Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Matot Maseh 2

we won a great War a great victory perhaps our merits were diminished or perhaps our soldiers looked at the women improperly and therefore by bringing the this gold they atoned for any impropriety and in verse 52 the gold is measured and the total goal donated by officers was sixteen thousand seven hundred fifty gold coins if measured in shalim now chapter 32 verse 1 the children of the tribe of ruven and God two tribes had abundant livestock very great and they saw the land on the other side of Jordan the Eastern Bank of Jordan River and they saw that it was a place of great beautiful pasture and they said to motion let this land be given to your servants as a heritage you don't have to bring us across the Jordan we don't need to take part of the land on the other side let the Jewish the rest of the tribes each one get a larger portion we are okay with it it's fine for us if we stay here now sounds like a nice request they're being generous you can take our portion give it to them give us this however Moshe objects Moshe said to the children of God and ruven shall your brothers go out to battle while you settle here Moshe misunderstood their request and he said you want to settle here and let the rest of the tribes go into the land and fight the seven Canaanite Nations and 31 canana Kings and Moshe became concerned that that may scare the Jewish people they're going to say why are two tribes staying behind is it because they're afraid maybe we should also be afraid why are they not fighting emotion says we don't want to repeat the history 38 years ago Jewish people got scared and we don't want them to get scared again so they clarify their request in verse 16. pens which means enclosure for our flocks shall we build for our livestock and cities for our small children however we shall arm ourselves swiftly in the Vanguard in the at the front of the children of Israel we shall not return to our homes until the children of Israel will have inherited every man his inheritance so they're promising that their request was just to settle their women and children who are not going to fight anyway and leave their cattle behind and all the soldiers all them adult males of children of God and ruven will cross together with children of Israel and they will fight until every Jew settled and it was a big undertaking because it took seven years for them to conquer the land of Israel and another seven years to settle it and so they were missing from their families for 14 years of course they could visit but whenever there was a battle they had to appear on the Battlefront and now Moshe accepts the condition Moshe said to them if you do this thing and you arm yourselves before Hashem for the battle and then this land shall be a Heritage for you before Hashem and tribes of Ruben and God affirm they their commitment and the children of God and children then said to Moshe saying your servants shall do as my lord lord commands now in addition to making this agreement with them Moshe informs yahushua who is soon going to take over and elazar the high priest of the agreement of the agreement verse 28 concerning them Moshe commanded the Lazar the kohen and yahushua Son of noon and the hands of the fathers of the tribes of Israel the leaders of every tribe he informed and he told them if they fulfill their condition give them the land but if they don't fulfill the condition then do not allow them to stay there bring them over and force them to fight with you verse 31 tribes of Reuben and God affirm their commitment to elazar and Yoshua and they said as Hashem has spoken to your servants so shall we do now verse 33 tells us a a nuance so Moshe gave to them to the children of God and to the children of Reuben and have the tribe of Menace son of your yourself Kingdom of sihon King of the Amorite and the kingdom of OG king of Bashan she gave them two kingdoms but not only he settled two tribes there Garden River he also decided to settle half of the tribe of menasheed there and he did it so that one tribe should unite both uh sides of the country because the tribe of menashe split some of their families are here some are here and because they're going to be visiting each other they will create a connection and it will never be forgotten that both on the Eastern side of Jordan and western side of Jordan are members of the same Nation and verse 34 till the end of the partial ex tells us how the children of God and ruven conquered more territory the children of God built Devon and that road nimra and bidharan fortified cities and enclosures for their flood and children of Reuben build crashborn and Ella Lake Area time and never in palmeron with altered names now these names are original names that were called after Idols however it says with altered names because the Jewish people came they settled the cities they built them up and they changed their names to more um kosher names but the Torah doesn't tell us what their those names were and sivma and they call them by other names instead of the names of the cities that they built and children of Mahir son of Menace went to gilad and captured it and drove out the Emirate who were in it and Moshe gave gilad to mahir's son of minashe and he settled it went and captured their Villages and called them The Villages of yair and Nova went and captured cannot and her suburbs and he called it Nova after his name he called the city in his honor however our sages say that that city did not survive for long and that was partially because he named it um arrogantly in his own honor that teaches us that when a person runs after his own honor his honor runs away from him but when the person is humble then