Unscrolled: Matot-Masei: A Book of Goings

In Parashat Matot, the first of the two portions read this week, God speaks to Moses, saying, “Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin” (Numbers 31:1-2).

A final errand, and then death.

As when Moses struck the stone instead of speaking to it—the sin for which he will be barred from crossing into the holy land—he takes on this mission with excessive violence, scolding the Israelite soldiers for taking mercy on the Midianite women, urging them to continue the slaying, forestalling the moment when the blood has ceased flowing and his time has come to be lain to rest.

The second portion, Parashat Masei, is named for the many journeys the Israelites undertook during their forty-year sojourn in the wilderness, which is now nearly at its end.

“The Israelites set out from Rameses and encamped at Succoth.

“They set out from Succoth and encamped at Etham…

“They set out from Etham and turned about toward Pi-hahiroth…” (Numbers 33:5-7).

The list goes on like this for forty-five passages. Here, the entire Book of Numbers is laid before us. Each journey marks an instance of the pillar of God lifting from the camp and descending in the distance. Each journey recalls a disassembling and a reassembling of the tabernacle. Each journey recalls another rebellion, another war, another miracle.

After all these journeys, however, have we made any progress?

Our sojourn began in strife and ends in strife. It began with war against Amalek. It ends with war against the Midianites. After forty years, we have not managed to escape violence. Violence accompanied the Israelites out of Egypt, and it has dogged them through the desert decade after decade. It has dragged an entire generation into shallow graves in the shifting sands of Sinai, and it threatens to consume the rest of them on the far bank of the Jordan River.

Looking at a map of these many journeys, we see that the Israelites have not followed a straight line. The Book of Exodus has a much clearer structure. Its narrative pulses with intentionality. The Israelites were slaves and then they were free. The villain was arrogant and then he was laid low.

The Book of Numbers, however, has charted a meandering, indirect path across a shapeless landscape. It is a book of journeys, of goings, in which the narrative bookends of beginning and end fail to exert the force necessary to create the sense of an arc.

If these years have been transformative, it is not clear how or in what way. At moments it seems that the new generation is indeed a more evolved group than their forebears. There is Pinchas with his holy zeal for God; the daughters of Zelophehad, who saw what Moses did not; the Gaddites, the Reubenites, and the Manassites, who display bravery and loyalty unknown to the generation of the spies.

And yet the blood continues to flow.

Blood of war.

Blood of vengeance.

Blood of innocents.

And so, on the banks of Jordan, we are left asking: what does our liberation from bondage even mean if it has not liberated us from violence?

And so, on the banks of Jordan, we are left asking: what does our liberation from bondage even mean if it has not liberated us from violence?

The Torah’s answer is less than clear, and perhaps less than comforting as well.

We are told that the deadly campaign against the Midianites contaminates its perpetrators.

“You shall then stay outside the camp seven days; every one among you or among your captives who has slain a person or touched a corpse shall cleanse himself on the third and seventh days” (Numbers 31:19).

Violence pollutes. That said, it is not universally condemned by God. The portion then goes on to give laws concerning how to adjudicate cases of murder and manslaughter, introducing the concept of a “refuge city” to which a manslayer, who incurred his guilt only unwittingly, may live free from the threat of vengeance from the kin of the person whom he slayed.

The iteration of these laws casts the portion’s initial act of violence against the Midianites, whether read as a righteous act of vengeance or as a psychologically inflected act of rage, in a new light. Violence, the text seems to be saying, is a part of life—something to be managed rather than extinguished.

Is this a satisfying message? Is it an uplifting one?

From the reactions of my family during our weekly study, the answer to both questions is no.

But it is honest—and for this reason, perhaps it has something to teach.

Matthew Schultz is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (2020). He is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts.