Parshat Matot

An unlikely reunion

by Rabbi Avi Billet

In light of last week's challenging "exchange" of soldiers Goldwasser and Regev for, among others, a murderer who does not deserve the treatment he has been given on Israeli taxpayers' shkalim, some will turn to the war with Midian as an example of how to deal with such evil enemies. Surely the seemingly savage rules would not fly in a liberal society which preaches "humane warfare" from the safety of a coast thousands of miles away.

However, no "war" is "humane," only soldiers on the front know what really goes on in the trenches, and sadly, the rules have to change when the enemy doesn't abide by them.

In chapter 31, the rules of Midian include a decree of complete annihilation for this proverbial thorn in Israel's side. In 31:6-8, seven names are recorded: Pinchas is the only Jew, followed by six of the defeated enemies –– five Midianite kings and a Mesopotamian named Bilaam. The defeat of the kings is necessary to record to show an accomplishment and to demoralize the enemy. But why mention Bilaam? And why is Pinchas singled out as a leading Jewish fighter? Having both appeared and impressed us in parshat Balak, is there significance to their "reunion" in this chapter?

On a simple level, Pinchas has new-found celebrity status. He was the first to stand up to the Moav plague and he saved many Jews from dying. Maybe he could apply his experiences to save Jews here as he leads the front against Midian.

Bilaam was the most famous non-political figure of his day. His death would make headlines, thus the need to give him dishonorable mention for having died by the sword in the context of this war.

On a deeper level, Pinchas may have been the Kohen Mashuach Milchama, the special High Priest appointed to lead the people in battle (see Devarim 20), whose identity here would confirm his status as a kohen, and would be an inspiration to those who remembered his role in last week's parsha.

Bilaam's presence demonstrates how much he truly hated the Jewish people. He spent most of parshat Balak explaining to Balak and his men how he could only say what G-d allows him to say. While he may have personally agreed with Balak's plot, being a public prophet, his word was bound by G-d's wishes. At the conclusion of his "unsuccessful" experience with Balak, it seems Bilaam went home (24:25), meaning he returned to his home near the Euphrates River (22:5). Considering his preferred mode of travel (donkey), a return trip would be cumbersome without a financial incentive.

Nevertheless, Bilaam hated the Jewish people so much, when word came they were fighting with Midian, he turned around and went back to participate in the fight –– as a volunteer private citizen who had no business fighting other than because he shared a hatred of the Jewish people who had done him no harm, and a desire to see them wiped out. (Compare him to Jordan in the June '67 war. Israel had no fight with them and even promised not to engage them in battle. But Jordan was given an impression from their allies and Arab newscasts that the destruction of the Jewish state was imminent so they joined in the fight and lost control of the "West Bank" as a result.)

Pinchas and Bilaam are reunited as principal characters in the war, the only two non-kings mentioned by name, to demonstrate two extremes of approaches to war to which Jews must be made aware.

Pinchas first entered the stage as a zealous defender of Jewish faith and the Torah, going so far as to kill a Jewish man who perpetrated the worst kind of "hillul Hashem" (desecration of G-d's name) through a public sin which humiliated the Jewish people in the eyes of the Moabites and brought about the deaths of 24,000 Jews. His presence on the battlefield represents the ultimate defense of G-d and the Jewish people.

On the other hand, Bilaam's actions demonstrate the extremes that Jew-hatred can embody. That a man who has returned home after hundreds of miles on donkey-back will not even stop to rest, choosing to turn around and make a return trip to participate in what he thinks will be a war of annihilation of the Jewish people, is testament to how far some will go when driven by an uncontrollable hatred. Had he stayed home to mind his own business, he would not have been killed in the war.

Pinchas stands for taking action because there is a pressing need. Bilaam stands for uncontrollable hate. Pinchas is the bearer of the covenant of peace (25:12) –– an eternal symbol for how the Jewish people must engage with the world, unless duty calls to fight and eradicate evil.