he becomes honorable man that concludes parashat matot now we go straight into pashat Mase on page 919 in the article homage chapter 33 this is a the summary of 42 Journeys that the Jewish people traveled from Egypt until the plains of Moab and we will just mention them um quickly first verse 3 they journeyed from Ramses which was in Egypt in the first month on the 15th day of the month on the day of after the pesach offering they gathered from all the towns in Egypt in Ramses and from there they journey to Sukkot and then to atam and then piachi wrote then from there they went through the sea the splitting of the Red Sea and then they came to Mara after three day trip when they didn't have water and then they came to elim and there they had 12 Springs of water this as the Torah tells us we remember all the events that Jewish people had to go through in the last 40 years number seven they went to the Sea of reeds then the Wilderness of sin which is um called mid-bar sin then they went to dofka and alus number 10. then they went to the feedim and there was no water there for the people to drink and the story deemed that they complained and then Hashem told Moshe give them water from The Rock and then they came encamped in the wilderness of Sinai by the Mount Sinai mid-barcinai then eventually when they left Mount Sinai after a year of dwelling around the mountain they came to kivrota Tava that's number 13 and then they went to Hudson Road and ritma and by the way even though it may seem boring just listening the names kabbalistic sources tell us that the reason the Jewish people went to these 42 places because there were Sparks of Holiness in each one of those 42 and in fact they collected great spiritual wealth from them and just by reading these names and picturing in your mind how the Jewish people travel you can access that positive spiritual energy as well so the 16th travel brought them to Ramon Perez and then and number 20 is Mount Sheffer and then they came to harada and then makaylot and tahat and Tara and mitka that's number 25. and then they came to hashmona and most wrote and binayakan and God and number 30 is yatvata and then they came to avrona and it's young gaver and Wilderness of sin which is Kadesh and then they came to is where aharon passed away and beautifully it coincides with today today is Rosh Hodes of right now is Rosh hodish the first of the month of ah and this is the your side the annual day when we commemorate death of aharon went up today to mount hore hor hahar at the word of Hashem and died there in the 40th year after the children of Israel went forth from the land of Egypt in the fifth month which is of on the first of the month which is today and aharon was 123 years old at his death on Mount hore and right after Aaron died the Canaanite king of Arad heard the amalekites and battled against the Jews and of course the Jews won with the help of Hashem number 35th encampment was in salmon and then punan and ovod and the ruins of the passes at the border of Moab and Devon God and almond that's number 40. and number 41 they encamped in the mountains of the passes before Neville Nuvo is the name of the mountain upon which at the end of the Torah Marshall will Ascend and die and number 42 they journeyed and passed from the mountains of the passes and encamped in the plains of Moab by the Jordan River across from here Jericho this is where they are now this is the 42nd encampment they encamped by the Jordan River until the plains of shitim in the plains of Moab and now Hashem prepares them for the crossing of the Jordan into the promised land Hashem spoke to Moshe in the planes of Moab by the Jordan speak to the children of Israel and say to them when you cross the Jordan River to the land of Canaan you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land and you shall possess the land and you shall settle it but in verse 55 if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land the idol worshipers those of them whom you leave shall be pins in your eyes and a surrounding barrier of thorns in your sides and they will harass you upon the land in which you dwell and this has been the problem for us since the days of Yoshua until now because the Jewish people were so kind and they allowed some of the Canaanites to state eventually the Jewish people learn from their bad ways and started worshiping Idols as well and Hashem sent the same Canaanite the same Palestinians the police team to attack us and they did not let us live peacefully except for short periods during the reign of David Melech and Melech besides that throughout our long history we always had trouble from the people who we ourselves allowed to stay in the land and this is our problem till today now chapter 34 the boundaries of the land of Israel we list the boundaries and then divide the land between the nine and a half tribes because two and a half tribes already received on the Eastern side of Jordan River and the tribe of Levy will not get land they will only get cities Hashem spoke to Moshe saying when you come to the land of Canaan this is the land that shall fall to you as inheritance the land of Canaan according to its borders first the southern side from the Wilderness of sin and it says I'm not gonna say all of them it tells him a few settlements how to go on the south from Southeast to Southwest until the the sea um on the western side which is the Mediterranean Sea and the in verse 6 western border the Mediterranean Sea is the Western border verse 7 the northern border it again lists a few points and then the eastern border runs along the Jordan River through Connecticut and then through the Dead Sea verse 13. this is the land that you shall divide as an inheritance by lot