42. When Everything but Pedophilia is Off-Limits

Parshah Matot - Masei

*Important attribution note: All quotes listed in this article are credited to the Artscroll Stone Edition Chumash. Here is an Extremely Clear Citation so I don’t get in trouble: Nosson Scherman, Hersh Goldwurm, Avie Gold, & Meir Zlotowitz. (2015). The Chumash: the Torah, Haftaros and Five Megillos. Mesorah Publications, Ltd.

Numbers 3-6*

“If a man will take a vow to Hashem or swear an oath to establish a prohibition upon himself, he shall not desecrate his word; according to whatever comes out of his mouth shall he do. 

But if a woman will take a vow to Hashem or establish a prohibition in her father’s home in her youth; and her father heard of her vow or prohibition that she established upon herself, and her father was silent about her, then all her vows shall stand… But if her father restrained her on the day of his hearing, all her vows or prohibitions that she established upon herself shall not stand; and Hashem will forgive her, for her father restrained her.”

Only a man decides whether a woman’s word is valid. 

Feminism aside, the concept of vows is a tricky one because it’s related to a person’s ability to grow and change. 

When I was young, my mom used to make me swear on the Bible when I made a promise. I think she assumed that if I swore before God, I’d be less prone to lying, which was minimally true for me (just like the rest of society.) For example, the fact that doctors take an oath - not a promise, an oath - to do no harm, has minimized instances resembling the Israeli doctors who are complicit in the torture of Palestinian prisoners. 

However, when I have a kid, the thing I’d most encourage them to do is to avoid making long-term promises during their formative years. Short-term promises? Sure. “I promise not to throw paint on the dog anymore.” 

Long-term promises? No thanks. Kids shouldn’t make oaths. Teenagers shouldn’t make oaths. Heck, nobody under 30 years old should make oaths. 

They’re still growing! Who knows how they’ll end up. My biblical oaths helped me respect the general concept of an oath, but it would be even more valuable to teach people the distinction between long-term and short-term commitments. 

In general, we tend to overcommit. Not just in the sense of “Yeah, I’ll be there,” but also in the sense of “I’m going to believe this forever.” 

On the flip side, throughout my life, my mom has always struggled when I change my mind about certain things or express conflicting viewpoints. Her adage has always been, “It’s hard for me to understand the changes.” 

Only recently have I begun responding, “But I’m supposed to change.” 

Our culture is experiencing a crisis of trust. People break their word with impunity, ghost their friends, and throw away all social norms. Sure, integrity is part of the problem, but we also give our word too easily. We commit too soon. 

It comes from a place of care - we don’t want to let other people down. Eventually, though, we need to learn to tread slower. Commit slower. Dip our toes before jumping in. Save the vows for what REALLY matters. If we want to break our word less often, we must also give our word less often. 

Numbers 31: 2*

“‘Take vengeance for the Children of Israel against the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered unto your people.’” 

One last massacre to send Moses off into the sunset. 

Numbers 31: 7-11*

“They massed against Midian, as Hashem had commanded Moses, and they killed every male. They killed the kings of Midian along with their slain ones: Evi, Reken, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian; and Balaam son of Beor they slew with the sword. The Children of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their young children; and all their cattle and flocks and all their wealth they took as spoils. All the cities of their habitations and all their palaces they burned in fire.’”

The Midianites didn’t do SHIT to the Israelites! They welcomed them with open arms, integrated them into their society, intermarried, and invited the Israelites to their religious celebrations. They were, in a word, perfect neighbors. 

The women and children were on the same level as cattle, flocks, and wealth. In this worldview, people, animals, and objects have the same value. 

Numbers 31: 13-18*

“Moses, Elazar the Kohen, and all the leaders of the assembly went out to meet them outside the camp. Moses was angry with the commanders of the army, the officers of the thousands and the officers of the hundreds, who came from the legion of the battle. 

Moses said to them, ‘Did you let every female live? Behold! - It was they who caused the Children of Israel, by the word of Balaam, to commit a betrayal against Hashem regarding the matter of Peor; and the plague occurred in the assembly of Hashem. 

So now, kill every male among the young children, and every woman fit to know a man by lying with a male, you shall kill. But all the young children among the women who have not known lying with a male, you may keep alive for yourselves.’” 

Moses was upset not because they massacred every single man, but because they didn’t massacre the women and children, too? Wow. 

This is potentially the most disgusting line in the entire Torah (stiff competition, by the way): Moses told the army to kill the women and the male children, but they could keep the female girls for themselves. 

Apparently, everything is off-limits except for pedophilia. 

The depravity of this worldview cannot and must not be overstated. It’s rotten to the core. 

