Parashat Chukkat opens with G-d’s final Mitzvah to the generation of the Exodus, the Mitzvah of the Red Cow (Numbers 19), about a year and a half after the Exodus. The next verse continues: “The Children of Israel – the entire community – came to the Zin Desert in the first month, and the nation dwelt in Kadesh; and there Miriam died, and there she was buried” (Numbers 20:1). The “first month” means the first month of the fortieth year of the desert sojourn; that is to say, a few days shy of 39 years after the Exodus. Thus there was a hiatus of slightly more than 37-and-a-half years, a “dead” time of which nothing is recorded. The remaining 65 verses of the Parashah record a dynamic and swiftly-advancing history: the nation was on its final approach to its homeland, their destination was [almost] in sight, and this was a new and independent generation, no longer fearful of enemies. We will encounter three enemies: the first was Edom: Moshe sent ambassadors to request passage through Edomite territory, the King of Edom refused, so the nation detoured round his territory (20:14-21). The second was the Canaanite King of Arad: “The Canaanite King of Arad, who dwelt in the Negev, heard that Israel were coming by the route of the spies; he fought against Israel, and took from them a captive” (Numbers 21:1). The Torah is quite clear here: this Canaanite king took שֶׁבִי, a captive, just one single hostage; and this one captive was a slave-woman (Midrash Aggadah Numbers 21:1, Yalkut Shimoni Numbers 764). The Jews’ response was swift and decisive: “Israel swore an oath to Hashem, saying: If He will deliver this nation in its entirety into my hand, I will consecrate their cities” (Numbers 21:2). However the word הַחֲרַמְתִּי is ambiguous: it could mean “consecrate” as we translated it above (following Rashi, Rashbam, and others); it could also mean “destroy”, “lay waste”; hence “I will lay waste their cities” (following Targum Onkelos, Targum Yonatan, and others). Hashem indeed granted the Children of Israel victory over this king and his people, and the Jews kept their promise: they utterly destroyed (consecrated?) their cities. And they then named the place חָרְמָה, Hormah, meaning “complete destruction” (Numbers 21:3). This is the response of a self-confident nation, a nation with its head held high, conscious of its mission and destiny. A nation which, when an enemy seizes one of its people as a captive, goes to all-out war to rescue that one captive. There is of course a dichotomy here: On the one hand, a slave-woman would appear to be the most expendable member of a society; yet even for her, the Jewish nation retuned battle in all-out war, showing the true Jewish way. We never abandon anyone at all in enemy hands, ever. On the other hand, a slave-woman is the most vulnerable member of a society, and is therefore in most dire and urgent need of rescue. In any event, the Jewish response to this seizing of a captive demonstrated both the uncompromising nature of our national responsibility, and our meeting that responsibility. To understand the greatness of this event, we have to go back a generation earlier, to the time that the Jews had just left Egypt amid great miracles. They reached the shores of the Red Sea, and were unable to advance. And at that juncture, hemmed in by the sea ahead and the desert on both sides, they saw the Egyptian Army closing in from behind – and they despaired (Exodus 14:9-12). Both the Ibn Ezra (commentary to Exodus 14:13) and the Rambam (Guide for the Perplexed 3:32) give a very incisive insight: There were 600,000 Jewish men of fighting age. This was no nation of doctors, lawyers, and accountants, hunched over their briefcases. These were hard-muscled former slaves, having done physically tough work all their lives. And the Egyptian Army which they were facing had been devastated by the Ten Plagues. What were the Jews frightened of? Didn’t they understand their physical superiority over the tattered remnants of their erstwhile oppressors? — Evidently not. They were still terrified of the Egyptians, whom they had been conditioned over generations to view as their lords and masters, holding the power of life and death, They had the slave mentality, and were therefore unable to fight. They may have been physically free – but they were still psychologically and mentally chained, unable to fight for their lives and their freedom. And this, say the Ibn Ezra and the Rambam, is the reason that they had to wander in the desert for forty years. The generation which had grown up as slaves, and which would remain psychologically enslaved, had to die in the desert. They would never be able to fight any enemies to build a free society in the Land of Israel. A new generation, one which had never tasted slavery, had to grow up free in the desert, a generation which would be physically tough and spiritually free. This new free generation met its first challenge when the Canaanite King of Arad took his captive – and they met the challenge magnificently. This was a generation which feared nothing and no one other than G-d. They had no qualms at all about destroying the enemies’ city: if anyone among them accused Moshe of over-reacting, or of not making sufficient efforts to negotiate a peaceful solution with the Canaanite king of Arad and his people, then the Torah rightly ignores them entirely. More than this: having destroyed the cities of Arad, the Jews of the generation celebrated and eternalised this destruction by their renaming the place חָרְמָה, Hormah, “complete destruction”. This year, as in most years, Parashat Chukkat is the first Shabbat in the month of Tammuz. This is the time when we hear the Three Weeks approaching – the Three Weeks of mourning which commemorate the destruction of both Jewish Commonwealths, our loss of national independence, culminating with the black fast of the ninth of Av, mourning and commemorating the destruction of both Holy Temples, by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. and by the Romans in 70. The origin of the evil was the sin of the spies – the men whom Moshe sent to spy out Canaan, and who returned with their evil report, slandering the good Land and demoralising the entire nation, which we read just two weeks ago in Parashat Shelach Lecha (Numbers 13:1-14:39). The day the spies delivered their evil report was the 8th of Av, and that night, when the people wept in despair, was the 9th of Av – the date that became synonymous with disaster and tragedy and mourning. The next generation, the generation which arose in the desert, the generation of warriors, unbowed by slavery, was the generation to begin – just begin – to rectify the sin of the spies. They still had a long way to go, a very long way. Even after conquering the Land of Israel and establishing full Jewish sovereignty therein, their descendants were eventually exiled; and half-a-millennium later the Second Jewish Commonwealth likewise ended in ignominious defeat and exile. Our generation is the generation that was born and raised in Israel, unbowed by exile. Jews have joined us, and are joining us, in their millions, from all over the world. Jews in their millions are casting off the chains of exile, coming home to Israel. Nine months ago, we were all devastated when the genocidal psychopaths from Gaza massacred some 1,500 Jews and took hundreds more hostage. And over the past nine months, we the people of Israel have demonstrated our determination to rescue those captives and bring them home. After nine months of war, despite massive pressure and open threats from enemies and ostensible friends alike, we continue with our war to rescue our captives. Maybe not quite as swiftly or as decisively as our ancestors in the desert; maybe we are not [yet] quite ready to rename Gaza חָרְמָה, Hormah, “complete destruction” – but we are indisputably well on our way.
