Scrollers Preview - Parashat Matot-Masei 2013

This week’s double parasha concludes the Book of Numbers, and with it, the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness. The new generation has taken over, for the most part, and Moses is about to die. The people will pause here on the steppes of Moab, listening to Moses speak for the whole book of Deuteronomy, before they finally cross over, in the Book of Joshua. As we conclude this book, we will encounter many questions: about the autonomy of women and what it means to make a vow; regarding what we think about the fact that Moses is instructed to conduct a holy war as his last act; and what we and the Israelites see as we reflect on the journey and look ahead to conquering and settling the land.

Below, you’ll see a summary. I look forward to engaging with these questions, and with yours, tomorrow morning!

As we near the end of the Book of Numbers, we receive some additional laws, Moses receives his last task from God, and we begin to focus on the settlement of the Promised Land. The three main sections of the first parasha of Matot are:

1.) Laws regarding vows – Specifically, we learn about who is responsible for the vows or oaths of a woman, depending on her personal status (living in her father’s house, married, divorced, widowed.) A vow or oath is a powerful use of words, made binding by the use of God’s name.

2.) God asks one last thing of Moses before his death – to go to war against the Midianites. This war is meant to redress past wrongs, specifically the Midianites’ seduction of the Israelite men in last week’s parashah. Balaam reappears here as the mastermind behind that mass-seduction. Moses is unhappy when the Israelite armies only kill the men and not the women. So he sends them back to slay all male children and all women who have known men carnally.

3.) The tribes of Reuben and Gad claim the land on the East side of the Jordan as their inheritance and want to settle it because it is good cattle country. Moses is not happy; he is concerned that they won’t help the Israelites conquer the land. A compromise is reached in which the Reubenite and Gadite men will serve as “shock-troops” and will conquer the land before returning to their lands on the East side of the river.

Then, in the second parasha, Mas’ei, we review the marches and stopping points through the wilderness, 42 in all. We also get the boundaries of the land, more details on the cities of refuge and the other cities of the Levites,

At the very end of the parasha, the daughters of Zelophechad return, the laws of inheritance changed once again to insure that heiresses will marry within their tribes, therefore keeping land in its original tribal holding.