Mattot-Maasei

Mattot-Maasei – Danny Rich

Danny Rich is a rabbi and the Chief Executive of Liberal Judaism. A graduate in Politics and History from Manchester University and an ordinand of the Leo Baeck College, London, he served as the rabbi to Kingston Liberal Synagogue for nearly two decades. He has been a magistrate since 1996, and currently serves as a Chaplain to a number of Her Majesty's Prisons and National Health Service Trusts. 

The joint portion of Mattot-Maasei covers the six concluding chapters of the Book of Numbers, bringing to an end the desert narrative begun some forty years previously at the shore of the Sea of Reeds in the Book of Exodus.

The Children of Israel are in sight of the Promised Land, and not inappropriately the thoughts and conversations are orientated to the future settlement. At the end of Mattot (32:1-42) the tribes of Reuben and Gad seek permission to settle on the east side of the River Jordan, and, subject to their assisting in the completion of the successful conquest of the Land, their request is agreed. Maasei opens with Moses reminding the Children of Israel of the stages of their desert wanderings before he turns to the future, delineating the boundaries of the Promised Land and summoning the tribal chieftains through whom the territory will be divided.

Each tribe will be required to allocate a part of its portion to the Levites. The Levites are to be responsible for the sacrificial cult, and are not, therefore, charged with a major task of land ownership although they are to receive 48 towns and surrounding pasture lands, six towns being the 'cities of refuge' to which the perpetrators of involuntarily killing make flee to seek asylum from the avenging kinsperson of the victim who is ordinarily obliged to avenge or restore the lost blood of the slain family member with the blood of the murderer.

If this has not made you queasy enough, in chapter 31 the reader learns of the war of vengeance against a traditional enemy, the Midianites. The pretext for the campaign is earlier incidents by which the Midianites had tricked Israelites into idolatry and sexual crime. The details of the campaign are scant, and perhaps the importance of recording the incident lies in the precedents here established for the role of the priesthood in a military campaign and the principles of what transpires after a successful battle. Pinchas has two roles: he brings the 'sacred utensils' and transports the trumpets. On victory - in this type of 'holy' war - all male captives are slain and of the females only young virgins are left alive and (presumably) taken captive. The soldiers and their booty require ritual purification and the spoils are divided. Half belongs to the combatants and the rest is given to the community. The soldiers are required to pay a tax of one five hundredth, and the communal levy is one fiftieth, all of which is to be used by the Levites to maintain themselves and their raison d'être: the cult.

If this is the metaphorical meat of the portion, the bread consists of opening and closing verses about the role of woman. The opening section (30: 2-17) relates the validity of a woman's vow to her economic independence or more accurately her social status. If a woman is dependent on her husband or father he may annul her vow but if she is, for example, a widow or divorcee of independent means she is bound to her word in exactly the same manner as a man. The final chapter portrays Moses seeking to balance the right of woman to inherit land and the ideal of not alienating land from its original tribe (see above).

As I read these two parshiyot, I am reminded of my requirement to read the Torah with a sense of balance. To read it literally, as some non-Jewish fundamentalists do, fails to appreciate that the Torah's impact on Judaism can only be understood if the reading is accompanied by a study of its partner literatures (Midrash (rabbinic narrative), Talmud and halachic (legal) texts) - but even to read the Torah in this more sophisticated fundamentalist manner accompanied by all the Jewish tradition may not be enough.

Mattot-Maasei raises so many questions: the role of women, the duty to pay tax, the conduct of, and in, war, justice and the rights of the aggrieved/victim or his/her family, the ownership of land, and each person's responsibility to play a part in the common good.

The Torah always raises more questions then it gives answers but it remains for me a breathtaking piece of work, gloriously divinely inspired in some places and wonderfully human in others.