Edited and adapted from Ari’s Grill & Torah – July 14, 2017
Two Parshiot, One Theme: Israel
Let’s talk about this week’s parsha — this week’s two parshiot. We’re reading a double parsha, Matot and Masei, and it’s all about Israel. Someone could say, “Hey Ari, you’re biased — you’re just a crazy Zionist, so you keep talking about Israel.” No, that’s really what it’s about. The whole parsha is about Israel — about wars, and about dividing the land of Israel among the Jewish people. I challenge anyone out there — certainly a Muslim — to show me anywhere in the Quran, or anywhere else, that talks about the land of Israel the way we talk about it. There’s no such thing. That’s why I keep saying we are the indigenous people of the land of Israel — because our whole culture surrounds it.
The Request of the Two and a Half Tribes
Two and a half tribes are living on the other side of the Jordan River — what we’d call Transjordan today, where the occupying Hashemite Kingdom now sits. That’s still part of the biblical land of Israel. These two and a half tribes wanted to settle there. The problem was, the rest of the nation was about to cross over to fight a war against the peoples in the land, and these tribes came to Moshe and said, “We want this land over here.” Moshe Rabbeinu answers Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Menashe: “We’re about to fight a war over there. Even if you’re asking for good reasons, you can’t do this.”
Moshe’s Rebuke: The Mistake of the Spies
What does Moshe Rabbeinu say to them? It’s an unbelievable statement. He tells them, “You can’t make this mistake” — and the mistake he’s pointing to is the mistake of the spies. It’s a strange connection to make. The spies didn’t want to come to the land of Israel at all — that was their sin. So why is Moshe accusing these two and a half tribes of making that same mistake, when all they want to do is settle the other side of the Jordan River? What’s the connection?
The answer is right there in the parsha. Moshe Rabbeinu tells them: if you don’t cross over, Bnei Yisrael — the nation of Israel — will say, “Maybe they don’t want to cross over because they know something about the land.” In other words — just by not crossing over, just by these two and a half tribes not crossing over and fighting the war the rest of the nation is about to fight — you risk convincing the nation that the land of Israel isn’t what God promised it would be. And that’s how the mistake of the spies can happen all over again. Which is a crazy idea, really, because these tribes weren’t even thinking that way at all.
But the actions, Moshe tells them, will carry consequences whether you believe in them or not. You might not actually be saying that the land of Israel is anything less than good. But if you stay on this side of the Jordan while the rest of the nation of Israel is fighting on the other side, Moshe Rabbeinu says — you’re sending a message. Even if you don’t mean to send that message, you’re sending a message that perhaps the other side of the Jordan River, the land of Israel, isn’t as holy, isn’t as good, as God said it was.
The First IDF Soldiers
The response from Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Menashe is remarkable — the first tribe of IDF soldiers in the Bible. They say: “No, no, Moshe, you have the wrong message. We’re not staying here safely while the rest of the nation fights. We’ll build houses here, leave our wives and children behind, and go fight — not just fight, but lead the front lines.
And when we win this war” — not if, notice. The “if” was the mistake of the Meraglim, the spies, who said, “We shouldn’t go up, we might lose.” These tribes never entertained losing. “When we win,” they said, “we’ll come back and settle this land.”
Moshe answers, “Okay — if that’s the deal, that’s the plan. Fight the wars of Israel with us, stand on the front lines as you’ve promised, and the land you’re asking for will be yours.” And that’s exactly what they did — front and center, front lines. It’s exactly what IDF soldiers do today.
In our own lives, we’re good at finding our way out of responsibility. It’s too dangerous. I’m too tired. It’s too light out, it’s too dark out — every excuse in the book. For the two and a half tribes who took the front lines, those excuses didn’t exist in their vocabulary. They said something simple: “We’re going to the front lines no matter where we settle. We’ll be there for Israel, for the nation, and for the land.” The Israel Defense Forces — the truth is, that’s not a title, it’s a description. These two and a half tribes were the first IDF soldiers, the first IDF officers — the ones who said, “No matter where we are, no matter where we settle, we will be on the front lines, winning this war” — a war for the nation of Israel, in the land of Israel, by the power of Hashem. And at the end of the day, they did exactly that.
The Honor of Being Called a Settler
Here’s the great thing about this week’s parsha. Those who call me a settler, who call others settlers — I’m not insulted. It’s an honor. Jews weren’t settlers for 2,000 years; it’s an honor to be one now, and I don’t much care what people mean by it when they say it. Why is it an honor? Because this week’s parsha — the portion we read in synagogue tomorrow — says that when you come into the land, you must settle it. If the land isn’t settled, it will be taken by your enemies.
The Torah even says, a little earlier, that God won’t drive out all the land’s enemies at once, because it would happen too fast — the land wouldn’t be properly settled, and wild animals would move in and cause destruction.
So it’s the non-settling of the land of Israel that causes damage, not the settling of it. This goes back to Avraham Avinu — you have to walk the land. If you’re not walking it, it isn’t yours. You can call it Israel all you want, you can say “my land, my land” — but if you’re not walking it and settling it, it isn’t yours. Bottom line.
Settling the Land, Removing Your Enemies
So this week’s parsha says, quite literally: settle the land. And what does it say about the enemies in the land? Not non-Jews— the enemies of Israel specifically. You must remove them, fight them — not because of their religion, but because they define themselves as enemies of Israel, of Hashem, of God, whether through idol worship or through trying to bring about the downfall of Bnei Yisrael.
