Boundary of the Wilderness
Jul 10, 2010 By Alan Mintz (<em>z”l</em>) | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
The Torah is replete with lists of every kind: the generations before and after Noah, the enumeration of the tribes and their chieftains in the desert, the catalogs of forbidden foods, the inventories of priestly garments.
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The Source of Hope
Jul 21, 2012 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Masei | Mattot | Tishah Be'av
In a dramatic reversal of the ordinary mourning process, which begins in its starkest intensity and lifts over time as the mourners are comforted, these are weeks of increasing mourning that move, inevitably, to the destruction of God’s house and the banishment of the People into exile. The prophetic readings drive home that we have brought this horrible tragedy on ourselves.
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“They Said”/“They Said”
Jul 2, 2013 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
In this week’s parashah, we are told that the children of Reuben and Gad “had a very great multitude of cattle” (verse 1) and the land of Gilead on the eastern side of the Jordan was an excellent “place for cattle.” They, therefore, hoped that Moses would permit them to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan and not cross over to Canaan/Israel proper when the time would arrive to enter the Land.
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Mattot-Masei
Jan 1, 1980
3 If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.
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Covenant and Cattle
Jul 17, 2015 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
As the Children of Israel prepare to enter the Promised Land, their backs to the wilderness after 40 years of wandering, the Torah, too, seems to change direction—and even tone. It trades instructions for the priests and narratives of Israelite disobedience for details of land distribution, inheritance and other laws that will regulate life inside the Land. It is as if the Torah wants to underline the transition about to occur—from wilderness to settlement, disorder to order—by changing the visual image before the reader’s eyes.
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