Matot begins with Moses speaking to the tribes leaders about the rules relating to vows.
However, Numbers 30, verse 1 is actually written as the last verse at the end of Pinchas; it is written before Matot, as a tie-in verse between Numbers 29 and 30.
(1) So Moses spoke to the Israelites just as יהוה had commanded Moses.
ויאמר משה אל בני ישראל AND MOSES TOLD THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL — This is stated to separate this subject (of sacrifies) from the following (vows). Such is the opinion of R. Ishmael. What it means is: since up to now we have the words of the Omnipresent to Moses (Numbers 28:1—2: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Command the children of Israel, etc.’ ”) and the chapter about vows that follows begins with an utterance of Moses (“And Moses spake”), it is necessary first to make a break by stating that Moses in turn told this section to Israel (“And Moses told etc.”), for if this were not done it would imply that he did not tell them this section about the sacrifices, but began his address with the chapter about vows (Sifrei Bamidbar 152).
So what is the importance of juxtaposing these two portions?
We have Moses speaking to the people of Israel about one topic and then speaking to the elders about another topic.
It seems to me that we have the connection between the ritualistic sacrifice rules with the legalistic procedure about vows because if we fail in the carrying out of the vows we commit to, repentance is necessary to atone for our failings. Keep this in mind as we progress.
So Numbers 30, parshat Matot, actually begins with verse 2, in which Moses tells the information about vows to the tribes leaders:
(ג) אִישׁ֩ כִּֽי־יִדֹּ֨ר נֶ֜דֶר לַֽיהֹוָ֗ה אֽוֹ־הִשָּׁ֤בַע שְׁבֻעָה֙ לֶאְסֹ֤ר אִסָּר֙ עַל־נַפְשׁ֔וֹ לֹ֥א יַחֵ֖ל דְּבָר֑וֹ כְּכׇל־הַיֹּצֵ֥א מִפִּ֖יו יַעֲשֶֽׂה׃
(3) If a householder makes a vow to יהוה or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.
Totally not going to the "male domination vs female rights" thing today, because we could spend very much time on that, however, that topic can be revisited on another day.....
But why are vows important? And why is information about vows placed here?
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rev Menachem M Schneerson, (z'l) says that going from Egypt to wandering in the desert, then fighting Midian and eventually crossing into the Promised Land of Israel is akin to being selfish, figuring out our borders/boundaries, growing as a people and then fighting (the inner self) in order to be fit enough to inhabit Israel as a free people. (according to teachings by Eli Touger)
After the vows and regulations imposed of them, comes the verses about avenging G-d against the Midianites.
Numbers 31 discusses how the tribes overtook the Midianites but initially let some of the females and younger males live, not to mention the spoils of the battle. Moses became infuriated with the tribal leaders for allowing the females, who were considered to have caused a plague on Israel, to live. Moses ordered that every male (regardless of age) and every female that had known a male to be put to death.
All of the spoils of war were then divided amongst the tribes.
This may seem horrifying today, but remember last parshat, Pinchas, how the sages tried to reconcile with violent death by altering the letters of the Torah.
Any thoughts on this?
Moving right along, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks interpretation is a bit lighter...
He considers vows to be "performative utterances" or "promises".
He says, that if you create something that did not previously exist, than the obligation or promise is a covenant.
It removes a certain degree of unpredictability; in other words, you can RELY on ME because I give MY WORD!
If we don't keep our vows or our promises, we become a society of chaos and therefore, eventually, we lose our freedom.
And this ties us to Masei...
Etre ailleurs, “To be elsewhere – the great vice of this race, its great and secret virtue, the great vocation of this people.” So wrote the French poet and essayist Charles Peguy (1873-1914), a philosemite in an age of Anti-Semitism. He continued: “Any crossing for them means the crossing of the desert. The most comfortable houses, the best built from stones as big as the temple pillars, the most real of real estate, the most overwhelming of apartment houses will never mean more to them than a tent in the desert.”[1]
What he meant was that history and destiny had combined to make Jews aware of the temporariness of any dwelling outside the Holy Land. To be a Jew is to be on a journey. That is how the Jewish story began when Abraham first heard the words “Lech Lecha”, with their call to leave where he was and travel “to the land I will show you.” That is how it began again in the days of Moses, when the family had become a people. And that is the point almost endlessly repeated in parshat Masei: “They set out from X and camped at Y. They set out from Y and camped at Z” – 42 stages in a journey of forty years. We are the people who travel. We are the people who do not stand still. We are the people for whom time itself is a journey through the wilderness in search of the Promised Land.
