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East of the Jordan - מטות מסעי

Friday, 13 July, 2018 - 8:10 am

j.jpgEast of the Jordan

How are we to know what our life’s mission is? How are we to go about considering which path we should follow, which avenue to pursue? What clues can direct us to follow the road leading to the very purpose of our own creation?  

The tribes of Reuben and Gad had an insight.

They felt that one must look at the specific gifts and opportunities that one was blessed with. They sensed that with the specific blessings they were gifted with G-d was directing them on the path that was their true calling.

Which is why the tribes of Reuben and Gad did not want to cross the Jordan River and enter the land of Israel.

They looked around and saw the lands which the Jewish people had conquered east of the Jordan River, and they immediately sensed that their destiny was tied to the land which was outside the borders of the holy land, outside the land that G-d promised to give the Jewish people. They saw that the land east of the Jordan was a land perfect for pasture. They turned to Moses and said:

“The land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock." (Numbers 32:4)

They argued that if G-d blessed them with an abundance of livestock, if “your servants have livestock”, then surely their divine mission was to embrace their individual blessing and settle in the land best suited to raising livestock, even if that land was not the land of Israel.   

At first Moses was furious. Moses feared that, just like the episode of the spies almost forty years earlier, he was once again witnessing a rebellion of the people who were rejecting the land of Israel out of fear of conquering and living in the land.

Ultimately, however, Moses granted their request, for they explained that, in fact, they could not be more different then the spies. For the tribes of Reuben and Gad sought not to reject Israel, but to expand its holiness and its influence outside its borders.

Gad and Reuben understood that if G-d was directing them to find their calling outside the land of Israel it was not because they were disconnected from Israel’s story and mission, but rather because they were charged with the mission to expand the holiness of Israel beyond its borders; demonstrating that the morality and light of the Jewish people is able to transform foreign territory.

Yet there was one condition that the children of Gad and Reuben had to meet before they were given the lands they requested. They had to commit to be in the front lines of the conquest of the land of Israel. As Moses told them:

Moses said to them, "If you do this thing, if you arm yourselves for battle before the Lord, and your armed force crosses the Jordan before the Lord until He has driven out His enemies before Him, and the Land will be conquered before the Lord, afterwards you may return, and you shall be freed [of your obligation] from the Lord and from Israel, and this land will become your heritage before the Lord. (Numbers 32:22)

To be able to extend the holiness of Israel to a foreign land, one must be even more committed to Israel than if he were living in Israel. To be able to sanctify land that is not holy one needs to be even more committed to holiness than his brethren who are living in a land permeated with holiness.

The children of Gad and Reuben teach the Jew living outside of Israel that his purpose is to expand the holiness and inspiration of the land of Israel to all four corners of the earth.

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(Based on the teaching of the Rebbe, Reshimos booklet 51.)

 

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