Shabbat Parashat Mattot-Maasei - 5781

Shabbat Parashat Mattot-Maasei - 5781

Rabbi Hal Miller

So Moshe gave to them, to the children of Gad and to the children of Reuven

and to half the tribe of Menashe son of Yosef, the kingdom of Sichon king of the

Amorite, and the kingdom of Og king of the Bashan, the land with its cities in the

boundaries and the cities of the surrounding land. [Bamidbar 32:33]

The conversation was between Moshe, the Reuvenites, and the Gadites. The

children of Reuven and Gad are often criticized for doing something wrong here,

and receiving some form of punishment. But how did Menashe drop into the picture

here? They weren't involved at all until Moshe dragged them in. Why are they also

being 'punished' like this, and even more than Reuven and Gad, since Menashe

gets split? Menashe doesn't even get taxed with the military draft as were Reuven

and Gad.

The Brisker Rav takes the position (not universally held) that the lands of Sichon

and Og were not part of the land given to Israel. He explains the splitting of the

tribe of Menashe as a way to connect those conquered lands with the given portion.

But this does not explain why Menashe was selected, nor the lack of military draft.

Sforno seems to think that Menashe volunteered for this to help Moshe avoid a

fight with these other two tribes, sort of a self-sacrifice position, for which they

were rewarded by not having to contribute to the army, at least from that part of

Menashe, and Moshe was anxious to preserve peace between himself and the

nation. Ramban gives two main reasons, one of which is close to Sforno, that when

Moshe determined he needed to split a tribe, some of the people in Menashe who

had cattle volunteered. He explains that it was not 'half' but more like a quarter of

the tribe, thus more easily detached and less necessary for the draft. Ramban

further explains Moshe's decision that he needed to split a tribe, that the quantity of

land involved was greater than Reuven and Gad would be able to settle and

defend, so more Israelites were needed to assist.

Rav Hirsch notes that the reasons for this action were not given, so we can only

speculate. He concurs with the rest of what Ramban says.

Thus far, we have (albeit tentative) answers to all our questions except the why

Menashe. For this, Onkelos, as interpreted by Chizkunee, says that Menashe was

selected to punish the tribe for their father (Menashe) causing his father Yaakov

to fear losing Binyamin when he placed the money back in the brothers' sacks,

spurring the demand that Binyamin be returned to Egypt. We could ask, but

Menashe only did this at his father's (Yosef) direction, so why punish Menashe?

If the real target was Yosef, why was Ephraim not impacted here? To quote Yul

Brynner's character in The King And I, "Is a puzzlement."

Perhaps we can say that, although Menashe did what his father commanded,

there are times when one must do something other than blindly follow their

parents' orders. Perhaps Menashe "should have known better" and contested

it with Yosef.