The Authenticity of Compromise
Fragile Greatness from Exodus to Numbers
The Reubenites and the Gadites owned cattle in very great numbers. Noting that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were a region suitable for cattle, the Gadite and Reubenite [leaders] came to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the chieftains of the community, and said, “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon— the land that the Lord has conquered for the community of Israel—is cattle country, and your servants have cattle. It would be a favor to us,” they continued, “if this land were given to your servants as a holding; do not move us across the Jordan.” Moses replied to the Gadites and the Reubenites, “Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here? (Numbers 32:1-6)
But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them. A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. (Exodus 1:7-9)
The cattle of the Reubenites and Gadites is called rav, atzum, and m’od—all words that connote prolific growth and might, all words that the Book of Exodus uses to describe the hyper-growth of the Israelites in the land of Egypt. The King of Egypt fears (or capitalizes on the fear of others) that the population explosion of the Israelites poses geo-political risk. In Exodus, the great numbers of the people are presented in two ways, first factually, and second normatively. Fact: The people multiply. Value: The Egyptians don’t like it. Why does this language which opens and highlights the entire Exodus narrative recur in our parasha, Matot-Masei, the final parasha of Numbers?
The first possibility is ominous—the Gadites and Reubenites have short-term success and prosperity, but where are they now? Much like their ancestors who prospered in Egypt they traded short-term success for a view on long-term sustainability. Not only that, but one could argue that the success of the Israelites in Egypt sewed their downfall. The Egyptians took note of their meteoric rise and scapegoated them. In contemporary terms we might say that Jewish outperformance relative to the normal population or host population coincides with heightened antisemitism (the implications of this correlation can be taken in different directions). The population of Jews in Germany in 1929 was about 1 percent. They weren’t even rav v’atzum in the objective sense of being a large group. But culturally the Jews have always punched above their weight. And in that sense that meaning of rav v’atzum may refer to aggregate or even per capita cultural influence or impact. The cultural power of a tiny people is a fact. The evaluation that this is good or bad, a value. Philosemitism and antisemitism are moral commentaries on a social reality. Thus, the joke about the Jews during Kristallnacht who read the newspaper to feel good about themselves in an otherwise depressing situation: “Look, it says here that we control everything.”
The success of the Gadites and Reubenites this side of the Promised land is impressive, but not without a cost, not without a geopolitical risk, and not without spiritual risks, as well. Success, in general, but especially worldly success, is always double-edged. One risk is complacency. Another, related one, is arrogance. Will the Gadites and Reubenites attribute their success to God or to themselves? Will they transmit their “skin in the game” to their children or will they die out? We know about Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, that he effectively squanders his birthright by sleeping with his father’s handmaiden—the archetype of his tribe is one that pursues expediency (like Esav) but eschews the long term view.
Moses calls the Reubenites and Gadites sinners, even though he allows them to settle outside Israel. He says that their request perpetuates the sin of their parents—the spies—who also found a reason not to enter the land. But the text is more moderate, too—in the end their human weakness is tolerated. Instead of treating the case in black and white terms, Moses places constraints on their would-be escape. They have to fight for the land alongside everyone else. The pattern fits with the theme of moral compromise in Tanach. First, God threatens Adam and Eve with death for eating from the forbidden fruit, but then allows them to live, albeit in a non-Edenic state. First, God destroys the world in a flood, then adjusts and accepts a certain amount of human evil in the world. First, God condemns Israelite kings, then allows them. The human need for comfort trades against off against the needs of the collective. As long as the collective fulfills its obligation to pursue the Promised Land, individuals and sub-groups are allowed to pursue their more private aspirations. If everyone behaved as the Gadites and Reubenites, there’d be no collective, no common good. But a Promised Land filled with private resentment would also lead to tension. The final parashah of Numbers accommodates the tension between centralization and decentralization that we all recognize. Nonetheless, from a macro view, the greatness and mightiness of the Reubenite and Gadite project presents as fragile. The Jewish people are named for Judah, not for Reuben or Gad.
Thinking of the Promised Land as the place of genuine freedom and the land just next to it as the place of pseudo-freedom, we can say that the Numbers concludes with a concession to materialism, distraction, addiction, assimilation, ego. Some people—most of us—can’t leave these entirely behind. That’s OK. The Torah seeks to perfect the human condition on a relative basis, not an absolute one. The question for us Reubenites and Gadites: How can we become 1 percent better today?
The Torah offers us a double look at incrementalism. On the one hand, it is necessary, because human psychology will buckle under the weight of impossible expectations. On the other hand, what appears to be a kind of “good enough” ism may also be a path to long term extinction. Both can be true. The story of Gad and Reuben can be read as a prime argument for the Zionist “Negation of Diaspora” perspective. It can equally be read as a defense of the dignity of those who choose or simply happen to find themselves on the outside. While the ominous reading sees Diaspora as just another Holocaust waiting to happen, there is another way to read the story, namely as a rectification of Exodus 1. We should hope and dream not just to be a people in our own land, as the thrust of the text suggests, but also a people, mighty and secure in its wandering, its temporary dwelling, its wilderness. In this view, the unity of the people can traverse geography, time zone, and custom. It is a kind of remote work, a hedge between the chaos of Babel and the triumph of homecoming.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins