Q&A: The War of Midian
The War of Midian
Question
Good evening! For the past few days I’ve been troubled by the story of the vengeance against Midian, and I’d be glad to hear the Rabbi’s take on the passage. A. Why is there no explicit command from God to Moses, or from Moses to the 12,000 men who went out to take vengeance, specifying exactly what was to be done with the Midianites? B. What is the reason for the gap between Moses’ view (“Have you let all the females live?!”) and that of the other fighters, who killed only the males? (After all, Moses’ reasoning is compelling: “Behold, these were the ones…”) C. Why does Moses distinguish between the boys and the girls among the children? And in general, what did the children do wrong?! D. The Torah doesn’t state that the fighters did as Moses said or that they accepted his words; it simply moves on to another topic. Why?
Answer
I usually don’t deal with biblical interpretation, but I’ll try to suggest something.
A. Who says there was no command? Maybe it simply wasn’t spelled out in the Torah. Or perhaps the assumption was that it was obvious to them by reasoning.
B. Beyond that, I don’t see a major difficulty. They thought the point was to defeat Midian militarily, and therefore they left the women alive. Alternatively, maybe they wanted to make useful use of them for themselves (like the captives mentioned later in the passage). And Moses told them that this was a personal vengeance against those who had sinned and caused others to sin.
C. The male children are part of the military victory (potential soldiers), and that proves there is substance to the avengers’ view that they were required to achieve a military victory. Except that in addition there was also personal vengeance here. And the practical difference is that female children are not to be killed.
D. Why does it need to mention every single thing?
Discussion on Answer
If I may, I’d like to jump in on the question — doesn’t it trouble you that the people of Israel were commanded simply to kill all the children (the boys) of Midian? And this isn’t a civilian population killed in the rush of war, where maybe it couldn’t be avoided, but rather the killing, if one may say so, in cold blood of children. And it’s not something merely theoretical, like the wayward and rebellious son or the idolatrous city, but something completely real. Shouldn’t it bother us that the Torah seemingly takes an immoral position? Does this seem moral to you? Would you calmly accept such a halakhic ruling today?
And I couldn’t get into M’s link, probably too old. If M reads this and it’s possible, I’d be happy to get a new link.
Hello Orly.
A good question, and rightly so, it troubles you. But from the tone of complaint I sense in your words, there seems to be an implicit protest as though anyone who deals with any aspect of this topic must also address the moral question. Let me say in advance that I disagree with that. One can discuss a topic that has a significant moral component and focus on another aspect of it without touching on that. Like dealing with different aspects of the Holocaust. For a good example, see column 89 (about the “urban legend” from the Technion).
[By the way, from very clear personal experience of mine, for some reason arguments like these are much more common among women, who often are not willing to pass by a moral component or a strong human aspect in the topic under discussion and discuss another aspect of it in a detached way. This stands out very strongly in Talmud study, which sometimes seems to them too cold and detached. In my opinion, this does not necessarily stem from extra moral sensitivity but from an inability/unwillingness to separate between levels of discussion. But that is of course only a hypothesis based on my personal experience.]
As for your question itself, it depends on the context. See here a similar question regarding the eradication of Amalek: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%95%D7%95%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%99%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%A7/
You’re right about the tone of complaint; it comes from the fact that this question had troubled me for a long time, and after much searching among commentators I found no discussion of it. So it’s not only a matter of inability or unwillingness to separate between levels in the topic, but also frustration that there seems to be a widespread tendency not to address it at all. Especially since in section C the question was asked — what did the children do wrong? — and for me at least this was not a sufficient answer, to say only that they are potential soldiers. Also, the suggestion that this stems from an unwillingness or inability to separate between levels of discussion rather than from moral sensitivity seems to me, with all due respect, condescending. Forgive me.
In any case, thank you very much for responding. God willing, I’ll look into what you wrote later on.
I gave the example of Nazis raising children into their culture of murder. In that case, too, would you not accept a policy that kills the children as well? I would.
As for the condescension, I reject defensive arguments of that kind. I’m telling you something that I have noticed very clearly from long accumulated experience (I have taught women for quite a few years), and there is unequivocally such a difference in approach. What is condescending about that? These are facts. One can argue that they are incorrect, but the claim that it is condescending is not substantive.
What’s condescending is to present it in such a way that if someone is so troubled by a moral problem that it grates on them when people discuss another aspect without addressing the moral problem, that stems from some inability to distinguish between things and not from the moral sensitivity itself, which may be what causes it. Second, even if that is true with respect to many women, it doesn’t seem appropriate to say that to a specific woman who asked a particular question, and to attribute her question to some general characteristic of her gender rather than to the problem itself that bothered her.
And maybe you brought the Nazi context in a reply to me, but not in the original answer that was given to the first questioner, and that’s what I was referring to.
And to argue that men have no moral sensitivity — isn’t that condescending? (Or perhaps women are allowed to be condescending?)
The reason I attributed this to an inability/unwillingness to separate between levels rather than to sensitivity is twofold: 1. I’ve seen it also in contexts unrelated to morality (for example, in discussions dealing with a hypothetical situation, women insist on pointing out that such a situation cannot happen). 2. Even if there is wonderful moral sensitivity, someone who understands that at the moment a different aspect is being discussed does not find himself compelled to drag morality into the discussion.
I do not see what is inappropriate about that. It is a substantive comment meant to draw your attention to a common and typical flaw. If that is not true, then of course one can discuss it. But if it is true, then in my opinion it is entirely appropriate.
See my understanding of these issues here:
https://mikyab.net/forums/topic/%d7%91%d7%99%d7%9f-%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%95%d7%a1%d7%a8-%d7%9c%d7%9e%d7%9c%d7%97%d7%9e%d7%aa-%d7%9e%d7%93%d7%99%d7%99%d7%9f/