Parashat Matot-Mas'ei
PARSHA-PIX At the top-right is a graphic of a father blessing his daughter. To their left is a married couple. Both pictures represent HAFARAT NEDARIM, the special situations that the Torah provides for a father to annul the vows of his young daughter (12-12½ years of age) and for a husband to annul his wife's vows - that affect him. In either case, the canceling of the vow can only be accomplished on the day the father or husband hears (of) it. 12000 x a soldier (the silhouette) is the military force drafted to fight against Midyan. That battle being successful, the army came home with much booty. the spoils of war were to be divided evenly between the people and the soldiers, each giving a percentage to the kohanim. The pairs of sheep, cows, and donkey represent the splitting of the booty. The map of Israel indicates a 3 on either side of the Jordan River. These stand for the AREI MIKLAT, cities of refuge, that G-d commanded us to set up in the Eretz Yisrael. Note that it was 3 cities for two and a half tribes and 3 cities for nine and a half tribes. that hardy seems like an even distribution. Commentaries say that there was propaortionally more need for IR MIKLAT on the east side of the Jordan. The other map of Israel is "connected" to the pyramids of Egypt by a hodge-podge of arrows, point everywhich way. These are the travels of Bnei Yisrael as enumerated in the beginning of Parshat Mas'ei. And finally, we come to the other married couple - this time multiplied by 5. This stands for the marriages of the 5 daughters of Tzelafchad, who married within their tribe so that the land they received would not become the territory of another Shevet. Had any of them married out (Shevet-wise) and had a son, he would be from the tribe of his father and would eventually inherit his mother's land. Problem. [The ParshaPix Index] [The
Matot-Mas'ei Homepage]
This site maintained by Avi Kehat. email: avik@iname.com |
