פרשת מטות

פרשת מטות

            In this week's Parsha the Children of Reuven and of Gad wanted to stay in the land outside of Eretz Yisroel. The reason for this was because the land that was outside was better for them to feed their cattle on. They approached Moshe and said “pens for our flock shall we build here for our flocks and for our small children”. A few pasukim later Moshe agrees to let them live there and says to them “The land will be for your small children and for your cattle”. Rashi says that when the children of Reuven and Gad originally came to Moshe to ask about the land they were wrong about the order.

            This looks pretty bad on their part. Can it be that they cared more about the money than they did of their children?

            Honestly I don’t believe that. Let's try to look at this in a positive way. The parents who went to talk to Moshe were not just worried about the money. Of course they care about their families, but in order to be able to take care of them, they needed to be able to make the money for them. However, over here, that was a mistake. They wanted this land in order to set up a living for themselves so that they could provide for their families.

By Moshe flipping around the order, he was telling them “even though you may have your priorities correct, right now, you need to be more concerned for your family. You need to build up the land for your families first and then, when you are finished with that, you can set up your business.

            We should all keep this in mind during this period of the three weeks. As much as we need to work in order to make money and provide for our families. We also need to work on caring for our families as a nation. Hopefully with our work we will be able to bring the geula soon!

Have an Amazing Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman