Parshas Chukas

In this week’s portion’s final two chapters, the Jewish nation is attacked by the
world’s two most powerful leaders, Sichon, King of the Emori, and Og, king of Bashan,
whom the Jews handily defeated. When the Jewish people merely asked Sichon
permission to traverse his land as a short-cut into Israel, Sichon gathered his troops and
came out to war with them. In Og’s case, as soon as the Jewish people entered the
vicinity of Bashan, Og and his whole nation also came out fighting.

The Torah sees poetic justice in the war with Sichon and actually creates a poem for it
(Numbers 21:27-30):

(כז) עַל כֵּן יֹאמְרוּ הַמּשְׁלִים בֹּאוּ חֶשְׁבּוֹן תִּבָּנֶה וְתִכּוֹנֵן עִיר סִיחוֹן.
(כח) כִּי אֵשׁ יָצְאָה מֵחֶשְׁבּוֹן לֶהָבָה מִקִּרְיַת סִיחֹן אָכְלָה עָר מוֹאָב בַּעֲלֵי בָּמוֹת אַרְנֹן.
(כט) אוֹי לְךָ מוֹאָב אָבַדְתָּ עַם כְּמוֹשׁ נָתַן בָּנָיו פְּלֵיטִם וּבְנֹתָיו בַּשְּׁבִית לְמֶלֶךְ אֱמֹרִי סִיחוֹן.
(ל) וַנִּירָם אָבַד חֶשְׁבּוֹן עַד דִּיבֹן וַנַּשִּׁים עַד נֹפַח אֲשֶׁר עַד מֵידְבָא.

27) Regarding this the poets would say:
Come to Heshbon – let it be built and established as Sichon’s city
28) For fire has come forth from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sichon,
It consumed Ar of Moav, the masters of Arnon’s heights.
29) Woe to you, Moav, you are lost, people of Chemosh
He made his sons fugitives and his daughters captives of the king of the Amorite,
Sichon.

30) Their sovereignty over Heshbon was lost; it was removed from Dibon, and was laid
waste to Nophah, which reaches up to Medebah.
What does this poem mean? The Sages explain.
When Sichon wanted to conquer Moav, he felt that he could not succeed, for
Moav was very mighty. To guarantee a victory, he sought the help of the evil Bilaam who
cursed them. Bilaam’s curse proved effective, and Sichon conquered Moav.
Sichon’s victory seemed secure and immutable, but, in the end, the Jewish
nation handily routed him and his entire powerful nation. There was something that
Sichon did not know: Hashem had commanded the Jewish people not to conquer Moav.
Hashem had given Moav their territory as a gift, a token of appreciation to their ancestor
Lot. When Avraham traveled to Egypt because of the famine in Israel, he told Pharoah
that Sarah was his sister, not his wife. He did this because he was afraid that because
of Sarah’s beauty, Pharoah would kill him so that he could take her for his wife. Lot who
loved money and stood to gain great wealth for providing the king with a beautiful new
wife, was tempted to spill the beans. With great effort, he overcame his great urge, and
did not reveal Avraham’s secret. Because Hashem rewards every good deed, He
commanded the Jewish people not to conquer the lands of Lot’s two children, Amon
and Moav as a reward to Lot. But now that Sichon had taken it over, the Jewish nation
was permitted to conquer it. In retrospect, Sichon was just the pawn that enabled the
Jewish nation to take control of the land.
Here lies the lesson for the poets (verse 27).
In this case the poet is Bilaam whom the Torah called a poet (Numbers 23:7,18).
Let Bilaam, who thought that he did Sichon the greatest favor by cursing Moav –
giving Sichon the victory – see that from the onset, Sichon was destined to lose his
fortified and powerful city Heshbon to the Jewish nation.
27) Come to Heshbon – let it be built and established as the city of Sichon.
Sichon made Cheshbon his capital city, and from it he waged all of his wars.
Rashi comments:

רש”י על במדבר פרק כא פסוק כג
ויצא לקראת ישראל – אילו היתה חשבון מלאה יתושין אין כל בריה יכולה לכבשה ואם היה סיחון
בכפר חלש אין כל אדם יכול לכבשו וכ”ש אלו היה בחשבון. אמר הקב”ה מה אני מטריח על בני כל זאת
לצור על כל עיר ועיר נתן בלב כל אנשי המלחמה לצאת מן העיירות ונתקבצו כולם למקום אחד ושם נפלו
ומשם הלכו ישראל אל הערים ואין עומד לנגדם כי אין שם איש אלא נשים וטף:

