Parshat Hashavua Rabbi Michael Laitner If you have comments please feel free to e-mail Rabbi Laitner at: michael@southhampstead.org

‘And G-d said to Moses saying. ‘Show enmity towards/battle against the Midyanim and smite them.  Because they have shown enmity towards you by the plot that they hatched against you involving Peor... And it was after the plague – gap in the middle of the verse - And G-d said to Moshe and to Elazar the son of Aharon the Cohen saying, count the heads of the community of the Children of Israel..’ (Bemidbar 25:17-18; 26:1-2)
 
These verses conclude the description of Pinchas’s actions in the plains of Moav to stop the attempt of the hostile Midianites to attack the Children of Israel through seduction.
 
What is the practical implementation of the command to ‘show enmity’? Why is showing enmity the only reason given for this command? (why, for instance, is the role of Midian in the hiring of the nefarious Bilam, not mentioned?) Why is there a gap in the middle of the pasuk (verse)? Why is the command to show enmity not followed by the implementation of this command but rather by yet another command to count the people?
 
We will focus on the last two of these questions as to why the command to battle the Midianites was not implemented immediately.
 
Rabbi Chizkia ben Manoach (aka Chizkuni, 13th century) writes that this command was not meant to be obeyed immediately and only takes place later on in chapter 31.  It is commanded here to let the Children of Israel know that they will have the opportunity to defeat their foes but first they had to recover from the plague which raged after the Midianite trap and had to regroup by counting their population in the aftermath of the plague.
 
Along these lines, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (aka Ramban, 1190-1270) suggests that the gap in the middle of the verse, a unique phenomena in the Torah, indicates that the counting had to take place first, before the Midianites were to be defeated. 
 
In a similar vein, Rabbi Avraham ben Ezra (aka Ibn Ezra, 1089-1167) on 26:1, notes that circumstances mandated a fresh counting.  This episode occurs almost at the end of the 40 year stay in the desert, at the plains of Moav (‘arvot Moav’) on the eastern side of the River Jordan as the Jewish people prepared to enter the Land of Israel.  Accordingly, it is necessary to count the people to know how to apportion the Land of Israel between the individual tribes, a task commanded in 26:53, the very same chapter which contains the commandment to count. 
 
Chizkuni concurs with this suggestion, also writing that the gap in the pasuk signifies the last deaths (excepting Moshe) of the generation of the desert who would not enter the Land of Israel.  The gap alerts us to this new epoch in Jewish history explaining further why there was a need to count the people now.

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