Mattos

Mattos is a parsha of vow and their annulment.

It begins with the rules of vows: Al taacher, do not delay, goes on to the the annulment of women's vows, and ends with the vows of Reuben and Gad, vows that are given in exchange for a tract of land.

Behind all of this there is an implicit vow. That is the promise of G d to bring the people into the holy land. The fulmillment of that vow ( actually that set of vows to the Patriacrchs) is quite delayed. The accompanying parsha of Massei begins with the details of that delay, the set of journeys that the Bnei Yisroel take thorugh the wilderness on the way to the land promised to them by the Enforcer of All Vows. The vow is invalidated by our misunderstanding.

Balak: the power of speech

What is this request to curse the people?
A magic spell?

This is an unappealing answer.

The first verses of the parsha are a little helpful.

Balak, the king of Moab ( at that time) saw all Israel had done.

More likely, he heard

although since he is the son of a bird ( ben tzipor), he may have had a special viewpoint

The consequence of this information was that he and his people were disheartened;

Israel was victorious without a battle.

Perhaps BAlak wanted the same advantage over Israel.

Perhaps Bilaam could make this overwhelming force insecure.

Perhaps, like the US military, the only force able to defeat the army of Israel was the people of Israel.

The Gd human relationship here is very complex, hard to understand.

Gd's will will be done, but Bilaam has his own agenda that he tries to intercalate .

Bilam admits that his power devolves from Hashem.

Bilam's praise involves the reproductive activities of Israel

their numbers

their respect for privacy

And the parsha ends with the sin of sexual promiscuity.

an aspect of promiscuity is that it is sex in which there may not be desire for progeny. In fact, the desire is not to have a pregnancy result for these sexual acts.

Pinchas: learning from the breech

There seem to be two themes in the prasha.

1. Inheritance
1. Pinchas gets a special inheritance of the KAhuna
2. the enumeration of the tribal (65) tribal houses
3. the special ineritance for the daughters of Zelafchad
4. The passing of the leadership to Joshua
2. The sacrificial rite
1. the Holidays

Rashi points out the relationship between 70 and the apportionment of the land

And the 70 bulls that stand for the 70 nations.

The inheritance law is not standard.

Pinchas doesn't have the Yichus ;His mother is Egyptian and/or Midianite

The arrangement eventiually worked out for the daughters of Zelofchad are applicable only to that case.

Subsequent cases of daughters who inherit allow them to marry anyone.

Joshua is a test of Moses' loyalty ( at least as described by Rashi)

Moshe wanted his own child ( or perhaps Aaron's) to be the leader.

Instead there is a co-leadership with Joshua taking on Moshe's position