If the city of Cheshbon was occupied by flies, it would still have been impossible
to breach it, it was so fortified. And if Sichon dwelled in a weak village, he would have
been impossible to conquer, he was so powerful. So, for sure Sichon in Cheshbon
would have been doubly impossible. Hashem said, why should I bother the Jewish
people to siege each of the cities? Instead, Hashem put it in their minds to come out of
their cities to one place and fight Israel there. The Bnai Yisrael vanquished them and
then they proceeded to conquer the cities where there was no one to oppose them.
28) For Fire has come forth from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sichon,
It consumed Ar of Moab, the masters of Arnon’s heights. One would have thought
that he would occupy it forever. However, Their sovereignty over Heshbon was lost,
(it was removed from Dibon, and was laid waste to Nophah, which reaches up to
Medebah) because of Bnai Yisrael.
Moav also learned a lesson here.
Placing all their trust in their god Chemosh, they thought that they were
invincible. But all that their “god” did for them was leave their sons fugitives and
daughters captives to Sichon. [Woe to you, Moab, you are lost, people of Chemosh. He
made his sons fugitives and his daughters captives of the king of the Amorite, Sichon].
This is the simple understanding of the poem.
The Sages provide a deeper lesson in this poem.
The Torah was given with four levels of understanding. The first letter of each
level forms an acronym called פרד״ס. The פ stands for פשט –Pshat – which means the
simple meaning in context. Theר stands forרמז – Remez- which means hints, such as
gematria – numerical equivalencies – which hint to a deeper textual meanings. The
דstands for דרוש – Drush – which means lessons that can be exegetically derived from
the text. In the drush mode, words may be taken out of context and analyzed on their
own to teach a lesson that does not necessarily flow from the verse. The ס stands
forסוד -Sod- which means a secret or mystical approach to understanding.
The Sages taught a lesson, a drush, from this poem in the Torah. In Tractate
Baba Batra 78b, our Rabbis tell us.
א”ר שמואל בר נחמן א”ר יוחנן מאי דכתיב על כן יאמרו המושלים וגו’ המושלים אלו המושלים ביצרם
בואו חשבון בואו ונחשב חשבונו של עולם הפסד מצוה כנגד שכרה ושכר עבירה כנגד הפסדה תבנה
ותכונן אם אתה עושה כן תבנה בעולם הזה ותכונן לעולם הבא
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan (quoting this poem)
Therefore the rulers should say, these are those who rule over their evil inclination.
Come to Heshbon come and let’s make the calculations of eternity – the loss of a
mitzvah compared to the reward for it, and the reward for a sin, compared to the loss it

brings. If you do this, you will be built strong in this world and you will be well
established in the world to come.
This drasha is derived by using different meanings for some of the verse’s words.
In the simple contextual translation, the מושלים were poets, whereas in this
interpretation they are rulers. Both are correct interpretations of the word. In the simple
contextual translation, Heshbon was the name of the city that formerly belonged to
Moav and was captured by Sichon, whereas, in this drasha, it is translated as a
calculation, also a correct meaning of the word. (In both cases, the underlying Hebrew
root carries multiple meanings.)
The question we need to answer is where is this drasha coming from? Does it
have anything to do with the story in the text?
Our Sages explain that these two ideas are very deeply connected.
When Sichon conquered Moav and Ammon, he had no idea that he was simply a
pawn for the Jewish people and that his success was really his undoing. Similarly, when
the evil inclination convinces a person to avail himself of something that he should not,
and he feels like he has received a bonus, something extra, in reality he is only setting
himself up for a punishment, as he will have to pay for the sin that he has committed.
Therefore, our Sages advise us to make a simple calculation and to think
carefully before you act. Should a mitzvah present itself, and you feel too lazy to do it
thinking that you will go easy on yourself, make the simple calculation of how much you
will lose if you let the mitzvah slip away versus how much reward you will gain if you
perform it. Yes, not doing it may feel good now, but later, when you see how much
reward you lost by squandering the opportunity, it will be very painful. Is the moment of
rest from the mitzvah really worth all the reward that you are forfeiting?
Similarly, is the fleeting pleasure experienced by indulging in a forbidden
pleasure for the thrill of the moment worth transgressing Hashem’s law and setting
yourself up for punishment? True, it’s delicious now, but how will you feel about it later
when the punishment arrives?
The Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisroel Meir Hakohen Kagan (d. 1933), adds an
additional element to the calculation.
A mitzvah’s reward is eternal, while the benefit in this world is fleeting. Can the
immediate sensation of the pleasure of this world begin to compare to an eternity of the
most sublime reward in the World to Come?
To help us appreciate the notion of “eternity,” our Sages give us the following
metaphor. Imagine a sand dune covering the earth as far as you can see. There are
trillions and trillions of grains of sand in that dune. If, every thousand years, a bird came

by and took away one grain of sand, it would take a seeming eternity for the bird to clear
away all the sand in the dune. The reality however is, that as long as that would take, it
would, in terms of eternity, only be but a moment.
How could we let the moment of pleasure we experience here override the
eternity of pleasure we will receive in the World to Come? Just a little thought should be
enough to help us make the right decisions in our life to keep Hashem’s Torah to the
letter.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato in his book Path of the Just adds an extra element
to the Talmud’s teaching. He explains that a person should dedicate time every day to
review and analyze his actions to determine where he went off and where he can
improve himself. This is the only sure path to self-perfection.