Rabbi Sacks reminds us that the Jewish journey is not like the classic hero journey in which there is usually one person who rises, falls, faces an adversary or challenge and then typically rises again to victory. He writes about the differences below:
[1] The journey – set out in the books of Shemot and Bamidbar – is undertaken by everyone, the entire people: men, women and children. It is as if, in Judaism, we are all heroes, or at least all summoned to an heroic challenge.
[2] It takes longer than a single generation. Perhaps, had the spies not demoralised the nation with their report, it might have taken only a short while. But there is a deeper and more universal truth here. The move from slavery to the responsibilities of freedom takes time. People do not change overnight. Therefore evolution succeeds; revolution fails. The Jewish journey began before we were born and it is our responsibility to hand it on to those who will continue it after us.
It seems to me, here as so often elsewhere, that the Torah is not myth but anti-myth, a deliberate insistence on removing the magical elements from the story and focusing relentlessly on the human drama of courage versus fear, hope versus despair, and the call, not to some larger-than-life hero but to all-of-us-together, given strength by our ties to our people’s past and the bonds between us in the present. The Torah is not some fabled escape from reality but reality itself, seen as a journey we must all undertake, each with our own strengths and contributions to our people and to humanity.
We are all on a journey. And we must all rest from time to time. That dialectic between setting out and encamping, walking and standing still, is part of the rhythm of Jewish life. There is a time for Nitzavim, standing, and a time for Vayelekh, moving on. Rav Kook spoke of the two symbols in Bilaam’s blessing, “How goodly are your tents, Jacob, and your dwelling places, Israel.” Tents are for people on a journey. Dwelling places are for people who have found home.
Psalm 1 uses two symbols of the righteous individual. On the one hand he or she is on the way, while the wicked begin by walking, then transition to standing and sitting. On the other hand, the righteous is compared to a tree, planted by streams of water, that gives fruit in due season and whose leaves do not wither. We walk, but we also stand still. We are on a journey but we are also rooted like a tree.
In life, there are journeys and encampments. Without the encampments, we suffer burnout. Without the journey, we do not grow. And life is growth. There is no way to avoid challenge and change. The late Rav Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l once gave a beautiful shiur[3] on Robert Frost’s poem, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,’ with its closing verse:
The woods are lovely dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
He analyses the poem in terms of Kierkegaard’s distinction between the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of life. The poet is enchanted by the aesthetic beauty of the scene, the soft silence of the falling snow, the dark dignity of the tall trees. He would love to stay here in this timeless moment, this eternity-in-an-hour. But he knows that life has an ethical dimension also, and this demands action, not just contemplation. He has promises to keep; he has duties toward the world. So he must walk on despite his tiredness. He has miles to go before he sleeps: he has work to do while the breath of life is within him.
The poet has stopped briefly to enjoy the dark wood and falling snow. He has encamped. But now, like the Israelites in Masei, he must set out again. For us as Jews, as for Kierkegaard the theologian and Robert Frost the poet, ethics takes priority over aesthetics. Yes, there are moments when we should, indeed must, pause to see the beauty of the world, but then we must move on, for we have promises to keep, including the promises to ourselves and to God.
Hence the life-changing idea: life is a journey, not a destination. We should never stand still. Instead we should constantly set ourselves new challenges that take us out of our comfort zone. Life is growth.
We journey from Abraham in Lech Lecha to Moses leading the children of Israel in the wilderness.
Every emcampment is accounted for.....from a to b , from b to c, and so on.
For 40 years our ancestors wandered and made 42 stops. We are the people who travel, who wander...through the wilderness to the promised land.
It got me thinking that we go from the utterance of a promise...aka...VOWS, to wandering in the wilderness....to the land I will show you.
That is a pretty big leap, don't you think?
But what struck me about that is the comparison of d'bar vs m'dbar
D'Bar is WORD
Keeping our word, or our VOW, means that we commit to what we say we will do.
THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF SOCIETY
Without commitment to our society about being a good and responsible citizen, we become a society of chaos and eventually, lose our freedom. Then, we are doing nothing more than wandering in the wilderness without any direction at all.