We would have imagined that the nation knowing that this is their ‘last stand’ in collaboration with their beloved leader would put them to the task to get it right. Moshe too, would have certainly exerted much effort to inspire them after all their previous failures, in concluding his illustrious career with a flourish by bringing about a flawless dispatching of their responsibilities in carrying out the word of G-d to perfection.

In an apparent anticlimactic exit, everything seems to go awry.

After selecting a thousand righteous soldiers from each of the twelve tribes to wage this holy war, they return triumphant after decimating the entire male adult population but leave the women and children alive taking them captive.

Moshe goes out to greet the conquering troops and is appalled to discover they didn’t wipe out the womenfolk. Angered and seemingly incredulous he exclaims with astonishment, “Did you let every female live? Behold - it was they who caused the Children of Israel... to commit a betrayal against G-d...” It was these very women who seduced the Jews to sin and instigated the ensuing plague! He goes on to direct them to terminate the lives of any of the Midianite women who were age appropriate to have sinned.

Oddly, the Torah reports earlier how the army “massed against Midian, as G-d had commanded Moshe, and they killed every male”, indicating they carried out the instructions ‘as G-d commanded’, yet from Moshe’s reaction it would seem they missed their target entirely.

Actually all Moshe directed them before setting out was that they “arm men from among yourselves for the legion that may be against Midian to inflict G-d’s vengeance against Midyan”. Moshe never bothered giving them the specifics regarding exactly who to exact revenge from. Why was he so vague?

Everything that could have gone wrong did. Moshe didn’t articulate clearly his expectations. The people misunderstood his intention, mistakenly thinking that they were loyally fulfilling their mission, only to be confronted with an angry Moshe surprisingly castigating them for their grave error.

After Moshe vents his frustration we are taught that he forgot the details regarding the laws of purging the vessels, they despoiled from the Midianites, from their non-kosher substances. Elazar the Priest instead taught these laws to the people. The Talmud teaches that we derive from here that ‘one who comes to anger will come to make errors in judgment’. So not only is there the awful and unfortunate miscommunication between Moshe and the nation, Moshe too, in one of his last interactions with his ‘students’ tragically can’t even convey his lesson.

Is this any way to finish the narrative of Moshe’s sterling leadership?

Isn’t revenge a concept foreign to Jewish ideals? How are we to understand this capstone of Moshe’s calling and life’s mission in seeking final revenge against the Midianites?

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch analyzes the wording in G-d’s command to Moshe, נקם נקמת בני ישראל מאת המדינים (במדבר לא ב), “Carry out the avenging of the Children of Israel from the Midianites”, with the emphasis ‘from’ them, not במדינים, in them.

Moshe, who had had to bring the people over to the Torah of G-d built up chastity and faithfulness is to see, before his death, the battle against the Midianites so necessary for making these two fundamental pillars of his mission secure, for protecting his people against licentiousness and idolatry. נקם, is related to קום, to re-erect. It is the re-erection of rights which have been trodden under foot, or a person who has been thrown to the ground. The avenger identifies himself with the object to be raised up. The purpose is not revenge, throwing down the enemy that would be construed with a ב, in. The purpose is the re-erection of Israel ‘from’ the Midianites, its spiritual and moral freeing out of the power of their arts.

Personal revenge attacks the other with the satisfying goal of crushing the one who denied the victim his being, his essence, by gleefully paying him back and ‘exacting revenge’. The goal of worthy vengeance though is not the humbling of my enemy but rather the restoration of that nobility he sought to destroy.

Authentic revenge must be driven by an inner passion to value and preserve the ideals and truths of Torah that are so dear to us. When the principles of Torah that we cherish and live by are assaulted we must cringe in pain when seeing them being demeaned. When that sense of purpose compels us to avenge those who want to deny our precious beliefs so that we may restore the very life force of our existence that is when revenge is appropriate and worthy.

Moshe is about to depart from the stage of history. He worries over how his beloved people will be able to survive the onslaught of those who seek the eradication of all we believe in. In his last stand he seeks to provoke that inner fire that burns within every Jew that when aflame will consume the ill intentions all those who deny our greatness.

Moshe purposefully instructs the nation to ‘inflict G-d’s vengeance against Midian’ in a general and vague manner, omitting a specific injunction of precisely whom they are to avenge. He desires to see how brightly their inner flame burns; how distressed are they when facing the people who depravedly defamed the sanctity inherent within us. Will they instinctively react to the harlots who sullied our nation’s very soul by removing them and re-erect once again the glory of our pure beliefs.

Perhaps the people sought to submit these women to slavery, exposing them to the enlightened lives of the People of the Book and promote the ultimate revenge of living inspired lives as Jews. They truly thought that they were acting exactly as ‘G-d commanded’.

