Learning As We Begin the Nine Days

With the onset of the annual commemoration of The Nine Days now upon us, I shall devote this week’s essay to a brief review of a major work that employs the literary-theological method focusing on a unique analysis from this week’s concluding chapters from the Book of Numbers, Bamidbar.

Two elements are dealt with herein, the war of vengeance against Midian, a rather poignant task for Moshe before his death, and the request for settlement in the trans-Jordan by two and a half tribes.

In an excellent work dealing with a detailed textual analysis of the Bible, Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot writes in great analytical detail of both chapters 31 and 32 of this week’s Torah reading, giving a thorough commentary which is developed to further inform us as to both motive and the historical reality of the events that inhabit this text.

In “Mikra and Meaning: Studies in Bible and Its Interpretation” [Maggid, 2012], Rabbi Helfgot notes the following:

“In studying parashat hashavua, we sometimes fail to give the ‘technical’ or seemingly ‘less important’ chapters their proper due. I would like to explore the second half of one such chapter, often ignored by both students and teachers alike, as an example of what can be gleaned from a careful and close reading and analysis.”

What follows is an absolutely astonishing in depth look at the narrative of the battle that took place between Midian and the Jewish People.

What attracts the rabbi’s attention is the following:

“Not only does the Torah describe the preparation for war and the actual battle in great detail, it devotes close to thirty verses to the detailed division of the booty, cattle, gold, etc., among the different sections of the people, as well as the ‘tax’ on this booty given to the Priests and the Levites. This detailed presentation stands in stark contrast to what we find in almost all other battles described in the Torah.”