Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Matot Maseh 1

this week we have a double Torah portion most years these two partiot are read together and we start in the art school homage on page 901. departure begins with laws of vows and Oaths what happens if a person makes a promise and the Torah says Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes of children of Israel saying this is what Hashem commanded if a man takes a vow to Hashem or swears an oath to establish a Prohibition upon himself he shall not desecrate his word according to whatever comes from his mouth shall he do here we learn to meets vote one to fulfill what you promise and from here we see that our words have an effect and what we say has influence on the reality if we say that something is forbidden like it says to establish a Prohibition upon himself if I say this is forbidden to me it actually becomes forbidden how forbidden as if it is a Torah prohibition I am like God in which way just like God gives us mitzvot positive Commandments and prohibitions so too a Jew can create a Mitzvah and you can create a Prohibition upon himself with his words alone or a Jew can create a an obligation to fulfill a positive Act for example if if a person says I promise that today I'm going to visit my father or my friend that becomes an obligation for him today as if God commanded him and we have a negative commandment not to delay fulfillment of your vow for example if you didn't set a time you didn't say today I will but rather you said I promise to donate money to charity it becomes an obligation and even though you didn't specify when you have a negative commandment not to delay it and for example with offerings if you said I promise to bring an offering to betameegdash you have three festivals to bring it after the third Festival finishes and you didn't bring you had three chances you didn't bring you transgressed this commandment the Commandment not to delay your vow okay now we continue so for a man it's simple if a man means a boy over um 13 for sure his vows are obligatory and a boy over 12 we have to check out if he knows what he is saying if he knows the the significance of his words then his vows are valid and for a girl over 12 the vowels are valid and over 11 we have to check her out if she is mature enough to understand her words and now what if the woman is um in the house of her father she is um not yet mature she is under 12 and a half years old and she is not married then the Torah gives a special permission to her father to cancel her vows which means if if a girl turned 12 but she is not yet 12 and a half she in in that half a year the father is able to cancel her vows now the tortoise says in verse four if a woman will take a vow to Hashem or establish a Prohibition in her father's home in her youth the words in her youth mean that she is not yet 12 and a half years old and her father was silent about The Vow he heard it and he didn't protest then all her vows shall stand and any prohibition that she established upon herself shall stand the father doesn't have to approve as long as the father did not protest the father did not cancel The Vow The Vow is obligatory upon her verse 6 but if her father restrained her on the day of his hearing all her vows and all her prohibitions shall not stand so if the father is quiet her vow is valid if the father approves it then certainly her vow is valid however if the father disagrees with the vow and restrains her by saying I don't allow you to follow your vow then the vowel is canceled and the verse finishes and Hashem will forgive her for the father had restrained her and the commentators struggle with these words what does it mean the Hashem will forgive her for what she made the vow the father said nothing doing so there is no vow why forgiveness and then they explain that she made the vow and the father when he heard it canceled her vow however she didn't hear that the father canceled the vow so she thinks that the vow is still valid and she found it difficult and she decided to break her vowel and she actually went against The Vow in her mind she was transgressing but in reality The Vow was no longer valid because the father canceled it so the question is her intent was to transgress but there is there was nothing to transgress is this a sin or not and according to Torah yes since her intent was to transgress and she did everything to transgress she made a decision and she followed through therefore she needs atonement she needs forgiveness and certainly a man who goes against his vow on purpose and the the actually is a vow enforcement for sure he transgressed and for sure he needs forgiveness now verse 7 discusses the case of a married woman if she shall be married to a man and her vows were upon her now Rashi says that this is a special case she is not fully married she's only engaged to her groom then verse 8 and her husband heard and he was silent about her then her vows shall stand and Rashi explains that this refers to the case where the father um also participates in the canceling of the vowel that means since she's engaged so she's one foot out of the father's house but at the same time she's not fully married and therefore the father still has control over her the father and the the the groom share their ability in canceling her vow and you need both of them to disagree in order for the vowel to be canceled but if the father agrees or is silent or the husband as the Torah says he was silent if the if the groom is silent silent agreement even if the father disagrees it's not enough because she's already one foot out of the father's house verse 9 but if on the day of her husband's hearing he shall restrain her and he shall revoke The Vow then Hashem will forgive her and here again it means that the father will also restrain her and the groom will restrain then The Vow is not valid now verse 10 speaks about a woman who used to be married and she is no longer married a widow or a divorcee the vow of a widow or a divorcee shall remain upon her because she came out of the father's house by marrying even if she gets divorced or becomes a widow she does not go under the control of her father she is fully independent and her vows stand just like of a man and the next case is the case of a fully married woman now she is no longer under the authority of her father only the husband but if she vowed in her husband's home she is no longer in the father's home she's fully married or she established a Prohibition upon herself through an an oath in her husband's home and her husband heard about it and was silent about it he did not restrain her that's the main part then all her vows shall stand and any prohibition she established upon herself shall stand however there is limitation to the power of the husband which vow can the husband cancel verse 14 explains any vow to cause personal affliction if she made a vow that will cause her pain or suffering or damage that's the kind of vow that the husband can cancel or as verse 17 says these are the decrees that Hashem commanded motion between a man and his wife this is the second uh case that the husband can cancel a vow and that is things that interfere between him and his wife so an example of the first con condition if the wife says that's it I'm not eating meat from now on so that is something that is causing her suffering and therefore the husband has authority to cancel that vow or if she says that's it I'm not uh putting on makeup anymore enough of this unhealthy stuff and this is something that will cause issues between the husband and her the husband can say no I cancel your vow which means you are allowed to put on makeup these are examples where husband can um cancel the vowel however if the vowel is not going to cause her pain or suffering and it's nothing between the husband and the wife it's her own business then she's independent she can make the vow and no one can cancel now we go to chapter 31. and here is the repetition of the Commandment to fight a war against midianites Hashem spoke to Moshi saying take Vengeance for the children of Israel against the midianites and afterwards you will be gathered unto your people Hashem tells Moshe that after the final battle Marshall will die and Moshe did not delay verse 3 Moshe spoke to the people saying arm men from among yourselves for the legion that they may be against median to inflict hashem's Vengeance against median he himself took charge of the command to make sure that the war happens as fast as possible this is the way of the Jewish leaders they don't worry about their own popularity they don't worry about their own benefit they don't worry about the benefit for of their family rather they worry only for the benefit of the Jewish people and how many soldiers verse 4 a thousand from a tribe A Thousand from a tribe for all the tribes of Israel shall you send to the legion so total twelve thousand soldiers were sent and from the repetition of the expression a thousand from a tribe and again a thousand from a tribe the commentators learned that in fact there were two thousand from each tribe however only one thousand went out to fight as soldiers the second thousand stayed in the back for what reason in order to pray for those that went to fight and that is why in current Wars between the Jews and their Arab or aggressors we collect names of Jewish soldiers and we distribute one name per person and a Jew whether here in America or in Israel praise for a soldier a personal protector and then we know that yes the physical soldiers go out to fight physical War but a spiritual Soldier another Jew sitting in his own home or in a synagogue it's protecting that physical Soldier now if we think about the proportion of Jewish soldiers against the soldiers of the median the midrash says that when these 12 000 Jewish soldiers were marching against median bilam came out to speak to them and he made fun of them he said you think that you're gonna win against median look what happened just recently when you were the entire camp together three million people 600 000 soldiers you were encamped in your own territory and just midianite ladies went to fight against you they killed 24 000 Jewish men and now you have only 12 000 soldiers and you think you can win against the whole midianite Army while they are in their home territory so bilam laughed at them and he said you're not gonna succeed and even though bilan was a Sorcerer And for sure he could tell them the future based on Stars and you hope he could open the book and look at their pal and tell them exactly what's going to happen and in fact he did however the end was not so because bilam failed to recognize that the reason the 24 000 soldiers died was not because the midianites were stronger but because Jewish people sinned against Hashem and it's not the midianite ladies killed 24 000 Jewish men but rather Hashem punished them however from bilam's words we see that physical chances of Jewish people winning the war were very slim and now let's see why when they went and they thought of course they won and then they killed all males and all adult females and they only saved girls who were you so young that there was no possibility that they were violated there was no possibility that these girls were ever raped or married or any other way had contact with men which means only girls three years old or younger and how many girls of three years old or younger were they the Torah tells us that there were 32 000 girls now if you extrapolate 32 000 girls for only three years from zero to three and you multiply it by the entire