The War from the Weekly Portion
Last week’s portion (Matot) dealt with the war against Midian, where the Torah tells us אלף למטה אלף למטה – i.e. 1000 per tribe which totals 12,000 altogether. The Midrash quotes others that say that there were 2000 per tribe – 1000 fighters and 1000 men guarding the armor. Then, it quotes yet another opinion that says that there were 3000 from each tribe – the 2000 that were mentioned plus another 1000 people praying.
From this Midrash, we see that at the very least – a number of people equaling half of those involved in the actual warfare should be involved in the prayers for the welfare of the army. This should hopefully be the case in the current war that Israel is facing as well.
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This coming portion (Devarim) says רב לכם סוב את ההר הזה פנו לכם צפונה – it has been enough for you to surround this mountain; turn yourselves Northward. The comparison to the current Israeli war is pretty clear. Israel can tolerate Hezbollah on their border only so much. It’s time to turn Northward and deal with the situation.
The context of the verse is even more striking. It deals with Edom, which is equivalent to Eisav. I had already mentioned that Rav Shmueli said that Nasrallah (נסראללה) has the same Gematria as Eisav (עשו), so on some Kabbalistic level, he has attributes from Eisav, even though he is from Yishmael and supported by Paras.
posted by yaak @ 7/24/2006 02:05:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
very timely!!!
I just heard a shiur from a Rav who quoted somebody (I think the a perush on navi, but I do not remember - I will have to ask) who proved that when bnei yisrael went to battle, every single soldier had a person davening for him. If 12,00 went to battle then 12,000 people were appointed for tefilla
Nasrallah's connection to Eisav is through Amalek.
Rafi,
Yes, it's from the weekly parasha of last week: "Elef LaMateh, Elef LaMateh" - and one of the perushim is that for each soldier from each Shevet there was one from that Shevet who was praying.
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