Lifting Ourselves Up

By: R’ Mordechai Young

One summer I went on a trip with some yeshiva friends. One of the activities was paintball. It was my first time playing, so I had a mixture of excitement and some nerves at getting hurt. In the first game we went out as a team in the forest. We started crawling on the floor, so the other team didn’t see us. It was very hot, and we had to wear helmets and a covering over our clothes so we didn’t get paint all over it. A few minutes later: BOOM! A shot went straight to my mouth covering and the paintball exploded, causing paint to enter my mouth before I could even make a berachah (ha-ha!). In the next game, someone on the other team was very close to me (but I didn’t see him). The rule is he should have told me to surrender; instead, he shot with a pistol he had brought (he was not a rookie) and found the spot on my neck not protected by the helmet. Wow, that was painful! And also, a little scary as it went into my lungs. Baruch Hashem, I was okay, but I was ready to stop playing. A friend named Eran convinced me to keep going as the day would get better and I would regret leaving early. I listened to him and continued playing a few more games, thankfully getting some guys out and tasting some of the fun.

This week’s double parashah of Matos-Masei contains the verse in Matos (31:1-3) in which Hashem tells Moshe Rabbeinu to take revenge on Midian. Moshe told the nation to choose “anashim” (men) for the army. Rashi teaches this means tzaddikim, since only men were in the army anyway, the word must mean something else. Rashi gives an example like in sefer Shemos, when about to fight Amalek, it states “men” as well. Rashi in Shemos (17:8) explains “Anashim” as meaning mighty and free of sin. We see here that when fighting Midian and Amalek, the soldiers needed to be great spiritually. I was wondering if that implied that when fighting others, even the soldiers with sins could fight.

However, sefer Devarim (20:8) goes on to state, “Then the officers shall add, ‘Is anyone afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his fellow soldiers will not become disheartened too.’” Rashi teaches from Gemara Sotah 44a an argument about what constitutes “fear.” Rabbi Akiva taught that anyone who is afraid of war in general should abstain. Rebbi Yossi Hagalili says anyone who is afraid because he has sins would be exempt (because he wouldn’t be protected in war). This implies that when going to war, the soldiers needed to be tzaddikim, free of sin. Yet there is no mention of fighting Amalek or Midian here.

I saw a great explanation of this pasuk in Devarim in sefer Taam V’Daas by Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch. The pasuk concludes with this additional clause about anyone who is “fearful” should go home because a person with this level of fear would have affected the morale of all the other soldiers, hence the need for them to leave.

So, perhaps when fighting Amalek and Midian, great spiritual men were needed as taught in sefer Shalal Rav by Rabbi Avrohom Yisroel Rosenthal, since it was a fight against evil. Generally, you don’t need perfect tzaddikim to go to war, just men who are not so afraid that they will bring others down. A practical difference can be someone who doesn’t know Torah enough to understand that he is sinning at times. So, for this person to fight against a regular nation, it would be okay because he has no fear, lacking the awareness to know he is sinning. But in a war against Amalek or Midian, great men are needed. A regular person who is fearful would not have been able to fight. Another possible distinction is that when fighting Amalek and Midian, really great men were needed. With other nations, they needed to be free of sin but not necessarily on the level of a tzaddik.

In sefer Shaarei Aharon Al HaTorah by Rabbi Aharon Yeshaya Roter, he quotes the Rambam as stating that when fighting Amalek, it was a milchemet mitzvah, so everyone needed to fight. This is based on the Gemara Sotah 44b teaching that the exemptions stated above apply only to optional wars, but in mandatory wars, all had to join. How can all men join when fighting Amalek when we learned that Rashi taught specifically that only those who didn’t sin were chosen? It could be that for the first war against Amalek, the Torah required very great men. Perhaps in subsequent wars against Amalek, all men could join, even those who were not so great spiritually.

One point we can learn from is that our mood affects others. If we are not in the best mood when we’re in shul, for example, we should try to lift ourselves up so as not to affect others as the sefer Taam V’Daas points out so beautifully.

Have a great Shabbos! n

R’ Mordechai Young can be reached for comments at [email protected].