Two Minute Torah Podcast

Matot-Masei 5772 by Ariana Berlin

Hi my name is Ariana Berlin. I am a student at Brandeis University and this is the KOACH 2 minute Torah podcast.

This week's parsha is Matot. The beginning of the parsha talks about vows. Not really types of vows but instead who says them and who hears them and who validates them. This seems pretty uninteresting so lets skip down to the end.

The end of the parsha tells of the tribes of Gad, Reuven, and half of Menashe asking Moshe to not settle their families in Canaan, but instead to remain on the other side of the Jordan River, because, since they were already there they knew how good the land was. Moshe agreed to this, however he told them that the men must cross the Jordan River with the rest of the tribes to help conquer the Land of Israel, but the women, children and their animals will stay behind in their land. While this is an interesting story, I don't really want to go into it.

Instead, I'd like to explore the connection between the beginning and the end of the parsha.

The rules of the vows listed in the beginning state what happens when men make vows, when women make vows, and when widows make vows. Men's vows are always held against them, while the women's are a little more complicated. To summarize a bit, when a woman makes a vow, if her father or her husband hears it, he is able to validate it or negate it. And if a widow makes a vow, there is no man there to hear it, so she must abide by her words.

Like I said before, this is not too interesting. However, after reading the end of the parsha, I am able to understand its importance. Once the men cross over the Jordan River to conquer the land of Canaan, the women are going to be left on their own, with no men to validate or negate their vows. While this still may not be the most interesting matter to us nowadays, it was important to bnei yisrael at that time because two and a half of the tribes were going to have to follow different rules from what they were used to.

We can learn a very important lesson from this. Even though something, especially Torah, may seem uninteresting or unimportant at the beginning, there will be a reason for it later. We don't always need to understand why things are happening the way they are or why we are doing what we are doing. We just need to have faith in G-d and remember “na'aseh v'nishma� – we will do then we will understand. Often times it is not humanly possible to understand why G-d does certain things, however as long as we have faith and maintain a positive attitude, things will work out in the end – just like they did for B'nei Yisrael. Gam Zu L'Tovah – everything is for the best.