Bamidbar: The Canaanites Weren’t Supposed to Die (UNEDITED VERSION)

The first Sforno on this week's parashah sheds a whole new light on the alternate history of Israel and the world, were it not for one fatal national error.

Jun 07, 2024

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Note: I really, REALLY hate to do this, but early Shabbos starts in 90 minutes and I have SOOO much I need to do! Since I won’t be able to finish this today, or work on it again until Tuesday morning, I’m going to post an unedited version, then update it later on. When I say “unedited,” I MEAN unedited. I have NOT proofread this, and it’s incomplete. Treat this as a 70% done version. I’m also not going to post an audio recording because I simply don’t have time. Hopefully, this is better than nothing!

Bamidbar: The Canaanites Weren’t Supposed to Die (UNEDITED VERSION)

The obligation to annihilate the Seven Canaanite nations is one of the more difficult mitzvos to morally justify:

But from the cities of these peoples that Hashem, your God, gives you as an inheritance, you shall not allow any person to live. Rather, you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivvite, and Jebusite, as Hashem, your God, has commanded you, so that they will not teach you to act according to all their abominations that they performed for their gods, so that you will sin to Hashem, your God. (Devarim 20:16-18)
Granted, we offer to make peace with them first, but if they don’t accept our offer or they don’t agree to keep the Seven Noahide Laws, then we “do not let any soul live” (ibid. 20:15; see Hilchos Melachim u’Milchamos 6:4).

Until this week, I was under the impression that the annihilation of the Canaanite nations was part of Hashem’s plan all along. Then I saw the Sforno’s first comment on Sefer Bamidbar (1:2):

“Take a census of the entire assembly" to organize them so that they would enter the land immediately, each man under his flag, without the need for war, as the nations would vacate before them, as some did, as testified by the verse: “like the forsaking by the children of Israel of the forest and the mountaintop” (Isaiah 17:9). Perhaps there were families of the Girgashites, about whom our Sages said they vacated on their own. Due to the Cheit ha’Meraglim (Sin of the Spies), however, the seven nations increased their wickedness during the forty years, necessitating their annihilation.

The idea that Israel might have achieved their conquest of the Land “without the need for war” might already be familiar to some from Rashi’s comment on Devarim 1:8:

come and possess [the Land] – There is no one who will contest the matter, and you will not need to [wage] war. If they hadn’t sent the spies, they wouldn’t have needed weapons. (see also Sifrei ibid., which is even more poetic: “When you enter the Land, you will not need weapons – only compasses and rulers, to divide [the Land]”)

I naively imagined this to mean that Israel would miraculously defeat the Canaanite nations without weapons, just as Egypt was brought down through the Ten Plagues and the splitting of the sea. It never occurred to me that the Seven Nations would have fled on their own initiative and obviated the need for their annihilation.

Sforno is consistent. At the high point of Sefer Bamidbar, before things get really bad, the Torah paints a picture of what should have happened: “It came to pass, when the Ark traveled, Moshe said: ‘Arise, Hashem, and let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee from before You!’” (Bamidbar 10:35). Sforno explains:

It came to pass, when the ark set forward – to enter the Land of Israel. "Rise up, Hashem, and let Your enemies be scattered" – for indeed, had they not sent the spies, they would have entered without war, as the nations would have fled “like the abandonment of the forest and the hilltop that they abandoned because of the children of Israel.”

This reaction is understandable, considering how all the surrounding nations reacted to the news of Egypt’s defeat at the “strong hand” of Hashem. The Song at Sea (Shemos 15:14-15) tells us how Canaan reacted:

The peoples heard; they shuddered. Writhing took hold of the dwellers of Philistia. Then the chiefs of Edom were terrified; trembling took hold of the leaders of Moav.⁠ All the inhabitants of Canaan melted away [with fear].

But to my mind, the most shocking aspect of Sforno’s interpretation is not that the Canaanites would have fled without war, but that the Cheit ha’Eigel resulted in the Canaanites becoming even more evil, and that is why they had to be killed. R’ Yehudah Cooperman, in his commentary on Sforno (Bamibdar 1:2, footnote 10), explains:

The sin of the spies was not only an affront to Heaven on the part of the Israelites (“for they are stronger than we”), but it also caused the inhabitants of the land of Canaan to continue sinning to the extent that they became liable for destruction. Thus, the annihilation of the seven nations is attributed to the Israelites' sin in the episode of the spies. The source and foundation for [Sforno’s] approach (following the Sifrei) that, had it not been for the sin of the spies, the Israelites would have entered the land and conquered it without weapons, is in Bereishis Rabbah, Parasha 3, Section 5: “Rabbi Simon said: 'The word "light" is mentioned five times [in the account of creation], corresponding to the five books of the Torah ... "And God separated the light from the darkness" corresponds to Sefer Bamidbar, which separates those who left Egypt from those who entered the Land.’” This means that the generation that left Egypt (before the sin of the Golden Calf and the sin of the spies) is at the level of "light," compared to the generation entering the Land, which is at the level of "darkness." While divine providence over the generation that left Egypt (and consequently over the generation that would enter the Land, had they not sinned) was manifest (“light”) due to their high level, the providence over the generation entering the land was lower (“darkness” compared to 'light').

