Rosh Chodesh Av Tuesday - Numbers Chapters 30-36
Conquering the Land
by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen
This week two sections of the Torah are read as we come to the end of the fourth Book of the Torah. Amongst the many different topics is a detailed itinerary of the places that the Children of Israel stopped during their migration from Egypt to the land of Canaan. Passing though Sinai during their forty-year transition from slavery to conquerors.
Nowadays conquest is a dirty word in woke societies who conveniently ignore all other current examples except for Israel. In theory it is a tribute to our western sensibilities that we have come to regret many of the evils of conquest. Except that every nation, people and tribe that exists today has at some stage been guilty of conquest, cruelty and violence. To think that Colonialism only began in the Nineteenth century is simply ignorance. The Ottoman Empire extended its conquests and occupation right up to the First World War.
Warfare too has gone through different phases over the past two hundred years. And religions have debated the ethics of war with some aspects supporting non-violence, pacifism and accepting, as in Ghandi’s case, the doctrine of Ahisma. He went so far as to advise Jews not to resist Hitler but to surrender themselves to the Nazis and accept their fate.
Such ideology is ignored by most of the world today and many of the nations from the largest to the smallest have used self interest in the loosest sense to impose themselves on others, both internally and externally and invade without a second thought. Think of all the autocratic dictators around the world who decimate their own citizens. None of which face anywhere near the condemnation and hatred that Israel attracts. The hypocrisy of the United Nations of the world is beneath contempt.
Judaism as a religion approves, even advocates warfare in self-defense. But there was a moment in time some three thousand years ago when Israel did indeed invade Canaan and fought against those who resisted. And during the Kingdoms it did indeed go to war to expand territory. On one level one can justify what was the common practice everywhere at that time. The Israelites both benefited and suffered from it. And if one wants to condemn Israel for its invasion of Canaan then every power in the history of the world stands guilty.
Why do I mention this here and now? Because the Bible reiterates that as the Israelites approached Canaan, they first tried peaceful negotiation and only when that failed, did they resort to combat. Which is why three times the Torah records negotiating with the nations on the East Bank of the river Jordan before conquering and taking over their lands too. The territory even in Canaan that the Israelis took over, kept on changing, sometimes more, sometimes less throughout the First and Second periods of settlement.
In Numbers (Chapter 33) the Torah goes through and mentions every step of the way the Israelites moved on their journey from Egypt to Canaan, taking the roundabout route through the East Bank of the Jordan. Mentioning all the names of places that are familiar to us today, adding names that had changed even then and documenting the wars they were forced to conduct and the places where things went wrong. Many commentators argue about these names. Are they meant to be placenames? Or names that hint at what happened there? Or are they simply delineating boundaries? We cannot know for certain or unanimity. Only that they underline a powerful connection of the land in its widest sense. This preoccupation with names was not just for the record but also to emphasize the connection and love the Israelites had with the land, regardless of how often they would be driven off it. For thousands of years, we have read these names and cherished them. The narrative here shows how much the Israelites valued and identified with a much larger territory than we tend to think.
As we are challenged today, it is our love and history with the land which came to be called Zion, by the prophets two and a half thousand years ago, that compels us to stay and fight for it at enormous human cost, rather than to give up and follow the passivity of Ghandi or the hypocritical denial of our history by people who neither know it or cannot learn from it.
This does not mean we cannot be sensitive to the history of others. Every country has different narratives, histories and populations. And when there is conflict only peaceful negotiation and compromise can possibly avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
Shabbat Shalom
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Jeremy Rosen was born in Manchester, England, the eldest son of Rabbi Kopul Rosen and Bella Rosen. Rosen's thinking was strongly influenced by his father, who rejected fundamentalist and obscurantist approaches in favour of being open to the best the secular world has to offer while remaining committed to religious life. He was first educated at Carmel College, the school his father had founded based on this philosophical orientation. At his father's direction, Rosen also studied at Be'er Yaakov Yeshiva in Israel (1957–1958 and 1960). He then went on to Merkaz Harav Kook (1961), and Mir Yeshiva (1965–1968) in Jerusalem, where he received semicha from Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz in addition to Rabbi Dovid Povarsky of Ponevezh and Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Yeshivat Be'er Ya'akov. In between Rosen attended Cambridge University (1962–1965), graduating with a degree in Moral Sciences.