ספר מסילת ישרים פרק ג – בבאור חלקי הזהירות
כללו של דבר יהיה האדם מעיין על מעשיו כולם, ומפקח על כל דרכיו שלא להניח לעצמו הרגל רע ומדה
רעה, כל שכן עבירה ופשע. והנני רואה צורך לאדם שיהיה מדקדק ושוקל דרכיו דבר יום ביומו כסוחרים
הגדולים אשר יפלסו תמיד כל עסקיהם למען לא יתקלקלו, ויקבע עתים ושעות לזה שלא יהיה משקלו
עראי, אלא בקביעות גדול, כי רב התולדה הוא. וחכמים זכרונם לברכה הורונו בפירוש צורך החשבון הזה,
והוא מה שאמרו ז”ל (בבא בתרא עח) על כן יאמרו המושלים בואו חשבון על כן יאמרו המושלים ביצרם,
בואו ונחשב חשבונו של עולם, הפסד מצוה כנגד שכרה ושכר עברה כנגד הפסדה וכו
A person should look into all of his actions and supervise all of his ways very
carefully, not letting himself keep a wrong habit or poor character quality, and for sure
not to do a sin. I see a need for a person to daily inspect and weigh his ways. Like
successful merchants who are constantly evaluating their business to make sure that it
doesn’t falter, he sets a special time for this so that his evaluation is not a fleeting thing,
but, rather, a very serious matter. Because this will have great benefits. And the Sages
have taught this to us in the statement in the Talmud (Baba Batra 78b). “Therefore, the
rulers should say,” these are those who rule over their evil inclination. “Come to
Heshbon,” come and let’s make the calculations of eternity – the loss of a mitzvah
compared to the reward for it, and the reward for a sin, compared to the loss it brings.
In explaining the metaphor of the Sages in the story of Sichon and Moav, Rabbi
Yonasan Eibeshitz has a different lesson, a variation on a theme.
Moav was strong and fortified such that Sichon should have been unable to
conquer it. So, how did he do it? It was through the city Heshbon. The king of Moav
didn’t consider the small city of Heshbon near the border of his land very important and
he didn’t fortify it properly. First Sichon captured Heshbon, this “unimportant” city, and
then he used it as a platform to launch his attacks on the rest of Moav, eventually taking
over the entire land.

This is one of the tactics that the evil inclination uses to conquer us and push us
to do things that we are not supposed to do. He picks a matter that we do not consider
too important and hence do not protect ourselves from, and then, after we have
transgressed that, he leverages it to take us to the next level and do other more
grievous sins.
This is the lesson we should learn from Sichon: how to protect ourselves from the
tactics of the evil inclination. We need to make a calculation before we act and not be
fooled to let the little things go by.
We need to realize more fundamentally that there are no little things. Everything
that Hashem commands us to do is important, and its reward is eternal.
When thinking about it rationally, we wonder how an intelligent person could
forgo the great reward that Hashem has in store for us for the fleeting pleasure of the
moment. Yet this is the “nature of the beast,” the human being. This is where Rabbi
Luzzato’s suggestion comes in. The trick is to think about how to respond to the
challenge before the moment of challenge and decide the path of action that we are
going to take when next confronted with a test.
If taken to heart, this small calculation can make a tremendous change in our
lives.
Our Sages teach us that our purpose in this world is to stand up to the
challenges of the evil inclination and reap reward in the World to Come for making the
correct choices. The choice is always between doing what Hashem wants us to do
versus what we want to do. If we defer our personal wishes in favor of Hashem’s, we
will be incalculably rewarded in the world to come.
As we look at our world today, we see much confusion and a myriad of options to
follow each step of the way. Every person thinks that he has it all figured out and that he
has figured out the right path to follow. As Jews we have to be so thankful that we have
the Torah, Hashem’s handbook for man on this planet, to guide us. The Torah contains
the perfect balance of spirituality and pleasure for a human being. We have clear
instructions on what is good for us and what is not. We are able to steer clear of the
pitfalls and stumbling blocks that threaten to trip a person up in his path in life. It
behooves us to follow the advice of Rabbi Chaim Luzzato to set aside time to think
about this for ourselves. The results will be extremely impactful.

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