by Lottery which Hashem has commanded to give to nine and a half tribes verse 15 and two and a half tribes have taken their inheritance on the Bank of Jordan River by yurijo Eastward toward the sunrise now Moshe has to announce the new leadership Hashem spoke to Moshe these are the names of the men who are to take possession of the land for you because you're not gonna be there in person and Yeshua son of noon they are two leaders Eliza is the spiritual leader Joshua is commander-in-chief and one leader from each tribe and the names of all the leaders are listed now chapter 35 cities for the Levites Hashem spoke to Moshe saying command the children of Israel that they shall give to the Levites from the heritage of their possession cities for dwelling and open spaces for the cities all around them shall you give to the Levites so if you imagine the city as a square there was an area that had to stay open for safety so that they will see if an enemy is coming so there were City walls then a certain amount of uh empty land not even trees and then another band around there for Orchards and Gardens now in total there were 48 levitical cities verse 6. the cities that you shall give to the Levites are six Cities of Refuge three on the Eastern side of Jordan three on the western side of Jordan they were the main Refuge cities and in addition to them you shall give another 42 cities and what are they for in addition for Levites to live there verse 9 explains Hashem spoke to Moshe is saying when you cross the Jordan to the land of Canaan you shall designate cities for yourself Cities of Refuge shall they be for you and a killer shall flee there one who takes a life unintentionally so if a Jew kills another Jewish Shalom unintentionally he goes to the ear McLeod a City of Refuge why so that the Avenger shall not kill the inadvertent murderer before the murder has a chance to stand in front of the court to determine was it an intentional murder and then he will be put to death by the court or it was an unintentional murder for which there is no death penalty and all he has to do is to stay in the City of Refuge until the coin got all dies and verse 16 explains the law of unintentional murder if he had struck him with an iron Implement and he died he is a killer because if you hit someone with a mental object you know he may die a knife or a sword and there that is considered intentional murder he shall surely be put to death or if you know that he verse 20 if he pushed him out of hatred or heard upon him from Ambush and he died or in hatred he struck him with his hand and he died he is a killer and he shall surely be put to death now in verse 22 we learned about unintentional murder but if with suddenness without enmity and without ambush or without having seen he killed him and he was not his enemy and he did not seek his harm then the assembly must protect him and he must dwell in his City of Refuge until the death of the kohen gadol and only then he can return to his land and of course his family may join him in the City of Refuge and the Levites provide for him um dwelling in the levitical city in verse 30 we learn that a single witness is not valid you need two adult males kosher Witnesses a single witness shall not testify against a person now we go to verse 31. that we cannot accept a payment instead of appropriate punishment you shall not accept ransom for the life of a killer who is worthy of death cannot accept money instead of death penalty and you shall not accept ransom for one who fled to his City of Refuge you cannot accept money instead of the punishment of living in the City of Refuge exile the punishment assigned by the Torah is not for sale now chapter 36 we learn of the law a temporary law that you cannot have Tribal intermarriage this law was established only for that generation so that the Jewish people can settle their own land securely however after that generation women from One Tribe could marry men from another tribe even though if this woman would inherit her father's field let's say her father doesn't have a voice this woman would inherit his field and then she marries a man from another tribe and if she would die her husband would receive that land as inheritance and tribal land would get mixed up a little bit but that was still permitted and this started with daughters of sloth who didn't have brothers and they received the inheritance so therefore um they approached Moshe and he said this is the word that Hashem said command has commanded regarding the daughters of tsilofhad saying let them be wives to whomever is good in their eyes here we see that you cannot force someone to get married whether a man or woman they must marry only someone who is good in their eyes but there is one limitation for the daughters of and for that generation only to the family of their father's tribes shall they become wives an inheritance of the children of Israel shall not make rounds from tribe to to tribe as I have explained and again this is only for their generation and therefore the daughters of hogla milka and Noah became wives to Sons of their uncles their cousins the daughters of sloth um to became wives to cousins from the families of the children of minashe son of Joseph and their inheritance remained with the tribe of the family of their father at least for that generation now the last verse of the Parsha and the last verse of this fourth book of Moshe bye these are the Commandments and the ordinances that Hashem commanded through Moshe to the children of Israel in the plains of Moab at the Jordan across of Iris may we be strong and may we be strengthened this concludes parashat matot and parashat Mase and this concludes masaltov and hodestov and shabbat shalom um