Matos-Masai:

This is a most disturbing parsha. Is this the ancient origin of the holocaust?

The Hebrew Bible was  understood only by Jews and scholars for millennia.  The range of interpretation was limited.  A troubling passage was put into context   Gutenberg chose it as the first book to be published with movable type.  It became the most popular book in the world.  Catholics, as an article of their belief, would consider the Church as the only agency that could interpret this  sacred book ( written in Latin).  The Protestants, with readily available copies of the Bible, believed that they  could  interpret it for themselves.  They come to this weeks parsha. 

Gd commands a war against Midyan because of their attempt to compromise the Hebrew commitment to the Gd who took them out of Egypt; the Gd that Moshe had discovered while he was in Midyan.

The soldiers return from battle.  The enemy male soldiers are absent:  slain or banished.  The women and children are brought back. Moshe is surprised to see the adult women among the captives.  He points out that these women  ( relatives of his wife? sisters of Pinchas' mother?) were the essence of the problem.  It had been the seductions that had brought the plague. Moshe orders all the adult women and male children  ( remember the edict of Pharoah - from which Moshe was rescued) killed.  Were there gas chambers at that time. would they have used them?

The politics are understandable.  Moshe has been preempted by Pinchas.  When the Midyanite  women began to spread their venereal disease ( the plague) through the people, Gd had instructed Moshe to kill and publicly  hang the debased leaders of Israel.  Moshe cried. Pinchas acted, and by his single, double execution, he rescued the people from The Wrath.  Moshe saw the value of decisive, strong action.

Moshe had been chastised for exceeding his authority when he coaxed water form the rock.  Subsequently, he would consult with Gd before making big decisions ( the stoning of the  Sabbath desecrator, the inheritance laws- as they apply to women heirs).  The matter of Midyan seemed to be time for decisiveness.

  It is important to note that the text makes the decision to kill the adult women and male children Moshe's.  This is not an instruction from Gd.  Gd ( again) is silent.

When I went to Poland, to see the places and people involved in my parents' escape from their genocidal edict, I wondered how the guides and translators, who were unearthing the story with us, felt about the role of their ancestors  in this horror.  I am sure that most of them felt some discomfort at the ( probable) silence of their parents and grandparents.  In that context, I cannot be silent about my (conceptual) ancestors.

It is important to have this incriminating text.  It demonstrates the universal  potential for genocide in the name of a cause. It reminds us of the danger (repeatedly inflicted) to our own people, and that we, under some circumstances,  can be a danger to other peoples/

It is also dangerous to have this text.  It is given a Sacred attribution, a correctness that is not apparent on its surface. Some zealots, in all the Abrahamic religions, use such texts as justification for outrageous actions.

We Jews do not trust our personal readings of the Torah.  I am sure that there is an explanation. But I think that appreciating the story, as written ,is part of the process.