פרשה: בחקתי · עלייה: שני (גבורה)

ונתתי שלום בארץ, "and I will grant peace to the land." Why did the Torah have to mention this seeing it had already promised us that we would dwell securely in our land? Perhaps the Torah refers to the people of Israel keeping the peace amongst themselves, that there would not be internal divisiveness. G'd promises to implant a tendency for mutual tolerance amongst the people. Remember that when the Torah speaks of the land it usually describes it as "your land," i.e. the land with a suffix. When the word ארץ is used without the suffix it refers to the whole earth. In this instance you find that G'd wants universal peace. When you consider the 70 bulls the Israelites offered in the Holy Temple on behalf of the Gentile nations on Sukkot, our rabbis in Sukkah 55 speak about this. Moreover, whenever wars occur on earth even people who are at peace in their respective countries worry about their becoming themselves involved in warfare. This is why the Torah adds the assurance ושכבתם ואין מחריד, "you will lie down to sleep without anyone frightening you."

והשבתי חיה רעה מו הארץ, "and I will banish wild beasts from the land." In view of G'd having promised that everyone will dwell securely under his respective fig tree and vineyard it is likely that people will not travel a lot and the outlying roads may become relatively deserted so that the roaming beasts may lose their fear of man. G'd promises that He will see to it that there will be a decrease in such activities The word הארץ must be understood as the land where these wild beasts normally have their lairs and from where they forage. This explains why the Torah did not use the expression בארצכם in this instance.

ורדפתם את אויביכם, "and you will pursue your enemies." Why does the Torah have to give the Israelites this assurance after having assured them of dwelling securely and no one frightening them? The assurances which preceded this verse related to Israel feeling secure from surrounding nations. The latter would neither cause death nor destruction. Now the Torah speaks about relations between Israel and the nations with Israel as the aggressor. The Torah assures Israel that the promise of safety from invasion does not mean that it ties Israel's hands versus its neighbours. The Torah therefore speaks of the Israelites pursuing their enemies. This reinforces the previous assurances. Even though Israel may have started a pre-emptive campaign against its enemies, G'd assures them of success. They will return to their country not having to fear retaliation. If the Torah called the opponents of Israel "enemies," this was not because they invaded the country but because they are enemies of the Lord. The wicked people amongst the Gentiles are always referred to as both G'd's enemies and hence our enemies. It is a law of nature that the Gentile nations hate us.

ונפלו לפניכם לחרב. "and they will fall before you by the sword." The unusual לחרב instead of בחרב, by the sword, is a hyperbole. The way the enemies will fall before the Jewish armies will be similar to their falling by the sword. A moral-ethical approach to these words conjures up the deeds of the Hasmoneans. The historian Josephus describes seeing an angel of the Lord drawing his sword against the enemy. When the Torah speaks here of ונפלו, they will fall, it may refer to the thrusts of the sword by the angel.

ורדפו מכם חמשה מאה, "And five of you will put one hundred of them to flight, etc." The obvious difficulty in our verse is that the enemies will fall before the pursuing Jewish army. This promise included such assurances as that even ten thousand enemy soldiers would fall before as few as two Jewish soldiers. Why did the Torah now limit the blessing contained in the previous verse?

I believe the verses have to be explained in accordance with what we learned in Sotah 11 that G'd always quantifies a blessing more generously than He quantifies a curse. [We have examples in Deut. 5,9-10 where G'd promises to remember sins for up to 4 generations whereas He will remember good deeds for up to two thousand generations. Ed.] Tossaphot query the fact that the Talmud phrases the principle as one that applies invariably, i.e. לעולם. They refer to Deut. 32,30 where the Torah asks rhetorically: "How was it that one (enemy soldier) could pursue a thousand Israelites and two could put ten thousand to flight?" Surely this is an example of the curse having been quantified as proportionately far more powerful than the blessing in our portion when you compare the numbers in both instances? They answer that in Deuteronomy 32 the Torah speaks only of pursuit and not killing and that this is is hardly a curse. In our portion the pursuit is described as resulting in our enemies dying. I find this an inadequate response to the question. There is a discussion in Moed Katan 16 about the exploits of David's heroes one of whom is described as having killed 800 of the enemy with a single arrow. David complained that the assurance that he could kill a thousand of the enemy with one stroke had not been fulfilled. A heavenly voice told him that the reason that G'd's promise had not been fulfilled fully was due to his own involvement with Uriah. It is clear from the Talmud in Moed Katan that David understood the promise in our verse to refer not merely to putting the enemy to flight but to killing him. If not, why did he complain about something G'd had never promised?

