Not to be confused with this similarly titled Dvar Torah
by Rabbi Avi Billet
Towards the end of the parsha we find four encounters the Bnei Yisrael had with opposing nations. The one with Arad was a little different from the other 3 (it appears at the beginning of chapter 21, which is after the initial encounter with Edom, see below, but before the Israelites travel around Edom), but of the remaining ones: the first was Edom, the second was Emori with their king Sichon, and the third was Bashan and their king Og.
Each encounter is presented a little differently because a different thing happened in each case. After Aharon died they were attacked by Arad – a slightly different military operation, which we will get back to.
The first stop was Edom, distant cousins of Bnei Yisrael through Eisav’s family, to whom the request was made to go through their land on the Derech HaMelekh! (20:14-21) “Please let us go on a highway, as a shortcut through Edom to our Promised Land.”
Permission was not granted. Edom gathered on the border and said “You are not coming through our land.” So Israel went around. (21:4)
Next stop, Sichon (21:21-25). They again ask to go through the land. Like the Edomites, Sichon gathers his army, but unlike Edom he has them attack the Bnei Yisrael. Israel first goes on the defensive, and then the offensive, taking all Sichon’s land in conquest.
Final stop, Og (21:33). Before they even have a chance to request to go through his land, “At Edrei, Og king of the Bashan came out with all his people to engage [the Israelites] in battle.”
One can easily look at these passages as Meshalim (parables) for how life works when dealing with different kinds of people.
It is worth noting, perhaps obviously because we are dealing with military encounters, that we don’t find a kind of social engagement that is idyllic or ideal. One should not expect to see here a portrayal of an easy trajectory of life, when everything goes your way, things fall into place perfectly, and life is almost perfect poetry in motion. Who needs help navigating that anyway?
Besides, how often do we really have that in life - and certainly never on any kind of battlefield? Life is more often hard, with challenges and difficulties that are anything but simple. The truth is that having a simple life is not so simple. There is always conflict in one form or another. How do we navigate?
The parable of the Edom conflict, is one where you ask politely, and though you don’t get your way, a compromise results. And even in a compromise, someone may still feel unhappy. While Bnei Yisrael needed to go around Edom, they also did not need to fight against their cousins (Edom is Eisav’s family). Military confrontation, especially when you are merely asking for a simple, peaceful “passage-through,” is something we’d all like to avoid. Edom was not really interested in a fight! They produced their military might to show what their capabilities, but they did not use their military because their rules of engagement said “If they don’t cross our border, we are not fighting them.” They didn’t want to fight against Bnei Yisrael. It’s not a perfect compromise, but each side ends off in a good space, even if one side feels inconvenienced.
Then there’s the confrontation with Sichon, which can be viewed as a parable in which a request is made politely, but the response is not only negative, but the request rebuffed as it is quickly discovered that a compromise is not feasible, because the other side just hates you.
Then there’s the confrontation with Og, which is a parable to when there isn’t even a chance to ask politely because the other side doesn’t acknowledge your right to exist. They just want to destroy you.
In all these cases Hashem helps guide the Bnei Yisrael to the other side successfully. Did people on the Israel side die in these military confrontations? We know that in the Arad encounter, the first confrontation which was sidestepped above, a captive or captives were taken (וישב ממנו שבי). What that means exactly is debated amongst the commentaries. But all of these military confrontations (Edom was not a confrontation as battle was avoided) ended with an Israelite victory, despite the Torah not giving us a specific casualty list.
Does it mean that the good guys always win in the end? No. But it does show that the people had a relationship with and a trust in Hashem that somehow things would work out. Sometimes the result we want is not what we think is best for us, or sometimes Hashem has other plans for us.
When Arad attacked (21:1-3), the Bnei Yisrael made a promise to Him – if You help us win, we will turn the city into a Cherem for You. No spoils will be taken. This kind of commitment is the kind people make in their own dealings and negotiations with God all the time. Hopefully we follow through with our commitments, especially when the outcome we were looking for came to be.
Our task is to work on our relationship with God so that we understand that while we have a job to do our hishtadlus in life, to make a sincere effort to plot the course and direction that our lives take, to have deep conversations about serious matters and decisions, to seek help and guidance and advice when we need it, we also need to remember that our successes and failures come from the Almighty. Sometimes our successes are unexpected and sometimes our failures help us grow or open up a new door for us.
We certainly prefer to have things go perfectly in our encounters with others. But people are not all the same. We all have different motivations for the things we do, the activities we engage in, and the choices we make. Conflict arises, even between good people on both sides, who either disagree or see things differently. But it should never be that we have to resort to the Sichon or Og models, of either ignoring politeness or simply attacking without even listening. In that sense the Edom model is best – someone will be inconvenienced, but at least no one needs to get hurt.
The Arad model reminds us that part of life is also committing deeply to our relationship with God, and following through in our commitments. We all know people who attribute all the good and bad that life throws their way to God, but as the Talmud says, just as we bless Him for the good, we bless Him for the bad (Brachos 54a). We don’t always know or understand His ways, and we don’t always see what the Master Plan is. But if we follow through with our commitments, we can rest secure that we are doing our part, and we can trust and continue to pray that somehow, “All that God does is for the best.” (Brachos 60b)
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