Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Mas’ei 5776
The Holy Lands of Israel
God spoke to Moshe, telling him to give the
Israelites instructions and say to them: ‘You are coming to the land known as Canaan; this is the land that you will
inherit, the Land of Canaan and
its borders.’ (Bamidbar 34:1-2)
As
the book of B’midbar comes to an end, the Israelites stand poised on the border
of the Holy Land and the long-awaited realization of the destiny of the Jewish
People. These verses preface the enumeration of the borders of the land that
will be theirs, and they are strange verses indeed: ‘This is the place you are
to settle. This is the Promised Land. This, and no other.’ The impetus for these
strange statements was apparently the unexpected request, recorded in the
preceding parashah, by the members of two tribes.
As
opposed to the litany of complaints we (and Moshe) had become accustomed to
over the course of the Israelites’ travels through the desert - about
everything from water shortages to uninteresting food choices and general grumblings
about the long years spent in the desert – this last request is something new. The
conversation in general has turned to the particulars of inheritance of the
Land – who will get what, and where. And though we are not privy to the reactions
of the tribes to the entire subject of land allotment or to their thoughts on
the subject, a number of tribes set themselves apart – quite literally – by expressing
their desire to settle on the “East Bank” of the Jordan River.
Moshe
is outraged by the request, and he responds with a powerful accusation. He
deems the behavior of these tribes as akin to another group who not only did
not wish to enter Israel, but caused fear and rebellion to spread throughout
the camp: the spies, whose report sparked a chain reaction that led to forty
years of exile. To Moshe’s ears, the request by the tribes of Reuven and Gad
smacked of the same cowardice he had heard forty years earlier, and he was
terrified that the same result might ensue – or worse: It is one thing to make
terrible mistakes, but it is quite another thing to repeat those same mistakes.
Moshe’s
response forces the members of the two tribes to clarify their position, and
they express both courage and fraternal responsibility: Their intention, they
explain, is not to divorce themselves from the nation nor to reject their own
role in fulfilling their shared national destiny. Their interest is a
practical, economic concern; the lands that have already been captured on the
East Bank are ideal grazing lands for their cattle. If they are given Moshe’s
blessing, they will settle these areas, but they give their word that they will
join the other tribes, and fight - not only shoulder to shoulder with their
brethren but as the vanguard force - until all of the Promised Land is won.
They are no cowards, nor are they fomenters of rebellion or of despair.
Moshe’s
fears are allayed and a deal is struck, yet we, the readers, are mystified by
these renegade tribes. What could they have been thinking? They stand at the
border of the Promised Land. Hundreds of years of yearning are about to come to
an end. It is clear that God Himself is fighting their battles, in fulfillment
of the promise He made to Avraham. Why now, as their hopes and dreams are about
to be realized, do these tribes jump ship?
There
may be a clue to their mindset in those promises God made to Avraham, and we
would do well to consider the borders of the “Promised Land.” The area promised
to Avraham is much, much larger than most of us imagine. In fact, even the most
“extreme” among today’s nationalist expansionists do not dare dream of the
borders promised to Avraham in what is known as the Covenant of the Pieces:
On
that day, God made a covenant with Avram, saying, 'To your descendants I have
given this land, from the Egyptian River [i.e., the Nile] as far as the great
river, the Euphrates; [the lands of] the Kenites, the Kenizites, the
Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Yevusites.
(Bereishit 15)
The
tribes of Gad and Reuven seem to believe that these expansive borders include
the East Bank of the Jordan River; indeed, it would be difficult for us to
argue that this swath of land is not included in the expansive borders first
promised to Avraham. These tribes felt completely justified in their request;
they did not see any reason to be accused of infidelity to the dream of the
Promised Land – because the tract they had set their eyes on was, in fact, part
of what had been promised. The only issue that had remained unaddressed was the
question of their fidelity to the other tribes – a question for which they
provided a very clear answer: They would fulfill their obligation.
We
should note that at the dawn of our national history, Avraham was commanded to
leave the place of his birth and to go to a new land, where he would enjoy
blessings beyond anything he had yet imagined. Although the precise destination
was not revealed to him, Avraham uprooted his household and traversed no small
distance, making his way to the Land of Canaan. He seems to have intuited that
this was holy land, land most suited to the spiritual character of the family
he hoped to raise and to the nation God had promised would be born. Apparently,
though, the very vast area promised to him includes differing levels of
holiness. The Greater Israel outlined in the Covenant of the Pieces is made up
of some areas that are less spiritually endowed than others; Avraham passed
through these outlying areas of Canaan but remained focused on the spiritual
heartland, the narrow confines that now stretched out before the Israelites and
had yet to be conquered.
This
explains the strange wording of the verses with which we began: The Torah’s
peculiar emphasis of the borders of the Land of Canaan refers to the area that
is the spiritual epicenter of the Promised Land. It is the area Avraham sought
out, the land Yitzchak and Yaakov called home, the land imbued with the highest
level of holiness. This is the land that must be captured and settled first;
outlying areas taken as spoils of wars could be annexed to the Land of Israel –
but only after the Land of Israel was theirs. These other areas may have been included
in the promise made to Avraham, but they were not endowed with the holiness of
Israel proper. Avraham himself knew this; he felt this to be true, and that is
why he continued his travels until he arrived in the Land of Canaan and made
his home there. The tribes of Reuven and Gad seemed either insensitive to or
uninterested in this holiness.
There
is another element of this troubling exchange that haunts us, despite the fact
that a deal was eventually struck to everyone’s satisfaction. As the entire
nation stands ready to begin the conquest of the Promised Land, there is one
person, the last of his entire generation, who cannot cross the Jordan River;
he must remain outside the Land of Israel, on the very same East Bank these
breakaway tribes hope to settle. How hurtful this conversation must have been
for Moshe! How callous were these tribes, who spoke words that must have
sounded to Moshe like the flippant, ungrateful demands of spoiled children.
While Moshe must stay on this side of the Jordan as a punishment, it seems that
these tribes could not care less about crossing into Israel proper. How bizarre
that they would choose, even embrace, the punishment of exile that Moshe (like
all of their own parents) had to bear - even if they may have succeeded in deluding
themselves into thinking that their communities are holy, and that they live in
the land promised to Avraham. Even today, how are those who continue – by
choice - to perpetuate the punishment of exile capable of deluding themselves?
Perhaps they have learned more than we imagined from the tribes of Reuven and
Gad. Not all the land promised to Avraham is “The Promised Land;”
no matter how “holy” the community outside the Land of Israel, how are they
able to justify ignoring God’s will, turning their backs on Avraham’s vision,
and making a mockery of Moshe’s dream?
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