We must assume therefore that both verse 7 and verse 8 speak of enemies dying. The way to answer the query of Tossaphot is best answered by reference to Torat Kohanim who understand the word מכם in verse 8 as a reference to the physically weakest of the Israelites. The wording in Torat Kohanim is: "from the weakest amongst you and not from the strongest amongst you." Why did Torat Kohanim add the words "and not from the strongest amongst you?" The obvious intention of Torat Kohanim was to emphasise that the words "from the weakest" should not be interpreted as "even from amongst the weakest amongst you, but should be understood as "the weakest amongst you excluding the strongest." In light of this it is not surprising that in this verse the Torah only speaks of a blessing extended to the physically weak members of the Israelites who are able to mount a pursuit in a ratio of five against a hundred. Amongst the Gentile nations the physically weak specimen do not take part in warfare at all. When the Torah asked rhetorically in Deuteronomy how it is that suddenly one Gentile is able to pursue 1000 Israelites the reference is to the physically strongest Gentiles amongst them. The Torah did not have to make these distinctions amongst the Israelites as we know that the curse is always quantified as proportionately weaker than the corresponding blessing.

From all the above it emerges that G'd actually ordered two separate blessings to be effective instead of limiting the blessing of verse 7 in verse 8. First of all the Torah describes the valour of the individual Israelites during generations when the people observe G'd's statutes. Concerning these men of heroic proportions the Torah says that they will pursue their enemies and the enemies will fall before them. In the event you are interested how many enemies a single Israelite can pursue, you only have to refer to the verse in Deuteronomy which describes the exploits of your enemies. Since you are aware that G'd quantifies a blessing more generously than a curse you can draw your own conclusions. The Talmud in Sotah 11 only illustrated how David interpreted the blessing. He based himself on the statement that anyone who studied Torah for a single day is considered as if he had done so for a whole year. This statement is proven from the punishment G'd meted out to the people of Israel who had accepted the majority report of the spies. In Numbers 14,34 the Torah condemns the Israelites to wandering in the desert for one year in exchange for every day the spies had toured the land of Canaan and had returned with a devastating conclusion. If G'd's quantification of the curse was 365 to one, then His quantification of a blessing could not possibly be of a lesser ratio. It is not surprising therefore to hear David complain that even the greatest of his warriors had not been able to destroy 1000 of the enemy with a single blow.

You will find an interesting remark in Chronicles I 12,15. "These are the leaders (in exploits) of the army of the tribe of Gad (in the time of David) the weakest disposed of 100 of the enemy, the strongest disposed of 1.000. This is sort of proof of what the Torah said here that the weak pursue and kill in a ratio of 5 to 100, and 100 pursue 10.000 must refer to the weaker specimen amongst the Israelites. When the Book of Chronicles speaks of "one to a hundred and one to a thousand respectively, the reason the comparison made by the author of the Book of Chronicles is with "one" i.e. a single warrior, is because these are examples of particularly powerful individuals, not the run of the mill. All of this leads us to the conclusion that verse 7 which does not impose a limit on how many warriors will pursue how many enemies speaks of the Israelites whose physique is of heroic dimensions. The Torah deliberately does not describe their feats in terms of numbers as their prowess is unlimited in principle. For all we know one such Israelite could pursue a half million of the enemy; under no circumstances would he pursue fewer than a thousand as in the reverse situation in the Book of Deuteronomy. Inasmuch as different periods in history produced Israelites of different calibre the Torah did not go into specifics.

ונפלו אויביכם לחרב. "and your enemies will fall by the sword." Why did the Torah repeat this promise both in verse 7 and in verse 8? Torat Kohanim explain that the meaning is that the enemies will fall by each other's sword. We may add that the Torah wanted to distinguish between a pursuit by five men of a hundred men of the enemy respectively, and the pursuit by a hundred men of ten thousand. If Israel can dispose of one thousand pursuers, the defeat of the enemies will assume proportions that are greater than a mere arithmetical progression. The word לחרב refers to the effectiveness of the avenging sword.

