MATOT-MASEI
Numbers 30:2 - 36:13

Moses was certainly no advocate of non-violence, feminism, or the rights of indigenous peoples.  Here in Matot-Masei are a number of troubling decisions and decrees. Women can be prevented from keeping their vows by the man they “belong” to - father or husband. Women who inherit on their own may not marry outside their tribe lest their land holdings leave the tribe. A bloody war of revenge is undertaken against Midian for its part in leading Israelites into idolatry, including the killing of women and boy children not slain in the battle.  The invasion of the land of Canaan is discussed, and the Israelites are ordered to dispossess the inhabitants and destroy their worship sites.  Borders are described for the settlement that would make today’s Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan very nervous.

As a woman from a family of daughters, as a woman in a profession forbidden to women until only about thirty years ago, as a liberal Jew, as a critic of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and as a believer in non-violent resistance, a portion like this leaves me with more questions than answers. It is horribly ironic to read the words of Moses, himself saved despite a decree to kill male children, making such a decree himself.  It is difficult to read about the killing of the Midianites, and a few pages later, see great care given to preventing the moral pollution created by murder.

This double portion closes the Book of Numbers. The Book of Deuteronomy is next, and it contains Moses’ final “orations” before he dies and the people go on to cross the Jordan and possess the land. Many scholars believe the Book of Deuteronomy is the scroll “found” in the Temple during the reforming reign of King Josiah, perhaps several hundred years after Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were complete.  In other words, this could be the original finale to the Books of Moses. Here is Moses clearing up a vendetta, keeping women down, reiterating the division of the land, providing a living for the land-less priests, and reviewing the entire journey through the wilderness as his end draws near. Are these the matters that belong in a final summation of Torah?

There are some transcendent features as well. The rule of law is strongly emphasized in the law that there must be more than one witness in capital cases, but vigilante justice is still a concern. Cities of Refuge are decreed to be established so that those who do not deserve to die for inadvertent killing (manslaughter) can be safe from those who would exact revenge.

It is helpful to bear in mind that the Torah is the beginning of Jewish law, but not the whole of it by any means.  The portion portrays a layer in our history that was overtly patriarchal, tribal, and territorial.  Even by Talmudic times (200-600 CE), the ancient rabbis had curtailed the application of many of these decrees so that they were almost unenforceable, without actually changing the Torah. Today, there are no blood avengers or need for Cities of Refuge. Idolatry is understood in much broader terms to be something all of us struggle with whenever we place any value above the Ultimate in our decisions and behavior. Women have made progress, and although we do not get equal pay, we do have many privileges and choices we never had before. We have respect for the rights of diverse people with diverse cultural and religious expressions, and struggle to negotiate peacefully, without resorting to full scale slaughter. If a leader called for us to make war on an enemy in the name of God, we would consider such a person a dangerous religious fanatic.
 
These kinds of changes represent the positive evolution of Judaism. Reconstructionists define Judaism as the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people. We understand the Torah to be the amalgamated, redacted record of our ancient forebears’ encounter with the Holy; not the perfect and infallible word of God, spoken at Mount Sinai and recorded flawlessly. We honor its place in our history, but relate to it mostly as a demonstration that being Jewish means receiving and living by the will of God. And we have the audacity to believe that our ideas about how to understand God’s will improve over time.

Rabbi Alexis Roberts
©July 2003