink ... as the children of Esau who dwell in Se'ir and the Moabites who dwell in Ar" and many say that they did not go forth to them, but Israel bought from them, and this is foolishness, because it is sufficient for the camp that they are sold food when they want to buy it, and also because Israel did enter the border of Moab and the Moabites took out bread and water for them in exchange for money, and the text will tell that the Moabites did as the sons of Esau did, and why should the Moabite be forever banished for this and the Edomite not be so despised, and Rabbi Avraham says (Deut. 2:29) that the reason it says "as the children of Esau that dwell in Seir, and the Moabites that dwell in Ar, did unto me" on the passage through their country on the way (Deut. 2:27) but did not sell them bread and water since they passed Har Seir and Ar, only the king of Edom did not allow them to pass through the land in which he dwells, and this is what it says (Num. 20:18) "you will not pass through me" and this too is foolishness because they said to the king of Edom We will pass through your land and Edom refused to let Israel pass through their borders (Num. 20:21) thus they did not at all enter the border of Edom, and thus it says (Num. 21:4) "They travelled from Hor Hahar through the Red Sea to circle the land of Edom" because they needed to return through the Red Sea from Hor Hahar which is on the border of the land of Edom and they did not enter the land of Edom at all, and Yiftach said in his explanation (Judges 11:16-18) "But when they came up from Egypt, and Israel walked through the wilderness unto the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh; then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying: Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land; but the king of Edom hearkened not. And in like manner he sent unto the king of Moab; but he would not; and Israel abode in Kadesh; Then he walked through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and they pitched on the other side of the Arnon; but they came not within the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab." Here it is explicit that they did not enter at all into the land of Edom nor into the land of Moab and if they had entered there they would have been sold bread and water since it is not the custom to allow a people's army to pass through the land and not have bread and water sold to them, and it seems to me that the pasuk distanced these two brothers who recieved kindness from Avraham who saved their father and mother from the sword and cativity (Gen. 14:16) and in whose merit God sent them from the destruction (Gen. 19:29) and they owed kindness to Israel, but they did them an ill turn, the one by hiring Bilam ben Be'or, and those are the Moabites, and the other who did not recieve them with bread and water when Israel approached them, as it says (Deut. 2:18-19) you are passing today the border of Moav, Ar, and approaching Bnei Ammon, and here the verse warns them (Deut. 2:19) Don't harass them and don't contend with them and they didn't welcome them at all, since then the verse would have said "as the sons of Esau, the Moabites and the Ammonites did", but the Ammonites are not mentioned since they did not welcome them, and thus Ammon was more wicked than the others, since the sons of Esau and the Moabites, when they knew that Israel would not contend with them, brought out bread and water outside their borders, and Ammon did not deign to do so, and this is the reason for |"who did not welcome them", that they did not go forth towards them with bread and water as the others did, and therefore the verse mentioned the "Ammonite" first, and mentioned his crime first, that they didn't welcome them, and only then mentioned the "Moabite" and their sin. Chazal learned (Yebamot 76) an Ammonite male, and not an Ammonite femal, a Moabite male and not a Moabite female since the way of the man is to go forth, and the way of the woman is not to go forth to bring food outside the borders of the country, and it is also written in the Yerushalmi ( Yebamot perek 8 halacha 3) and in Rut Rabati (4:8) since the way of the man is to hire, and it is not the way of the woman to hire.

Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee.

Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother; thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land.

בנים אשר יולדו להם דור שלישי וגומר THE CHILDREN THAT ARE BORN UNTO THEM [MAY COME INTO THE ASSEMBLY] IN THEIR THIRD GENERATION — other nations, however, since they did not sin against you may be admitted at once if they acknowledge the tenets of Judaim. — Thus you learn that he who causes a man to sin does him greater harm than if he kills him, for he who kills him, kills him only as regards this world, while he who causes him to sin puts him out of this world and the world to come. Therefore Edom, though he met them with the sword was not to be abhorred utterly, and similarly the Egyptians who drowned them (their male children), while those (the Ammonites and Moabites) who caused them to sin were to be utterly abhorred (Sifrei Devarim 252:3).

Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother; thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land.

The children of the third generation that are born unto them may enter into the assembly of the LORD.

Rabban Gamliel said to him: You are forbidden to enter into the congregation. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: You are permitted to enter into the congregation. Rabban Gamliel said to Rabbi Yehoshua: Wasn’t it already stated: “An Ammonite and a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to the tenth generation shall none of them enter into the congregation of the Lord forever” (Deuteronomy 23:4)? How can you permit him to enter the congregation? Rabbi Yehoshua said to Rabban Gamliel: Do Ammon and Moab reside in their place? Sennacherib already came and, through his policy of population transfer, scrambled all the nations and settled other nations in place of Ammon. Consequently, the current residents of Ammon and Moab are not ethnic Ammonites and Moabites, as it is stated in reference to Sennacherib: “I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and have brought down as one mighty the inhabitants” (Isaiah 10:13). And although it is conceivable that this particular convert is an ethnic Ammonite, nevertheless, there is no need for concern due to the halakhic principle: Anything that parts from a group parts from the majority, and the assumption is that he is from the majority of nations whose members are permitted to enter the congregation.