675,000 sheep. 72,000 head of cattle. 61,000 donkeys. 32,000 virgin girls.
That’s the list of Midianite loot, in that order, taken by Israelites at the end of the war launched by Moses in the name of Adonai. It does not list the gold and other precious metals. It does not list the number of slain men and women of Midian. We are only told of the five kings who are killed, along with Balaam the Prophet.
Art Green writes at length and with pain about this “terribly dark and difficult chapter, perhaps the most painful to read in the entire Torah.”
Whose war is it anyway?
The opening verses of the chapter are conflicted. Adonai commands Moses to wage the war on Midian to activate the people’s revenge on the situation at Peor, where the Moabite women seduced the people away from Adonai. It is to be Moses’ last official act before he too dies and is ‘gathered to his people’. But which people - didn’t Moses marry into the senior priestly family of Midian?
In the following verse Moses commands the people to do as demanded - but not in his name but in the name of Adonai. It’s a religious war - not just a conflict between people, cultures and territorial disputes.
וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־הָעָ֣ם לֵאמֹ֔ר הֵחָלְצ֧וּ מֵאִתְּכֶ֛ם אֲנָשִׁ֖ים לַצָּבָ֑א וְיִהְיוּ֙ עַל־מִדְיָ֔ן לָתֵ֥ת נִקְמַת־יְהֹוָ֖ה בְּמִדְיָֽן׃
“Moses spoke to the people “Pick troops from among you for a military campaign, to execute Adonai’s vengeance on Midian.”Ba. 31:3
“Killing Midianites has become a religious duty, “ writes Green. “Priests and leaders blessing their troops have spoken this way to armies all over the world as they set out to kill, maim, and destroy. ‘This war is the will of God. God will help us win it and protect His troops.’ Chaplains on both sides of two world wars in the last century said so with fervor. So too did those who blessed American troops in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In the latter two cases, imams on the other side were even more fervent in their blessings, sometimes endorsing killing of civilians as well as enemy troops. This is not said in support of an absolute pacifism; there have been wars that indeed had to be fought.
But we need to evaluate carefully and honestly how much they are about national self-interest, often including greed and “honor,” and not the will of the Giver of all life, who loves all creatures equally. Perhaps this call for the “vengeance of Adonai” is here to remind us of what we too are capable of. For that reason, it is particularly important that we read this chapter and cringe while hearing it. It is too easy for us Jews – who have been victims rather than perpetrators for so much of our history – to say that “ethnic cleansing” and genocide are things that other people do. We need to pay attention.”
Scholars suggest that this chapter was edited and added to at a very later stage in the canonization of the Torah, reflecting the priestly problematic politics of the early Second Temple period. Part of the period’s political reality was deep suspicion against the neighboring nations. Those politics may be echoed through the two male figured dominate this chapter - Pinchas the priest who is called to lead the troops, and Elazar the High Priest who speaks here for the first and only time in Torah. Beyond these men and their religious-military role, are the unheard mute voices of the only survivors of the nation of Midian - 32,000 girls who have not yet had sex, therefore deemed valuable and undefiled assets to be handed out among the troops. Rev. Wilda Gafney in her important book ‘Womanist Midrash’ writes: “The use of force, subjugation, and rape to restore order to the Israelite universe is telling. In this saga the agency, dignity, and humanity of non--Israelite women are so threatening that they must be destroyed through sexual subordination on an industrial scale...Forced impregnation is a tool of genocide, particularly when combined with the extermination of all of the males in a conquered society”
The gold, as ordered by Elazar, is fumigated in fire and brought back to Adonai at the Ten of Meeting. The girls are never heard from again. Despite the anti intermarraige narratives they become carriers of the next generation of Israelites, paternally claimed?
The people march on to the promised land. The conquest of Canaan will follow this bloody blueprint.
What do we do with this legacy? How do we, as Art Green suggests and as Wilda Gafney reminds us, pay attention to what this gruesome story tells us about what happened then, and what we can and must do about these ongoing horrors - now?
On this month of Elul, what does collective Teshuva - repentance and responsibility look like when it comes to inherited trauma?
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.
Join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible, with daily reflections, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions.
#wilderness #bookofnumbers #Midian # #Elul #Holywar #Bamidbar31 #bamidbar #thetorah #hebrewbible #whowrotethebible? #calendar #Eleazar #warloot #Artgreen #wildagafney #womanism #womanistmidrash #revenge #balaam
#hebrewmyth #929 #torah #bible #hiddenbible #sefaria #929english #labshul #929project #myth #belowthebiblebelt #postpatriarchy