Parashat Matot - Ma'sei - Being on the East Side of the River is not Always a Terrible Thing

Transcript

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Shalom Congregation Bene Israel. You know, no matter how many times I've read a portion, studied some text, or learned something new from the biblical luminaries of the Jewish people, it is so breathtakingly obvious how human everybody is. They always do things that remind us

Human Heroes In The Torah

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of their humanity. They aren't really different from us. They just found themselves in situations where the gifts they had to develop were different. Our awe at them comes from how they were willing to meet the challenges, despite the many faults and mistakes they made along the way. And this week's Torah portion is a good example of that. It's a good example of that humanity. And we find it in the tribes of Reuben and God and in Moses himself. So picture it. The people are camped in the plains of Moab on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. The promised land is visible, it's tantalizingly close. And after 40 years of wandering and camping post-Exodus, after the plagues and the rebellions and the heartbreak, the finish line is right there. And then the two tribes, Reuben and Gadim, walk up to Moses and they say to him,

A Shocking Request East Of Jordan

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We would rather stay here. They have looked at the land to the east of Jordan, the land of Gilead and Jazer, and they have seen that it is good for their cattle and flocks. And since they are people of flocks and herds, the terrain suits them perfectly. And so they ask Moses to let them settle east of the river, outside the borders of the land that God had promised. And you can almost feel the silence that follows. You could taste Moses' anger and his fury is not simply the frustration of a tired leader. It's something deeper, it's something more like grief. Remember, Moses has lived through this feeling before. He was there when the 12 scouts returned from Canaan, and 10 of them were frightened, and they

Moses’ Anger And Communal Fear

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frightened the people in despair. He watched as an entire generation condemned itself to wander and die in the wilderness, never crossing over. And now standing before the Jordan River with a new generation and with the goal for the Jewish people literally a few steps away, he hears echoes of that same failure. He says to them plainly, if you turn away from God, who then abandons the people once more in the wilderness, you will bring calamity upon all of us. He's not being melodramatic. He's a man who has seen exactly how one act of communal cowardice can unravel everything. He knows the people move together or not at all. He knows that when some step back, others lose heart. He knows that the community is only as strong as its weakest link and its weakest commitment to one another. And underneath the anger, there is something else. This must have felt like a personal wound. Moses himself would not cross the Jordan. We all know that. And that was uppermost in his mind. He carried that knowledge and its burden of disappointment, yet still led his people. So imagine how he feels now that two of his tribes don't want to enter after the journey he led them through. I hope we can all see and feel Moses' humanity. But now the story turns into something else. It transforms from anger and sadness to hope. Because what happens next is not a confrontation. It is not an exile. It's not a punishment. It is a conversation. Reuben and Gad hear Moses' fear, and they respond to it directly. And they say to him, We will

A Compromise Built On Solidarity

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build our pens for our livestock here and for our children. But we, your servants, will also arm ourselves as we go out as the vanguard before the Israelites, until we have brought them to their place. We will not return to our homes until every one of the Israelites has received their portion. They are not abandoning the community. They are asking to serve it differently, to fight on its behalf, even without a stake in the territory that's going to be conquered. This is the compromise that changes everything. And we should sit here and wait for a moment. Because it is a genuinely sophisticated moral act. The tribes of Reuben and God are not wrong for having different needs. Their attachment to the land of Gilead is not a moral failing. It is a recognition that the community they belong to contains multitudes, that not everyone's flourishing looks identical. What would have been a moral failing is if they had simply withdrawn. If they had said, our children are being settled, our flocks are being fed, the Jordan will be our border, and that will be that. Because a community cannot survive when its members treat their private security as the ceiling of their obligation. The compromise demands something harder. You may have what you need, but first you must give what is needed. Your individuality does not exempt you from solidarity. Your difference does not dissolve your responsibility. Moses made that happen, and the tribes respected that, and in turn were respected. A great leader takes people from confrontation to compromise. And Moses was a great leader. There is a teaching here that speaks to every community, including ours at CBI. We are not all the same. We have different needs, different temperaments, different visions of what a good Jewish life looks like, different visions of what a synagogue looks like. Some of us are deeply rooted in traditional practice. Others find their connection through social justice, through culture,

What This Means For Our Synagogue

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through family. Some feel the pull toward Israel deeply and personally. Others feel more at home, as it were, east of the river, building Jewish life in their diaspora, investing in the communities where we actually live. These differences are not threats to our community. They become threats only when they become excuses. When I am different becomes, therefore I owe nothing. What Reuben and God model imperfectly and only after Moses presses them is the recognition that belonging to a people means showing up for that people. Even when your personal interests are already secured, even when your children are safe and your flocks are fed, even when crossing the Jordan does not benefit you directly. Moses never stops being disappointed that they chose to stay east of the river, but he is wise enough to accept the compromise. And perhaps in his final days, looking out from Mount Nebo over that whole sweeping landscape, east and west, the land of Gilead and the land of Israel, I'm sure he understood something. And that is that a people diverse enough to need different kinds of land, and wise enough to find terms that they can live with is a people sturdy enough to survive. The congregation Bene Israel, we are those people as well. Let us hold our differences without letting them divide us. And in our minds, let us imagine the future we will build together so that we can look over the camp and say, Matovu, O Halefa Yaakov, how wonderful are your tents of Jacob, your dwelling places, O congregation bene Israel. Shabbat Shalom.