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Israel Lost Four Merits Beside Moab's Daughters

Four merits had carried Israel out of Egypt. At Shittim the people took Moabite women, and the midrash says the spring itself ran with Sodom's old poison.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Four Merits That Opened the Sea Road
  2. The Spring That Watered Sodom
  3. Names That Can Be Counted
  4. Ink, Water, and a Spit of Mercy

Israel was dwelling in Shittim, and the people began to engage in harlotry with the daughters of Moab (Numbers 25:1). The place-name itself turned into a verdict. Shittim, the sages said, because they performed foolishness, shtut. A people that had walked through sea and sand lost its head beside a spring with a bad history.

Israel Lost Four Merits Beside Moab's Daughters Click for full size

For forty years the camp had held a discipline Egypt never managed to break. Then one stretch of water and one set of invitations undid what plagues had not. The midrash refuses to call it a small slip. It calls it the hour the old merits cracked.

Four Merits That Opened the Sea Road

Israel was redeemed from Egypt, the rabbis taught, because of four matters. They did not change their names. They did not change their language. They did not reveal their secrets, even the plan of borrowing silver and gold vessels held for twelve months without a leak to Egyptian ears. They did not behave with licentiousness. A locked garden, a sealed spring.

One exception had already been publicized in Torah, the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man. The verse named what the camp preferred to forget. Even so, for forty years the people did not fall the way they fell at Shittim. The four merits were not slogans. They were habits under pressure.

Names kept identity when bricks tried to erase it. Language kept a private weather system inside a slave empire. Secrecy kept a redemption plan from dying in a barracks rumor. Sexual restraint kept the nation from dissolving into the houses that owned them. At Shittim, the last of those walls took the first hit that showed.

The Spring That Watered Sodom

There are springs that produce the mighty and the weak, the fair and the ugly, the chaste and the lewd. The Shittim spring, the midrash says, was one of harlotry, and it had provided water for Sodom. The same cursed vein that once fed men who demanded strangers for the night now wet the throats of a camp that had been holy under cloud and fire.

Because that spring was cursed, the Holy One is destined to dry it, and a spring will emerge from the House of the Lord to irrigate the Shittim ravine (Joel 4:18). Future repair does not cancel present poison. Israel drank where Sodom had drunk and began to act as if memory were optional.

"The people began" is a terrifying verb. Beginnings look small. Beginnings are how a nation steps off a cliff while still discussing the view. Moab's daughters did not need to conquer the camp with spears. They needed only to make the spring's old work feel like hospitality.

Names That Can Be Counted

Elsewhere the midrash reads the promise that Israel cannot be measured or counted as a conditional glory. When they perform the will of the Omnipresent, they have no number. When they do not, they shrink to a countable six hundred thousand and worse. The unrighteous acquire names that stick like charges.

The son of the Israelite woman went out. Akhan son of Karmi was indicated. Zimri son of Salu was slain and named. These have a number. The righteous remain the ones who cannot be measured. Sin turns a people into a list. Holiness turns them back into a sea.

At Shittim the camp moved from uncountable promise toward named scandal. That is how merit dies in public. Not with a philosophical essay, but with a man and a woman and a place that already knew how to ruin a city.

Ink, Water, and a Spit of Mercy

In another chamber of the same midrashic house, a priest writes curses on a scroll and erases them into bitter water for the sotah ordeal. Water from the place she came, dust toward the place she is going, writing before the One to whom she must give account. The sacred Name can be dissolved for the sake of peace between husband and wife.

Rabbi Meir once let a woman spit in his eye seven times so she could go home to a husband who had banned her until she shamed the preacher. "The honor of Meir shall not be greater than the honor of his Maker," he told angry students. If the Name written in sanctity may be erased for peace, a sage's face can take spit for a marriage.

Set beside Shittim, the sotah water and Meir's eye are not random. They show a tradition obsessed with what bodies do when desire and suspicion enter a camp. At Shittim the people refused the hard mercy of restraint. In the ordeal and in Meir's choice, the law still hunted a path back from humiliation without pretending the danger was imaginary.

