A War On Two Fronts

by HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean.”

Moses is commanded by G-d, “Attack the Midianites and kill them, since they demonstrated their hostility to you through their plot with Peor, as well as through their sister, Kazbi, daughter of a Midianite prince” (Numbers 25:17-18). How did they demonstrate hostility? They abandoned their daughters to harlotry in order to lead Israel astray towards idolatry. Indeed, G-d commands Moses before Israel’s entering the Land: “Take revenge for the Israelites against the Midianites. Then you shall be gathered to your people” (Numbers 31:2). Even though he heard that his death was contingent on this war taking place, he joyfully did the mitzvah, and did not postpone it. He organized the fighting force, as it says, “Detach men for armed service against Midian, so that G-d's revenge can be taken against the Midianites” (Numbers 31:3).

Whoever attacks Israel is considered to have attacked G-d. Indeed, in the war against Midian, Israel were victorious, as it says, “They mounted a surprise attack against Midian as G-d had commanded Moses, and killed all the adult males” (Numbers 31:7). All the same, Moses was angry at the commanders, as it says, “Moses was angry at the generals and captains... and he demanded of them, ‘Why have you kept all the women alive? These are exactly the ones who were involved with the Israelites in the Bilaam incident, causing them to be unfaithful to G-d in the Peor incident, and bringing a plague on G-d's community” (31:14-16). And what was the Bilaam incident? Our sages teach that even if all the nations of the world attacked Israel, they wouldn’t be able to beat them without promiscuity (see Rashi, ibid.; Sanhedrin 106).

When we entered Eretz Yisrael, we fought two types of wars – Joshua’s war to conquer the Land, and the war that preceded it – against Midian. The latter was a war against Bilaam’s plotting. Bilaam’s goal was to weaken Israel by spreading promiscuity among them.

It is the same today. We need to fight on both of these fronts. The first front is against our enemies who set out to annihilate us. Towards that end we must be strong, united and cohesive, with a strong army and economy.

The second front is that of education and culture. We must confront wicked Bilaam’s culture of promiscuity with the culture of the Jewish People. We must bring about cultural and educational change in our society and country, and we must banish the darkness by increasing the light – the light of love, of faith, of modesty, of purity of heart, of pure use of our eyes, of family purity. By such means we will merit to be the living fulfillment of Ezekiel’s words (36:25-26):

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean.... A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (36:25-26).

Looking forward to complete salvation,
Shabbat Shalom.