ופניתי אליכם, "And I will turn to you, etc." This word is to be understood as similar to what we learned in Taanit 2 that G'd holds three keys; one of them is the key to לידה, to birth, i.e. procreation. This is why G'd had to say: "I will turn to you" before mentioning that He would make the Jewish people fruitful. The word ופניתי is indicative of G'd personally involving Himself in the fertility of the Jewish people instead of leaving the matter in the hands of the agent He has appointed as part of the laws of nature to deal with such tasks. It is also possible that when the verse continues with והרביתי אתכם, "I will multiply you," that this refers to a second key G'd holds in His hands, i.e. the key to פרנסה, livelihood. Adequate food assists physical growth. This may be why Torat Kohanim understand this blessing as contributing to the physical size of the Israelites. Moreover, we are taught in Sanhedrin 90 that the words והקימותי את בריתי אתכם at the end of our verse refer to the covenant with the dead that when the time comes their bodies will be resurrected. The word והקימותי then refers to the third key G'd holds in His hands, the key to life and death. The word ופניתי may thus be understood as G'd granting us access to all the three keys in His possession.

Another aspect of this verse is related to the statement in Shabbat 156 that Israel is not subject to the restrictions inherent in the term mazzal, such as referred to by Isaiah 41,2 when he described Abraham as having thought his fate was determined by the constellation of Jupiter (compare page 1302). The word ופניתי simply means that G'd will turn aside the horoscopic influences and apply a different set of rules to the dispensation of the blessings involving the three areas to which G'd personally holds the keys. Although, according to Moed Katan 28, the three domains over which G'd holds the key are not subject to man's merit but to his mazzal, G'd will make an exception to this rule by "moving the relevant constellation (מפנה) "aside," to enable Israel to overcome negative influences. The expression לפרות refers to the ability to have children, the expression והרביתי אתכם refers to long life, similar to Deut. 11,21 למען ירבו ימיכם; the words והקימותי את בריתי refer to the supply of adequate sustenance. The reason that the Torah referred to the covenant here is because G'd had concluded such a covenant with Noach in Genesis 8,22 not to again destroy the seasons and the harvest they are to produce. Shavuot 36 comments on that verse in Genesis where G'd is reported as saying this "to His heart," that this is equivalent to an oath. In Genesis 9,12 G'd referred to the "sign of the covenant" i.e. the rainbow as a reminder of this covenant which included all the various promises made by G'd after Noach left the ark. The oath G'd swore at the time did not comprise the whole globe. After all, we all know that part of the surface of the globe does not produce crops in certain years due to some catastrophe or other, the years of famine both in Canaan and in Egypt being just a minor example. What G'd had sworn was that He would not deprive the entire earth of sustenance simultaneously such as happened during the deluge. Please refer to what I have written on the words "and you shall love the Lord your G'd" on Deut. 6,5.

Another meaning of the words ופניתי אליכם may be gleaned after we examine Samuel II 6,10. The prophet reports that David did not want to transfer the Holy Ark to him in Jerusalem and instead made it detour to the house of Oved Edom Hagitti. As a result of the latter's willingness to be host to the Holy Ark G'd blessed his entire family. Our sages in Berachot 63 describe the blessing as Oved Edom's wife and eight daughters-in-law being very prolific in bearing many children during the three months that the ark stayed in Oved Edom's home. According to Chronicles I 26, 6 children were born to that family during that time. This is the kind of blessing referred to by the words… ופניתי אליכם והרביתי אתכם, "I will turn to you….and multiply you." Once G'd turns His face to you, the rest will follow automatically. The expression והרביתי אתכם contains within it a special distinction. Normally, when we encounter a great number of something, the multiplicity of the numbers is at the expense of the worth of the individual. If someone owns 1.000 head of cattle for instance, he does not treasure each animal as a separate possession as much as he would if he only owned three cows. G'd blessed Oved Edom in that though his family became very numerous this did not detract from the individual worth of each family member (compare our comments on Exodus 1,9 and Numbers 13,18). The words והקימותי את בריתי אתכם are a blessing similar to that in Isaiah 59,21: "and as for Me, this will be My covenant with them says the Lord….My words will not depart from your mouth or the mouth of your children." It is the promise that the Torah will not depart from their offspring. Another meaning of the words is that G'd renews the covenant which He had already entered into with the patriarchs.