Parashas Balak 5770

     “And Moav was very afraid because of the nation, for they were many, and Moav felt disgusted because of the Children of Israel” (Bamidbar 22:3). There are numerous approaches to explain each aspect of this verse, and therefore an even more numerous combination of ways to read the verse in its entirety. The different parts of the verse that need explanation are: (1) Why were they afraid; (2) Why did they feel disgusted; (3) Were they disgusted with (or by) the Children of Israel, or were they disgusted with themselves because of the Children of Israel (or is there a better definition for the word translated as “disgusted”); (4) Why are there two ways of describing the Israelites (“the nation” and “the Children of Israel”); and (5) Why is “nation” used in conjunction with “fear” and “Children of Israel” used in conjunction with “disgust.”

 

     Since the mighty armies of Sichon and Og had just been wiped out by the Israelites, the starting point should be that Moav was afraid that they would be next, and that the Israelites would take over their land too, “licking up all that is around them like an ox licks up the vegetation of the field” (22:4). However, the Israelites had sent a request to Moav to be allowed to pass through their land (Shoftim 11:17), a request that was refused. Rather than going to war with Moav, the Israelites moved on, requesting to pass through Sichon’s land instead. When Sichon refused, and sent his army to fight , the Israelites defeated him and took his land (Bamidbar 21:25). The Israelites hadn’t gone to war with Moav because G-d specifically prohibited them from doing so (Devarim 2:9); the commentators therefore assume that Moav realized that the Israelites were prohibited from taking their land, and discuss why they were still afraid. The standard approach (Rashi on Devarim 2:9, based, as usual, on Chazal) is that even though the Israelites were prohibited from waging war against Moav, they could still bully them, and even take some of their possessions forcefully (just not their land). Therefore, after being intimidated and perhaps even pillaged, having them as next door neighbors would certainly scare them.

 

     The Ramban understands the “disgust” to be an additional level of “fear,” with Moav being afraid because of how many more Israelites there were than Moavites, and even more afraid because of all the amazing things that had been done for them and their ancestors. Based on this, we can easily understand why they are referred to as “the nation” regarding their size, as this “fear” would apply to any “nation” that was large, and why they are referred to by their specific name, the “Children of Israel” regarding the unique things that happened to them. The Ramban then explains what they were afraid of, if they knew that the Israelites wouldn’t attack them or take their land; since Israel would become the region’s superpower, every other country would have to follow their directives, including paying taxes to them. Even though Moav had been subservient to Sichon until now (see Malbim on 22:4), it can be suggested that being subservient to a nation because they have a strong king (i.e. Sichon) was not as upsetting as being subservient to the holy Nation of Israel; when the strong king dies, his power dies with him and they could hope to attain independence, but a nation whose power comes from their holiness could stay in power for eternity. (This could be another reason why the name “Children of Israel,” which refers to their special status, is emphasized.) If this was Moav’s fear, the purpose of hiring Bilam to curse the Children of Israel would have been to affect their level of holiness, thus preventing them from becoming, or maintaining, their regional power.

 

     The Chasam Sofer suggests two other approaches, approaches that the Rinas Yitzchok asks several questions on – some of which he leaves unanswered. In both approaches the Chasam Sofer assumes that Moav knew that the Children of Israel would not wage war against them or take their land, and (as many commentators do, both here and elsewhere) understands the term “the nation” to refer to the “Eirev Rav,” the mixed multitude of people that left Egypt with the Children of Israel during the exodus (see Shemos 12:38) while “Children of Israel” refers to the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov/Yisroel. In his first approach, the Chasam Sofer suggests that Moav was afraid that even though the Children of Israel wouldn’t wage war against them, the Eirev Rav might, and were also concerned that the Children of Israel might pillage them. In his second approach, he suggests that Moav was afraid that the Eirev Rav would conquer their land, and that afterward the Children of Israel would conquer it from the Eirev Rav, much like they were allowed to conquer what had been Moav’s land from Sichon after Sichon took it from them.

 

     The first question the Rinas Yitzchok asks is why Moav should be more afraid of the Eirev Rav than of the rest of the nation, since the prohibition against going to war against Moav (and taking their land) applied to the Eirev Rav as well. However, I’m not sure that Moav knew that the Eirev Rav had the exact same obligations as the “Children of Israel,” especially since the Children of Israel were covered and protected by the “Clouds of Glory” while the Eirev Rav was not (see Meshech Chochma on 11:1), which could be easily misunderstood to mean that they were not part of the nation and therefore not subject to the same prohibitions. (See www.aishdas.org/ta/5768/shlach.pdf, where I suggested that the Torah had to reiterate, several times, that the laws applied equally to converts because the Children of Israel didn’t think that the Eirev Rav were full converts; if this point had to be made numerous times to the Children of Israel, how could it be assumed that Moav knew that all prohibitions also applied to the Eirev Rav?)

 

     The Rinas Yitzchok suggests that, according to the Chasam Sofer, Moav may have thought that the prohibition against conquering their land only applied to those that would get a share in the Promised Land; since the Eirev Rav wouldn’t, they would be allowed to take land from Moav. He then wonders why, if that were the case, the prohibition applied to the Tribe of Levi, since they didn’t get a portion in the Land either. However, they got other things instead, such as tithes (see Bamidbar 18:21) and their own cities (see Vayikra 25:32-34), while the Eirev Rav did not, so it does not seem farfetched to suggest that even though the Levi’im were included in the prohibition against conquering land from Moav, the Eirev Rav were not.

 

     The (other) questions on the Chasam Sofer that the Rinas Yitzchok leaves unanswered are how the Children of Israel could be permitted to conquer the land from the Eirev Rav, and why it would matter to Moav if they did, since either way they wouldn’t have their land anymore. However, if Moav didn’t think the Eirev Rav was part of the Nation of Israel, we can understand why they would think that the land could be conquered from them, just as it had been conquered from Sichon; as long as it wasn’t taken directly from Moav, the prohibition wasn’t being violated. And if part of Moav’s concern was not being able to reconquer the land from the holy Children of Israel, we can understand why they would be more worried about Israel conquering it from the Eirev Rav than had it remained in the possession of the Eirev Rav.

 

     According to the approach(es) of the Chasam Sofer, aside from trying to affect the level of holiness of the Children of Israel, Balak wanted Bilam to curse the Eirev Rav so that they couldn’t conquer Moav’s land. The Sifsay Kohain (Bamidbar 14:12-20) says that the Eirev Rav died out in the desert, with none of them making it to the Promised Land. Although the Chasam Sofer understands part of Moav’s fear to be based on the vast numbers of the Eirev Rav, according to the Sifsay Kohain the Eirev Rav died out slowly over the 40 years in the desert (see www.aishdas.org/ta/5769/shlach.pdf, page 2). Yalkut Reuveini (Bamidbar 1:21 and 25:24) says that the 24,000 that died in the plague after the sin of Pe’or (Bamidbar 25:9) were the children that had been born to the Eirev Rav. It is fair to speculate that these would have been the last “members” of the Eirev Rav, as within a few months the Children of Israel would enter the Promised Land, and according to the Sifsay Kohain, no one from the Eirev Rav made it there. If so, then Bilam accomplished both of the goals that Balak had set for him, as the sin of Pe’or affected the holiness of the Children of Israel, and the resulting plague wiped out what was left of the Eirev Rav. [I would further speculate that had the Eirev Rav survived, they would have settled in the lands conquered from Sichon and Og, so that the “nation” that Moshe brought out of Egypt (see Rashi on Shemos 32:7) would dwell in the land conquered by Moshe. Only after the Eirev Rav died out did the Tribes of Reuvein and Gad approach Moshe to ask if they could take that land as their inheritance.]

 

     The discussion until now was operating under the assumption that Moav could not be afraid that the Children of Israel would conquer their land, since they weren’t attacked after permission to pass through was denied. However, there is an approach in Chazal (Bamidbar Rabbah 20:3 and Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 2) that has Moav afraid that the Children of Israel would attack them directly and take their land, as they didn’t realize that it was only because Sichon had conquered it first that the Children of Israel were allowed to take it. The question this raises (which is what the commentators wanted to avoid) is why did Moav think the Children of Israel didn’t just attack them instead of going to war with the more powerful Sichon?

 

     There are additional questions surrounding the request to pass through the land of Moav as well. For one thing, why was this request (and denial) only mentioned in Shoftim, in the conversation between Yiftach and the king of Amon? The Torah told us about the requests made of Edom and Sichon and their refusal; why didn’t the Torah also tell us about the request made of Moav and their refusal? Additionally, why did Yiftach mention the request of Moav to the king of Amon? Amon was claiming that the Children of Israel had taken their land, with the crux of Yiftach’s answer being that they didn’t take it from Amon, but from Sichon. What relevance does Moav’s refusal have with conquering land that used to belong to Amon? Although it could be suggested that Yiftach was explaining that they wouldn’t have conquered the land that used to belong to Amon had either Edom or Moav allowed them passage, I would like to offer a different suggestion, one that answers all of these questions, as well as explaining the wording of Yiftach’s message to Amon.

 

     The assumption most work with is that had Edom allowed the Children of Israel to pass through their land, they would have gone straight into the Promised Land (from the south). However, in both Bamidbar (20:17-19) and Shoftim (11:17), no mention is made of entering the Promised Land after passing through Edom. The request of Sichon, on the other hand, includes passing through “until we cross the Jordan (River) to the land that Hashem our G-d is giving to us” (Devarim 2:29). In Shoftim as well (11:19), the request of Sichon was to “pass through your land until my place.” It would seem, then, that the intention was never to enter the Land from the south; the plan had always been to enter across from Yericho, from the Plains of Moav. The problem was having to pass through Edom and Moav to get there, so Moshe asked both countries, at the same time, “while Israel lived at Kadesh” (see Shoftim 11:17), permission to do so. Once Edom refused, Moav’s answer was irrelevant, and there was no need to record it (or the request) in the Torah.

 

     At the time of the request, Sichon hadn’t yet conquered the land from Moav, which is why permission was needed from Moav to cross from their land. However, their refusal sealed their own fate, as if they wouldn’t allow the Children of Israel to cross voluntarily, it would be done against their will. Since the Children of Israel weren’t allowed to conquer land from Moav, G-d had to arrange for Sichon to do so, thus paving the way for that land (and specifically the crossing point at the Plains of Moav) to be conquered by Israel. At the time, the descendants of Lot all lived together, as one country (see Malbim, Torah Or, on Devarim 23:4), and were only separated (geographically, if not yet governmentally) when Sichon conquered the large swath of land in the center, with those that descended from the older daughter of Lot (i.e. Moav) in the south and those from the younger daughter (i.e. Amon) in the north(east). Therefore, when Moshe sent the message to Moav, it was also to “the sons of Amon,” and Yiftach was telling the king of the now-separate country that permission had been asked of his country to pass through, but was denied.

 

     If the permission to pass through Moav had only been requested when the Children of Israel were still in Kadesh, and the answer became irrelevant when Edom refused to let them get to Moav, there was no way for Moav to know that G-d had prohibited the Children of Israel from attacking them or conquering their land. Therefore, Moav was afraid of being attacked, and disgusted by the thought of having such holy, powerful neighbors.