Mattot: Expired leader
War can distract masses, but may exact its price in the long run
This week’s parasha continues the story of a dying Moses passing on his leadership over the Jewish people to the next generation - Joshua Ben Nun.
The process began during last week’s Parashat Pinchas: And the Lord answered Moses, Single out Joshua son of Nun…have him stand before Eleazar the priest and before the whole community, and commission him in their sight. Invest him with some of your authority, so that the whole Israelite community may obey…
This week the process enters its final phase: Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin. Meaning – Moses’ demise will come with the completion of God’s vengeance on the Midianites (Moses’ wife was a Midianite).
The biblical story is very simple. A man reaches the end of the road and chooses his successor, as opposed to many elderly statesmen and politicians who refuse to relinquish their posts and the power and benefits that accompany them.
These leaders are long past their prime and have long since lost their validity, yet they continue to hold on to their ministerial post by eliminating all their potential successors, so the scorched earth beneath them would produce only themselves.
Moses ordered to retire
God apparently knew a thing or two about Jewish politics –and this is why he forced Moses to retire; he set a specific retirement date, appointed a successor and even ordered him to bestow some of his glory upon the new leader, so the successor would gain the respect of the Jewish people.
In other words, honoring him and boosting his position in the eyes of the masses, so he is successful in his new post. Moses, with graciousness, complies and does not delay, follows the order and prepares Joshua without any foot-dragging or needless bureaucracy.
However, legend and the Midrash (Talmudic legend based on a biblical verse) find their way into this simple story and present an amazing version of events and the changing of the guard of the Israelite leadership in the desert.
According to the Midrash, when Moses was already preparing for his death, as a last gesture he granted his successor the right to ask away and clarify any nagging doubts.
The price of arrogance
However, Joshua is impatient. He wants to rule and scorns his old teacher, asking Moses to excuse himself. After all, he has been by Moses’ side always and knows everything, commandments, prohibitions, religious laws, as well as the trickery employed by leaders.
The immediate reaction to this arrogance follows promptly – Joshua tires, forgets three hundred laws, and faces seven hundred new doubts. The public implication of the leadership’s collapse and national captain’s inability to decide follows soon after: The people of Israel were plotting to kill him.
Indeed, he grew arrogant and detached from his origins, prompting the fury of rebellion to rear its head and threaten to remove him from power. Faced with this crisis, Joshua turns to the master of the universe, who is infuriated with him, but still responds as a strict educator would: I cannot tell you, but I have good advice to give you – distract them with war.
This forgotten tale, which appears in the Babylonian Talmud, not only criticizes Joshua the haughty successor and compares him to Moses, the epitome of modesty. It is not only hostile to the craftiness of leaders throughout history, who declare war on an external enemy in order to make internal troubles forgotten.
This bold and original tale says much more than that. It argues implicitly that had Joshua been obedient and modest, perhaps the war called to conquer the land would never have been declared. Everything would have been done differently, through peaceful means and not the path of war. Through pleasantness rather than through wrath. Through dialogue, rather than through extermination.
As we said, war, in the case of the Land of Israel, is sometimes an immediate, contemporary solution to internal problems, although not necessarily the right thing to do in the long run.