According to R’ Cooperman, the Cheit ha’Meraglim had two effects: it enabled the Canaanites to continue their deterioration, and it resulted in a lower level of hashgachah pratis (divine providence) over the Israelites, which necessitated a natural conquest through war instead of a miraculous one.

This is consistent with my understanding of Sforno as I discussed in my shiur entitled, "Hashem Decreed the Egyptian Slavery?! God Forbid!" (available in video and audio). Sforno maintains that the Isralites were never supposed to be enslaved in Egypt in the first place. The original Divine plan was for Yaakov and his sons to come down to Egypt where they would develop into a nation. They would remain in Egypt, spreading the light of Hashem’s path to the Egyptians in a peaceful coexistence, until the time came for them to enter the Land. Why couldn’t they enter before that? The Torah explicitly answers: “And the fourth generation will return here, because the iniquity of the Emorites (i.e. Canaanites) is not yet complete" (Bereishis 15:16). Hashem isn’t going to just drive a nation out of its homeland unless they deserve it. The Canaanite society continued to degenerate, but wouldn’t reach the point of no return until the fourth generation, at which point, Israel would march in and the Canaanites would flee. However, as a result of the Cheit ha’Meraglim, “the pot remained on the kettle and continued to boil” – that is, the Canaanites continued to become more and more corrupt over the forty years we spent in the Wilderness, and by the time we arrived, war was a necessity. The terrifying aura around Israel from the Exodus had largely worn off, the Israelites were on such a low level that they no longer merited a miraculous conquest, and the Canaanites were so steeped in their evil that they chose war instead of peace or retreat.

I am reminded of the words of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (a.k.a. “The Rav”) in his commentary on the opening scene of Megilas Esther (Megillat Esther Mesorat Harav, p.56):

The Jew is involved in events which at the outset seemed to have no relevance to him. When the curtain rises on Act I of the drama, we see on the stage a half-drunk mob feasting, indulging, and passing judgment on the beauty of the women. As events progress, we see a proud queen refusing to obey the order issued by her lord and master and the punishment which was meted out to her. Prima facie, these events are of no relevance to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who lived in the Persian empire. However, as we continue reading, we discover the significance of these events and their relatedness to our people. The conclusion is obvious. There are no neutral events in human history which the Jew may dismiss as irrelevant. The Jew is totally involved in all events and in all major struggles. Even now, the future welfare of the Jew is dependent upon the outcome of the titanic struggle between East and West. Even the final redemption of our people will be precipitated by the apocalyptic battle between Gog and Magog. Providence involves the Jew in great events. Willy nilly, the Jew plays his part on the universal historical stage.

It is easy to read this passage in an egotistically ethnocentric (read: Judeocentric) manner, that we are the most important nation on earth, and everything revolves around us. But this does not present us with a full picture. Our role on the stage of history cuts both ways. Sometimes, we are follow in the footsteps of the Avos and are “as a light unto nations” (Yeshayahu 51:4) which moves humanity forward. Other times, our own national flaws result in a chain reaction of catastrophes which set humanity back for centuries, if not millennia. What might have happened if we went straight into Israel without the sin of the spies, led by Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam, and established the system of Torah as it was intended? What if there had been no destruction of the First Beis ha’Mikdash, no Babylonian Exile, no building and destruction of the Second, and so on? How far might we have progressed?

But one terrible national misstep resulted in a 40-year delay, which in turn, resulted in years of war which fomented hostilities with our neighbors and created snares for our own people, which in turn, led to even more national sins, which ultimately led to countless other national tragedies for our people and impeded progress for the entire world. This is the meaning of Chazal’s elaboration of the consequences of the Cheit ha’Meraglim:

“And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried” (Bamidbar 14:1). Rabba says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: That day was the eve of the Ninth of Av, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, said: On that day they wept a gratuitous weeping, so I will establish that day for them as a day of weeping for the future generations.

To my mind, this Sforno sheds light on why the Cheit ha’Meraglim is the real tragedy we commemorate on Tishah b’Av. His commentary enables us to connect the dots from that cheit to the events that follow. This is a theme I’d like to explore further when we get to Parashas Shelach, and on Tishah b’Av.

Let me know what you think!

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