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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Bamidbar Rabbah 20:22Bamidbar Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

Our story begins in Shittim, a place whose name, as we'll see, carries a weight of meaning. "Israel was dwelling in Shittim, and the people began to engage in harlotry with the daughters of Moav" (Numbers 25:1). The text from Bamidbar Rabbah 20, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Numbers, unpacks this verse, revealing a fascinating link between past merit and present failing.

The Rabbis teach that the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt because of four key merits. What were they? First, they didn't change their Hebrew names. Second, they maintained their Hebrew language. – in a foreign land, surrounded by a dominant culture, they clung to their identity.

Third, they kept their secrets. Remember when Moses told the women to borrow silver and gold vessels from their neighbors (Exodus 3:22)? According to the Rabbis, this was entrusted to them for a whole year, and not a single one betrayed the confidence. Incredible!

Finally, perhaps most poignantly, they didn't behave with licentiousness. As (Song of Songs 4:12) puts it, "A locked garden is my sister, my bride… a locked fountainhead, a sealed spring." The men were chaste, the maidens pure.

But wait… wasn't there someone who strayed? Bamidbar Rabbah acknowledges this. The Torah itself tells us of "the son of an Israelite woman" who was also "the son of an Egyptian man" (Leviticus 24:10). Yet, the Sages emphasize that for forty long years, this was an isolated incident.

So what happened at Shittim? Why the sudden lapse?

Bamidbar Rabbah suggests the very name Shittim holds a clue. It connects the place name to the Hebrew word shtut, meaning "foolishness." the verse states: "Israel was dwelling in Shittim, and the people began to engage in licentiousness – Shittim, because they performed foolishness [shtut]." (Proverbs 6:32) says, "One who commits adultery with a woman lacks a heart." "Lacks a heart" here, the Rabbis explain, means "is a fool". We even see King Solomon described as having a "wise heart" in contrast in (1 (Kings 3:1)2).

But there's more. Bamidbar Rabbah paints a picture of springs, some producing strength, others weakness; some beauty, others ugliness; some purity, others lewdness. Shittim, it says, was a spring of harlotry, even providing water for Sodom! Remember Sodom's demand in (Genesis 19:5)? "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, [and we will be intimate with them]!"

Because of this inherent corruption, the text suggests, God will eventually dry up this spring, replacing it with a pure source flowing from the Temple in Jerusalem, as prophesied in (Joel 4:18): "A spring will emerge from the House of the Lord and will irrigate the Shittim ravine."

The text concludes by stating that from the time of Abraham, no one in Israel behaved with harlotry, until they arrived at Shittim and drank its water. What a striking picture! The Israelites, sustained by generations of fidelity and adherence to God's ways, find themselves weakened by the very environment they inhabit.

Perhaps it's a reminder that even the most righteous individuals are susceptible to temptation. Or maybe it's a call to be mindful of the influences around us, recognizing that our environment can shape our choices in profound ways. The story of Shittim is a potent reflection on the constant struggle between our higher and lower selves, and the importance of vigilance in maintaining our moral compass.

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Bamidbar Rabbah 2:18Bamidbar Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

Are we a numbered nation, or something… more?

Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) teachings on the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar in Hebrew), dives deep into this question. One passage, Bamidbar Rabbah 2, particularly caught my attention. It starts with the seemingly contradictory phrase: "Which cannot be measured and cannot be counted."

Rabbi Simlai asks a pointed question: How can something be both numbered and unnumbered? Isn't that a contradiction? He offers a fascinating answer: When the Israelites are not following God’s will, they can be counted. They are a defined entity, "no fewer than six hundred thousand," as the text emphasizes. "The number will be," implying that when we stray, we become just another statistic.

Rabbi Simlai continues, when the Israelites are performing the will of the Omnipresent, they transcend numbers. They become something beyond quantification, "which cannot be measured and cannot be counted." It's as if their righteousness elevates them to a state where mere numbers are insufficient to capture their essence.

Rabbi Simon, quoting Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, takes this idea further. He echoes the initial question: How can something be both numbered and unnumbered? He then gives examples of individuals who, through their actions, became countable – in a negative sense. The text mentions the story in (Leviticus 24:10) of the "son of the Israelite woman" who blasphemed, bringing shame upon the community. Then there's Akhan, from (Joshua 7:18), who violated the ban and caused Israel's defeat. And Zimri son of Salu from (Numbers 25:14), whose public defiance of God's law during the plague was a grave sin.

