Matos: the aging Moshe

actually, it happened last week. the leader was no longer the source of all edicts. Law was springing directly from the people. The daughters of Zelophchod generated the general laws of inheritance. ( see Rashi on Bamidbar 27:5; [So Moses brought their case The law eluded him, and here he was punished for crowning himself [with authority] by saying, “and the case that is too difficult for you, bring to me” (Deut. 1:17) (Mid. Tanchuma Pinchas 8). Another interpretation: This passage ought to have been written through Moses, but Zelophehad’s daughters were meritorious, so it was written through them. — [Sanh. 8a])

In the beginning of the parsha, the verbal power of women is compromised, as if to limit the processes: 1. of others generating the law ( and thus the pronouncement is to the tribal chiefs, rather than the people) and 2. of women gaining status.

Then there is the attack on Midian. this is taking up the thread that was mentioned in the beginning of last weeks parsha and dropped ( 25: 16-18). צָרוֹר אֶת-הַמִּדְיָנִים וְהִכִּיתֶם אוֹתָם. יח כִּי צֹרְרִים הֵם לָכֶם בְּנִכְלֵיהֶם אֲשֶׁר-נִכְּלוּ לָכֶם Now ( 31:2) the war is described. נְקֹם נִקְמַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֵת הַמִּדְיָנִים

What is this Midyan enmity? The context is that Moshe's religious awakening occurs in Midyan where, he incidentally marries a Midyanite woman. Now this nation that corrupts Israel by seducing the men with their wily women to serve their false gods must be destroyed! Weird. Further, the great zealot, Pinchas, has some Midyanite ancestry. Are they erasing their origins, like Darwin argues: the descendants, who compete for the same habitat as their ancestors, are the agents of the extinction of their forebearers.

After the war, the purification of the booty is described by Elazar, not (the aging) Moshe ( see Rashi on 31:21). The transition to the new order is well under way.

Finally there is the arrangement with Reuben and Gad. Again, an arrangement that emerges from the (interested) people themselves. One cleverness of the solution is that the agreement with these tribes, that have already had their portion assigned, must fight with their cousins until all the land is apportioned. This forms a model for all the tribes: that they not abandon the group effort until the mission is accomplished.