But Moshe understood that evidently it didn’t rile them up enough. One who truly fathomed the depths of the Midianites impure strategy would reflexively lash out to erase utterly everything this nation represented.

The Torah when describing how Moshe visibly frothed with anger, it uses the word, ויקצף, literally to ‘foam’. The Targum Unkelos translates this as רגז, which more accurately implies distress more than anger per se. When the Torah wants to connote anger it often uses the word ויחר, which Unkelos translates as תקף, to attack. Isn’t that the difference, as Rav Hirsch so insightfully taught, between anger which fuels poisonous revenge whose objective is to quash ‘he’ who demeaned ‘me’, as opposed to distress which accents how upset one is by the attack on his values and stature and is the catalyst for restoring that respect ?

Moshe didn’t simply get angry, he was upset. He sought to exemplify the appropriate reaction of one who is truly bothered by the diminishing of G-d’s honor and glory in this world.

There are times when one must get upset. A Jew must exhibit passion for that which he believes in. One may get distressed even when there is a price to pay. What was more precious to Moshe than the Torah he learned directly from the ‘mouth’ of G-d? Yet when facing the dishonor of that very Torah and its beautiful ways, Jewish instinct responds with the natural consequence of momentary impaired thought. How can you think straight when they are defaming your parent?

The Saintly Baal HaTanya writes in his Iggeres HaKodesh:(אגה"ק ס"כה)

After these words and this truth, which are manifest and known to all, let us return to the original subject, concerning anger where a person [who is angry] is likened to an idolater.

This is so only with regard to mundane matters, for everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven. Since everything is in G-d’s hands there is no reason to become angry. However, with regard to matters involving the fear of heaven, anger does have a place.

Hence with respect to heavenly matters, toward [a fellow Jew] from [transgressing] a prohibition, the reason stated does not apply, for these matters are not in G-d’s hands but in man’s. As it is written, “And Moses was angry.”

This was because G-d caused him to encounter this mitzvah of warding [a fellow Jew] from [transgressing] a prohibition, in order to make him meritorious. Thus, this situation is obviously quite different from being angry at someone because of harm or offense.

Clearly the Alter Rebbe is implying that when the reaction is for the sake of heaven, even the price of forgetting, is understood and never condemned.

Perhaps the very fact his distress lingered until he recovered his Torah is evidence of healthy frustration. When one seeks revenge merely to ‘get back’ the moment he succeeds he is relieved. When one is ‘bothered’ by the loss of G-d’s honor, it takes time to recover.

We are told that Pinchas was selected by Moshe to lead them towards the battle with Midian as he had an old score to settle since the Midianites were the ones who sold Yosef down to Egypt, as Pinchas was a descendant of Yosef.

Reb Tzadok reveals that the מדינים, Midianites, are so named because they are rooted in the klippa, the impure ‘outer shell’, of anger. מדינים is rooted in the word מדנים, which means contentious and quarrel. Their anger is rooted in their strong immoral principles they are so passionate about to the point that all those who do not respect their ‘values’ ignites their anger and is contended with. Their ardent adherence to their defiled philosophies is what compelled them to ignore Yosef’s desperate appeal to bring him to his father and mockingly sent this ‘pure’ soul to the clutches of decadence in the defiled culture of Egypt.

We live in a world of many passions: passion for sports, food, music, entertainment, connection through social media and many more too inappropriate to mention. This world of passion looks derisively at those who would claim to live by an ethic, a morality and glorious history that claims one can find exquisite happiness committing to a life disciplined in Torah and Mitzvos.

But the question begs: What are you passionate in life about?

Moshe in one of his ‘last lectures’ taught us that unless we live inspired, excited and are passionate and reactive for all that is holy and dear to us, we don’t stand a chance.

Unless we get upset, emotional and react accordingly about the principles of Torah that is our very essence, we are doomed to yet wallow in Galus.

Rava teaches that Jerusalem was destroyed because there ceased among us בעלי אמנה, people of trustworthiness. (חגיגה יד.)

Perhaps this refers to people who were apathetic to the principles of honesty, uprightness, decency and piety. They lost their passion for that which defines us as the children of the Patriarchs and all they so passionately stood for. They were so enamored by the pull of the fleeting passions that tempted them with immediate pleasure, opportunity and excitement, that they were willing to forfeit that which fueled the souls of their ancestors with the strength to resist the klippa, the negative force, of Midian throughout the ages.

Ask yourself: What are you passionate about in your Judaism? What in your religious life parallels the obsessions we preoccupy ourselves with? What will your children see in your life that excites you that will inspire them as well?

It’s time to ‘foam’ about the things that are so important to us. Contemplate what has kept us viable throughout the ages. Discover again the beauty of our tradition and live it with passion.

It’s time to get upset!

באהבה,

צבי טייכמאן