Numbers 31: 22-27*

“Only the gold and the silver, the copper, the iron, the tin, and the lead - everything that comes into the fire - you shall pass through the fire and it will be purified… ‘Calculate the total of the captured spoils, of people and animals, you, Elazar the Kohen, and the heads of the fathers of the assembly. Divide the spoils in half, between those who undertook the battle, who go out to the legion, and the entire assembly.’”

The idea of “spoils of war” is disgusting. War should be a horrendous, depressing act with zero benefits. Every instant of war should be focused on how to prevent it from ever happening again. 

Here’s a list of things a society should never incentivize or undertake for profit: Healthcare. Food. Survival. Violence. Sanitation. Construction. Education. Freedom of information. 

Numbers 31: 28–29*

“You shall raise up a tribute to Hashem from the men of war who go out to the legion, one living being out of five hundred… you shall take it from their half and give it to Elazar the Kohen, as a portion of Hashem.”

Elazar the Kohen is the lackey who assumed the position of High Priest when Moses killed Aaron. Now, we see him get a bounty from every one of Israel’s massacres. 

Religious figures have made this tradeoff for millennia. In earlier days, it was the popes with the Crusades. Now, it’s Putin’s Patriachs and the Russian state. 

By the way, the war bounty includes female children. The esteemed High Priest of the Israelites got his own eight-thousand-strong harem of child sex slaves. 

When we see reports of Israeli soldiers looting the houses of Gazan civilians, now we know where it comes from. 

Numbers 35:6*

“The cities that you shall give to the Levites: the six cities of refuge that you shall provide for a killer to flee there, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities.” 

Along with their expected inheritance, Israel’s priestly class (the Levites) received an allocation for designated “safe cities” for accused killers. The idea of having a preset safe harbor for killers is fascinating in itself, but it takes on renewed importance after far-right protestors broke into Israeli detention facilities. What were they demonstrating? The Israeli police finally started an investigation into soldiers accused of brutally raping a Palestinian prisoner of war. 

In a normal society, you wouldn’t need “safe cities”; people suspected of a crime would be apprehended and investigated, and the law would deal with them.  In a healthy society, you’d respect the rule of law and the application of justice. You’d wait for a legal decision. Even from the start, Israelite society was not healthy. 

The presence of safe cities suggests two options. Either society was rife with enough vigilantism to require people to seek safety, or society itself protected murderers. Either way, it indicates a perversion of justice. 

Here’s the kicker: even if the killer did it unintentionally, the Israelite justice system had no recourse for rehabilitation! Instead of submitting to the justice system and accepting their penalty, the unintentional killer had to return to the sanctuary city for the rest of their days. Whether they committed murder or not, if they ventured outside of safe cities, they were legally vulnerable to revenge killings. 

This is a perversion of justice twice over. Our justice system should be built with the sole goal of rehabilitation. We’ve come a long way in the last twenty years; the concepts of restorative justice, facilitated therapy, penal environments that uphold human dignity, charity work, etc, combine to further the cause of proper rehabilitation. 

What’s the point of a justice system where you can only be free within a one-square-kilometer radius? Sure, it’s better than being hunted down and killed, but it’s certainly not ideal. 

Numbers 36: 5-8*

“‘Correctly does the tribe of Joseph speak. This is the word that Hashem has commanded regarding the daughters of Zelophehad, saying: Let them be wives to whomever is good in their eyes, but only to the family of their father’s tribe shall they become wives. An inheritance of the Children of Israel shall not make rounds from tribe to tribe; rather the Children of Israel shall cleave every man to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. 

Every daughter who inherits an inheritance of the tribes of the Children of Israel shall become the wife of someone from a family of her father’s tribe, so that everyone of the Children of Israel will inherit the inheritance of his fathers.’” 

The origin of inbreeding. We gaze upon the wrinkled visage of King Charles and the tragedy of the late Princess Diana and wonder, why? Why did these two people, who have less chemistry than Jonah Hill and Lauren London did in Your People, marry when she was 16 to Charles’ 29? 

Because of inheritance, of course. To propagate the royal line. 

Our answer to this should not be to increase our tolerance, or widen the scope of who we let into the annals of power through marriage (looking at you, Meghan Markle). The answer is to eliminate the concept of inheritance. 

An aggressive wealth tax, combined with an equally aggressive inheritance tax, would mean that even the richest families could only pass on enough money to provide a house and a few select creature comforts to their children when they died. 

Problem solved. 

The passage’s even more sinister implication is that the women of the family are responsible for continuing the family’s wealth because their bodies represent the most valuable commodity in inheritance wars. They’re props. 

Get rid of inheritance, and you will get rid of this tension. No more stakes for women’s bodies to play for. 

*Again with the Extremely Clear Citation so I don’t get in trouble: Nosson Scherman, Hersh Goldwurm, Avie Gold, & Meir Zlotowitz. (2015). The Chumash : the Torah, Haftaros and Five Megillos. Mesorah Publications, Ltd.