Last week we read about Pinchas, who had to act against two people behaving immorally. This week, Hashem says: gather a group of top-notch fighters, because we are taking revenge against the Midianites — not out of anger, but because their goal is to annihilate Israel. It isn’t an attack for its own sake; it’s revenge, plain and simple. If they changed their ways, there’d be no reason for it. But as long as they’re trying to destroy the State of Israel, failing to act against them is wrong — sinful, immoral, cruel, dishonest, everything bad in the book. Because if you don’t confront those who want to destroy you, you’re only strengthening them.
Things This Week’s Parsha Teaches Us
So this week’s parsha has a few things going on.
Number One: The Responsibility of Diaspora Jewry
The traits of the IDF — soldiers who go to the front lines and put themselves on the line to protect the nation and the land of Israel. For those of you watching from wherever you are — America, England, Australia, South Africa, wherever — you have a responsibility too. The men and women of the IDF are here, fighting the fight, putting their bodies on the line. Those of you who can’t be here, who can’t serve, cannot sit back quietly. You cannot settle comfortably into your own lives while the IDF is putting its life on the line. You have to find a way to do your part.
A Message from Holland
I want to bring this back to something I just experienced. I was just in the Netherlands, on a fundraising trip for the IDF and to speak about Israel to a group fighting an unbelievable fight there. It’s depressing how much antisemitism is going on in Holland. There’s a group up in Friesland, in the north, of people who are pro-Israel and fighting a difficult fight against BDS and radical Islamic movements. They invited me up for a fundraiser and to speak, and it was an amazing event with truly amazing people.
But there were depressing moments too. We were told, over and over, “Don’t wear your kippah. Maybe tuck your tzitzit in.” To be clear — this wasn’t said by people against us, but by people trying to protect us. They just didn’t know who they were talking to. I refused to take off my kippah or tuck in my tzitzit walking through Amsterdam. Was it dangerous? That’s what they say. I don’t know. I wasn’t taking them off.
While there, I also visited Anne Frank’s house. I appreciate someone correcting me afterward — it wasn’t actually her house, it was her father’s office, and the family hid in the attic for about two years before the Nazis found them. They weren’t taken to Auschwitz, as I’d thought, but to Bergen-Belsen, where they were killed.
Why is Anne Frank so famous? A million and a half Jewish children were murdered by the Nazis and by everyone who stayed silent. What’s so special about her?
The answer is, she let us in. She wrote a diary, and it let us see the daily life of a Jew living in fear — living at the whim of another nation, of soldiers and diplomats who did nothing. Zero. Every country, including the United States, which flew over the train tracks to Auschwitz and did not bomb them, because diplomacy took over morality.
There are lessons in what I saw in Holland this week — a beautiful country. To the king there, to the government: you are in trouble. Not only because refugees are causing havoc, but because I, as a Jew, 75 years later, come to tour your country and get warned by my fellow Jews not to walk through Amsterdam with my kippah on or my tzitzit out. You haven’t moved in 75 years. If you don’t speak up now against the antisemitism clearly happening in your country, the end result will be your problem — and then you’ll put out a video in another 70 years about how bad you feel about it. Don’t wait. You have a beautiful country, and you’re losing control of it.
I expect the same standard from the State of Israel. We may not give in to terrorists. And don’t talk to me about Zionism — they’re screaming in the street “Itbach el-Yehud,” — slaughter the Jew, not “slaughter the Zionist.”
The Temple Mount Crisis
Now let me bring this back home. This past week, two Druze Arab policemen were brutally murdered by Muslim terrorists who came out of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, having been handed guns inside it. Israel went up to search for weapons and put up metal detectors at the entrance.
The radical Muslims responded with violence — Molotov cocktails, stones, right in the middle of Jerusalem. And just yesterday, our own security establishment was debating with police whether to take the detectors down to calm things.
Are you out of your mind? You don’t remove metal detectors while people are talking about annihilating your nation and expect that to calm anything down. Thank God, Netanyahu did not take them down.
To any Muslim out there who is a peaceful person, who simply wants to go up and pray — you shouldn’t be opposing those metal detectors. You should be applauding them. If you’re truly against the radicals, you should be a target, just like I am. And if you’re not a target, you’re not so different from them.
Number Two: A Call to Take Control of the Temple Mount
I’m calling on Prime Minister Netanyahu, on the government, on the Knesset — what will it take to assert control over the Temple Mount? If we don’t take control of what’s rightfully ours — historically, religiously, nationally ours — we cannot expect those who hate us to take us seriously. Forget the metal detectors. We should be taking control. We should be removing them to Lebanon.
Don’t be afraid the Arabs will go crazy. Here’s a newsflash: they already want to destroy us.
The only reason they haven’t is that they’re afraid of us. You don’t need to worry about them — if they truly wanted to destroy us, they would have done it already. Think about the numbers: some 650 million Muslims in the Middle East, and maybe 6 million Jews. If they weren’t afraid of us, they would have fought that war long ago. They have every reason to be afraid — because besides the bravery of our IDF soldiers, we have God in our corner.
I say it all the time: Allah must be a Zionist, because we keep winning these wars.
Like it says in this week’s parsha — chalutzim lifnei ha’am — go out in front of the nation. Be brave. Uphold that idea: being brave, standing at the front of the nation. Take over the Temple Mount. It is ours. Are we afraid of war? Do we think the Muslims don’t already want to attack us? This kind of hesitation, this giving in to terrorism, only grows more terrorism. It has to stop. It has to stop right now.
Closing
Wishing everyone a Shabbat Shalom from the holy and beautiful rolling hills of Judea, Israel.