Matos-Massei: the back pages

Now we come to the end of the Torah storyline. A federation of tribes is at the edge of their Promised Land.  The conquest has begun accidentally, as a response to the attacks of nations that may have been otherwise  exempted from battle. The forty years of the struggle in the desert, the first national exile, come to an end. 

The last edict is that women who inherit ancestral lands ( like the daughters of Zelophchod) should marry within their tribe so that the land remains within the tribe when the usual male dominant inheritance laws are applied.  The book of Bamidbar has the happy ending of these female land barons accede to this new rule. 

We read these chapters during the three weeks that culminate in Tisha Ba'av, the commemoration of the greatest Jewish tragedies - from Gd's decree that entry into the Promised Land would be delayed by 40 years ( the archetypical exile), through the defeats  and exiles of the nation by Nebuchadnezzar  and the Romans, up to the Holocaust ( a disaster  of the disenfranchised exile). At their core, the misfortunes of Tisha Ba'av  are tribulations that are made possible by the  loss of self determination.   Internal dissention is the weakness that allows for defeat. This is consistent with the Talmud's attribution: 

(Yoma 9B) אֲבָל מִקְדָּשׁ שֵׁנִי שֶׁהָיוּ עוֹסְקִין בְּתוֹרָה וּבְמִצְוֹת וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים, מִפְּנֵי מָה חָרַב? מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהָיְתָה בּוֹ שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם. לְלַמֶּדְךָ שֶׁשְּׁקוּלָה שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם כְּנֶגֶד שָׁלֹשׁ עֲבֵירוֹת: עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה, גִּלּוּי עֲרָיוֹת, וּשְׁפִיכוּת דָּמִים.However, considering that the people during the Second Temple period were engaged in Torah study, observance of mitzvot, and acts of kindness, and that they did not perform the sinful acts that were performed in the First Temple, why was the Second Temple destroyed? It was destroyed due to the fact that there was wanton hatred during that period. This comes to teach you that the sin of wanton hatred is equivalent to the three severe transgressions: Idol worship, forbidden sexual relations and bloodshed.

  Bamidbar ends with compromises, attempts at minimizing strife.  The cities of refuge are a poignant intervention to protect the unintentional killer from the avenger. The perpetrator deserves protection and the manslaughter must be evaluated by an outside, objective agency.  If the act was unintentional, but lacking in caution, the slayer would be isolated from society, exiled to a city of refuge .  (This is a most ancient model, first applied to Cain.)  The death of the High Priest would mark the end of the sentence. 

It is the death of Aaron that declared the end of the desert experience, the first exile. 

 וַיָּ֣מׇת שָׁ֑ם בִּשְׁנַ֣ת הָֽאַרְבָּעִ֗ים לְצֵ֤את בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם Aaron the priest ascended Mount Hor at the command of the LORD and died there, in the fortieth year after the Israelites had left the land of Egypt,

Why does the  death of the high priest terminate the exile?  Perhaps leadership, especially priestly leadership, involves decisions that invite disagreement and are a reliable source of strife. Aaron's decision to participate in the populism of the golden calf  required atonement. 

This week, daf yomi completed tractate Yoma.  The penultimate mishna states

מִיתָה וְיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפְּרִין עִם הַתְּשׁוּבָה. הַתְּשׁוּבָה מְכַפֶּרֶת עַל עֲבֵרוֹת קַלּוֹת עַל עֲשֵׂה וְעַל לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה. וְעַל הַחֲמוּרוֹת הִיא תוֹלָה עַד שֶׁיָּבֹא יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים וִיכַפֵּר:

Death and Yom Kippur atone for sins when accompanied by repentance. Repentance itself atones for minor transgressions, for both positive mitzvot and negative mitzvot. And repentance places punishment for severe transgressions in abeyance until Yom Kippur comes and completely atones for the transgression.

Presumably these rules apply to individual transgressions, but national sins may require a change in leadership.

I see Tisha Ba'av as a lead in to its negation, Tu ( the 15th of ) Av. For me, it is the (most appropriate) day that I met my wife.  The Talmusd (Taanith 30b) says

אֶלָּא חֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר בְּאָב מַאי הִיא אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה אָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל יוֹם שֶׁהוּתְּרוּ שְׁבָטִים לָבוֹא זֶה בָּזֶה However, what is the special joy of the fifteenth of Av? Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: This was the day on which the members of different tribes were permitted to enter one another’s tribe, by intermarriage. It was initially prohibited to intermarry between tribes, so as to keep each plot of land within the portion of the tribe that originally inherited it. This halakha was instituted by the Torah in the wake of a complaint by the relatives of the daughters of Zelophehad, who were worried that if these women married men from other tribes, the inheritance of Zelophehad would be lost from his tribe (see Numbers 36:1–12).

Sometimes an unpleasant compromise is needed to  keep the peace. Its repeal can be a source of greater unity.  

The king is dead, long live the king