Vengeance, Death, and the Good Life
A good anger acted upon
is beautiful as lightning
and swift with power…
(Marge Piercy, “A Just Anger”)
God spoke to Moses, saying: “Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin.” (Bamidbar 31:1-2)
Why?
Why pursue vengeance against the Midianites?
Why tell Moses in the same [divine] breath, that after he avenges the Israelites, then he will die?
This verse presents a riddle, an unlikely juxtaposition. Out of that syntactic choice to combine a task of vengeance and a foreshadowing of death, the Jewish sages draw a remarkable amount of meaning.
Not long before in the story, the Moabites had hired a prophet, Bilaam, to curse the Israelites. After he fails, another tribe, the Midianites, apparently try a more subtle subversion. They entice the Israelites into immorality and idolatry. In the face of brazen acts, “Moses and the whole Israelite community were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (Bamidbar 25:6). The priest Pinchas is the one who steps up to the moment and strikes the offending couple down with a spear. Pinchas is “swift with power”, while Moses freezes. Perhaps God wants Moses to follow through on a task that he had failed to act on before.
Question for contemplation: What life tasks have you “frozen” on and not yet completed? Hopefully not vengeance! But I love the lesson here that although nothing is guaranteed, sometimes God (or Life Itself) gives us opportunities to complete matters of importance before we die.
Now any clever thinker will realize that if you accept the logic of the verse, Moses could have lived quite a long time, if only he didn’t fulfill the task.
A midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 22:2) picks up this idea:
Had Moses sought to live several years, he could have lived, as the Holy Blessed One said to him: “Take vengeance…then you will be gathered.” The verse made his death contingent upon Midian. This is, rather, to inform you of Moses’ praiseworthiness. He said: Will the vengeance of Israel be delayed so that I will live? Immediately, “Moses spoke to the people, saying: Select from among you men for the army” (Bamidbar 31:3).
Moses understood that delaying the completion of a war for his own benefit would be a complete failure of leadership. The truest test of leadership is the ability to put the good of the community (or nation) above your own interests.
Question for contemplation: When have your personal interests been in tension with what is good for your unit - a significant relationship, family, friend group, organization, community, etc.? How do you navigate the tension, resolve it if possible or manage it so it is at least tolerable?
In watching President Biden wrestle with this dilemma, it seems to me that ultimately his ambition included the desire to be perceived as a statesman, as someone good for party and country. That attempt to align personal ambition with public needs created an avenue for making a difficult and honorable choice, if not with the enthusiasm and immediacy that Moses apparently summons. Internalizing the good of the larger group as part of one’s identity could be one strategy for alignment of interest and greater good.
Now if you’ve read this far, you might be feeling unsettled by how much this discussion rests on a divine commandment to take vengeance on enemies. Even Marge Piercy’s depiction of “a good anger” cannot soften the harsh edges of violence right now. One option for holding this Torah portion with love rather than distaste or embodying its violence comes from the Chassidic tradition.
In the Chassidic tradition of text interpretation, the entire Torah becomes a landscape of metaphor representing the inner terrain. Every character is a facet of our inner life. The lessons we learn incline us towards self-understanding and spiritual development. The 19th century Mei HaShiloach in particular follows this model of Torah as a guide book to spiritual dynamics. Here is his lesson for us:
“Midian teaches of illusion (midian transposes to dimion, illusion or imagination). Moses was called the wisdom of all of Israel, as explained elsewhere. Here the Holy Blessed One is saying to Moses that when the power of illusion (Midian) is removed from the heart of Israel, then the children of Israel will not need to use their wisdom in order to know God’s will. Then, even without thinking, their intentions will be according to God’s will.”
The Mei HaShiloach suggests that illusion (distortion, disinformation, bullshit, biases and blindspots?) prevents us from directly acting on God’s will. What does he mean by God’s will? If I can translate it into a progressive sensibility, God’s will is the thriving, just, holy collective of human beings, treating each other with dignity and tending to the world with care and responsibility.Anytime we fall short of that, it is because midian is enticing us away. Moses, though, the inner wisdom of conscience, the moral intuition, helps us (probably again and again) to grow past our follies and glimpse good action that leads towards love and justice. When midian is finally destroyed, we won’t need Moses any more. Truth, justice, peace, love will be obvious and attainable.
That day is far away, I fear.
But the surprisingly comforting realization I’m having right now while writing is that according to the Mei HaShiloach, Moses still lives. The spiritual reality of Moses, alive in us anytime we act in ways that align with God’s will, continues to tend to and guide our inner collective of impulses, desires, emotions, and values. Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our Teacher, keep on teaching us!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jay LeVine
