Written for Shabbat Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, Parshat Chukat, ל בסיון תשע”ד:
For the Z’chut of our three missing brothers, Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach. May Hashem have mercy on them and return them to us swiftly, and let no harm come to them as they come home to their families.
This week’s Parsha covers a range of topics, starting with the famous commandment of the Parah Adumah, then the 39-year gap which brings us to the passing of Miriam, followed by the events leading up to the eventual conquest of Eretz Yisrael. However, there is one small section in the parsha, very vague and spanning only three verses, which struck a painful cord as I read it, due to recent events.
“The C’naanite king of Arad, who dwelled in the south, heard… and he warred against Yisrael and took a captive from it” (21:1). Already from before we even entered the Land, our enemies already sought to dishearten us by taking captives from us. This relatively simple verse, however, says a lot more than meets the eye. For starters, Rashi explains to us that this “C’naanite” king is really the king of Amalek, since Amalek is described as the nation that dwells in the south. So why was he called a C’naanite? In short, to confuse us when we prayed to Hashem for assistance, so he had his troops speaking the C’naanite language. There’s another critical point in this verse. Rashi also tells us that only a single individual was taken captive, and that individual was a non-Jewish handmaid. In addition, not a single individual was killed during this attack, as S’forno points out, since the verse only says that a captive was taken.
The next verse relates that we took a vow that if Hashem were to deliver this nation into our hands, that we would sanctify all their cities to Hashem. This verse is also filled with what to teach us. First off, all that was taken from us was a single servant, so why were we so adamant about striking back to the point where we made a vow? In general, we look down on making vows to the point where someone who takes a vow is often considered a sinner. The answer, perhaps, lies in what we vowed to do. We did not say, “Hashem, we want to take revenge!” or, “Hashem, we want to slaughter wholesale and pillage!” or even, “Hashem, we’re really angry, let us lash out in anger!” What we said was, “Hashem, let us consecrate these cities to you.” What was there to lose if we let this attack go without retaliation? The Jewish people, from the time of our inception as a nation, are the representatives of God in this world, and as such we must behave according to the way that Hashem expects of us. If we were to allow ourselves to be attacked by our enemies, and allow them to steal from us and to kidnap from us, it would show that we do not care about justice. Though Hashem created the world with Chessed, there are times when justice must be carried out, and when a human life is involved, all the more so. We see that our motives here were pure, for the sake of Hashem only, because what we vowed was only to sanctify the cities to Hashem, thus showing what we were focused on.
The third and final verse of this accounting tells of how Hashem heard our vow and delivered the nation into our hands, and that we consecrated the cities like we promised (though technically that didn’t happen until the times of Yehoshuah, as Ramban explains at length). Here the verse makes clear another crucial point that is made time and again, but always bears repeating, and that is: our success did not come from our militaristic might, nor our expert strategies, and certainly not from superior numbers, only from Hashem. When Hashem heard us, He delivered them into our hands, but had He not accepted our words, we would have been completely helpless against them.
Finally, among all three of these verses, there is one more point even more significant then the rest, and one that can be easily missed if not reading in Hebrew. Throughout all three verses, Bnei Yisrael are referred to in the singular. During this entire incident, Bnei Yisrael were joined as one, to the point where they are not even referred to as individuals. We can see now the significance of the fact that it was Amalek that attacked us, since Chazal teach us that one of the reasons Amalek comes to bear on us is when we suffer from disunity. Here, they were hardly able to touch us, and they fell to us immediately afterward, since we were unified, and so they could not harm us. We were one entity, unified in the same goal, that of sanctifying Hashem’s name. Then, and only then, did Hashem listen to us, and deliver the nation into our hands. True unity, where all of us can say together, “We will sanctify them to Hashem!” is when Hashem will deliver us from our enemies, and when we will finally know peace. Shabbat Shalom.
Am Chacham V'navon 