These individuals, through their unrighteousness, became countable, identifiable, and ultimately, condemned. "The unrighteous have a number," the text declares starkly. But then comes the powerful contrast: "The righteous cannot be counted." Because the righteous...they are "which cannot be measured and cannot be counted."

What does this all mean? It suggests that our actions, our choices, define whether we are merely a statistic in a large group, or something truly unique and immeasurable. When we align ourselves with goodness, with God's will, we tap into a potential that transcends simple accounting. We become part of something larger than ourselves, something that defies quantification.

Are we living lives that make us "countable," or are we striving to be something more, something that escapes the confines of numbers and statistics? Are we contributing to the collective righteousness that elevates us beyond measure? It's a question worth pondering, a challenge worth embracing.

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Bamidbar Rabbah 9:20Bamidbar Rabbah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · CC-BY

Take, for instance, the ritual of the sotah, the suspected adulteress, described in the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar). It’s… complicated. The priest writes curses on a scroll and then dissolves it in water that the woman must drink. Bamidbar Rabbah 9 explores the nuances of this ritual, and what it unearths is The verse in question is (Numbers 5:23): “The priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and erase it in the water of bitterness.” Why water, of all things? The text offers a powerful, almost poetic, answer: it’s from the place she came. And the dirt that's added? It’s to the place she is going. This isn't just about judgment; it's about origins and destinations, life and death. As the Mishna Avot 3:1 reminds us, we come from a putrid drop, and we return to a place of dust, maggots, and worms. Heavy stuff. "Shall write," it says, suggesting this is all before Him, before the One to whom she is destined to give a reckoning. It’s a reminder, as we find in Mishna Avot 3:1, that we are all accountable for our actions. But what curses are written? Not every single one in the Torah, just "these" – the specific curses relevant to the situation. And why a priest specifically? Because the verse disqualifies any Israelite from performing the ritual. It has to be done by the kohen, the priest. And it must be on a scroll, not just any piece of paper.

Then comes that evocative phrase: "erase it in the…water." This detail sparks a story, a powerful anecdote involving Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Zekharya, the son-in-law of Rabbi Levi, recounts an incident: Rabbi Meir, a renowned sage, used to preach every Shabbat (the Sabbath) eve. One time, a woman lingered, captivated by his words. Returning home late, she found her candle extinguished and faced her husband’s wrath. He demanded she spit in the preacher’s face as punishment.

Rabbi Meir, through Divine intuition (Ruach HaKodesh), understood the situation. He feigned an eye ailment and asked if any woman knew an incantation to heal it. The woman, seeing an opportunity to appease her husband, approached Rabbi Meir. He instructed her to spit in his eye seven times. Afterward, he told her to inform her husband that she had spat not once, but seven times.

His students were shocked! How could he, a great Torah scholar, allow such disrespect? Shouldn't they have punished the husband? Rabbi Meir’s response is stunning. He said, "The honor of Meir shall not be greater than the honor of his Maker. If regarding the sacred Name that is written in sanctity, the verse says that it should be erased in the water in order to impose peace between a husband and his wife, all the more so, the honor of Meir."

Think about the weight of that statement. The very name of God, written in holiness, can be erased to bring peace between a husband and wife. How much more, then, should we be willing to sacrifice our own honor for the sake of peace? It prioritizes shalom bayit, peace in the home, above personal pride and even perceived justice.

Finally, the text touches on the "water of bitterness" itself. Shmuel’s father points out that the water must already contain something bitter, fulfilling the verse’s description. It’s not just water; it's water infused with a bitter essence. Perhaps a physical manifestation of the bitterness of betrayal, of suspicion, of the whole terrible situation.

So, what does it all mean? The ritual of the sotah, as interpreted by Bamidbar Rabbah, is far more than a simple test of guilt or innocence. It’s a meditation on origins and endings, on accountability and forgiveness, and, ultimately, on the paramount importance of peace. It challenges us to consider what we're willing to sacrifice for harmony, and reminds us that sometimes, the greatest act of holiness is the erasure of our own ego.

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