lifetime expectancy times all the men you will come to about um million and a half to two million people and that means that again extrapolating to how many soldiers they had you could safely assume that the midianites had about 300 000 soldiers and Jewish people are sending 12 000 soldiers against the entire Army of three hundred thousand soldiers and of course billon was laughing at them you think that this tiny Army can win and that's exactly what happened verse six Moshe sent them a thousand from each tribe for a religion them and pinchas Son of elazar De Cohen they masked against median and they killed every male they killed the kings of median how many kings five kings are listed and Reva and bilam Son of the word they slew with the sword finally they were able to pay him fully for all the trouble he caused the Jewish people the children of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their young children so far they didn't kill women and they didn't kill um the children of midiando the boy boys they brought all of them with them and all their cattle and flux and all their wealth they took as spoils and all their cities and all their palaces they burned in fire they didn't settle their land it was a little bit off to the side away from the land of Israel they didn't want it so they just burned their inhabited places they brought to motion and Lazar the kohen Lazar was the father of pinhas and verse 14 says that Moshe was angry with the commanders of the army he rebuked them for saving women and boys and he explained to them that these boys are gonna grow up as enemies of the Jews and they're gonna continue fighting you have to eliminate them while they are young and these women in verse 15 Moshe said to them did you let every female live behold it was they who caused the children of Israel to commit a betrayal against Hashem regarding the matter of peror and the plague occurred in the Assembly of Hashem why did you let these women who sinned with the Jewish man to stay alive so now kill every male among the young children and every woman fit to have relations with a man now in verse 19 after they have done what was required they were supposed to purify themselves from the impurity of the dead body as for you in Camp outside the camp for seven day period whoever killed the person or touched a corpse shall purify yourselves on the third and the seventh day with the ashes of the red cow now in in verse uh 21 we have laws of culturing utensils and the general rule is as it absorbs the non-kosher food so it expels it this is the decree of the Torah which Hashem command motion if you have a utensil made of gold now it lists a few examples of metals gold or silver or copper or iron or tin or lead at that time they only used six kinds of metals gold silver copper iron tin and land everything that comes into the fire if if you cook with it in fire you shall pass through the fire and it will be purified but it must be purified with the water of sprinkling and everything that would not come in the fire you shall pass through the water which means if it's only used with cold water cold food then it's enough just to wash it now the next paragraph we learned about the division of spoils after they have brought a lot of animals hundreds of thousands of animals and 32 000 young girls and gold and silver Moshe said it's only right to divide these spoils between soldiers and the rest of the nation as we said before the rest of the nation also participate in war partially by supplying them with food and materials and partially for by praying for them Hashem said to Moshe calculate the total of the captured spoils and divide the spoils in half between those who undertook the battle and the entire sampling they split it equally however there were only 12 000 soldiers who actually fought and the rest of the nation six hundred thousand men so even though the spoils were divided equally but each man got a different amount depending if he was a soldier or was uh stayed behind now in addition to receiving the spoils every person had to separate a portion for either or Levine you shall raise up a portion from the men of War one out of 500. so they gave um the proportion one out of 500 from every human being and every animal and that went to kohanim and from the half of the children of Israel take one out of 50 from the people and from animals and give it to the Levites and they did just that and the next two paragraphs describe the total number of spoils and how they divided it and I'm quickly going to go through it the total spoils were cheap there were 675 000. sheep and there were seven to two thousand cows and they were 61 000 donkeys and they were 32 000 young girls and um each half accordingly received 337 a thousand and five hundred sheep 36 000 cows and thirty thousand and five hundred donkeys and sixteen thousand young girls the contribution to the kohanim is calculated kohani received 675. sheep cows 61 donkeys and 32 young girls to be their slaves and the portion for levim was much larger one out of 50. 6750 sheep 720 cows 60 610 donkeys and young girls as servants now verse 48 tells us that the officers this time voluntarily brought an offering as well the officers of the thousands and the officers of the hundreds approached motion they said to Moshe we took a census of the soldiers and not a man of us is missing not even the single soldier is missing in battle even though they killed hundreds of thousands of midianites not even one Jewish Soldier died Hashem so we have brought a voluntary offering for Hashem as a thank you gold vessels like bracelets and rings and earrings and clasps and so on to atone for our souls before Hashem because there's a concept that if Hashem performs a miracle for you it takes away some of the Merit so they will concerned