Yehoshua's Mizbei'ach and that of the 2½ Tribes Related? Absolutely! But first, a bit of background. Through the millennia, the great leaders of Am Yisrael intuitively grasped the importance of national unity. Our greatest leader, Moshe Rabeinu, the "sheepherder" of an obstreperous and ungrateful people, managed to lead them through the wilderness for forty years. He, more than anyone else, was familiar with Am Yisrael's proclivity for dissension and mutiny. At the very gates of the Promised Land, two of the tribes, Reuven and Gad (later joined by half of Menashe), after having shared Am Yisrael's vicissitudes during the long trek through the wilderness, abruptly announced that they did not want to cross the Jordan and enter Eretz Yisrael at all! Their multitudinous sheep and goats were happy just where they were. Moshe was furious. (Try to imagine what was going through Moshe's mind on a personal level when he first heard this! Think of it! G-d had denied his most impassioned wish, to "cross and see the good land that is on the other side of the Jordan" (D'varim 3:25) and suddenly, he is faced with whole tribes who "liked money and [therefore] preferred to live outside of Eretz Yisrael" [Bamidbar Rabba 22:7,8]). He angrily accused them of preferring the lush green grass of Transjordania to the hardships of the long and arduous campaign that awaited Am Yisrael on the other side of the river. He cried out in anguish (Bamidbar 32:6,7), "Shall your brothers go out to war and you will sit here? Why do you dissuade the heart of the Children of Israel from crossing to the land that G-d has given them?" In the end, happily, the crises "blew over". The representatives of the "wayward" tribes assured Moshe that even if their families and livestock did remain in the Gil'ad, their fighting men would cross the Jordan and participate in the coming war of conquest. They would not let their brothers down. They solemnly promised, "We will not return to our homes until the Children of Israel will inherit - every man his inheritance…" True to their word, they placed themselves in the vanguard of the advancing Israelite armies. The "expeditionary units" of the two and a half tribes acquitted themselves so well on the field of battle and their military discipline was so superlative, that at the conclusion of the war, Moshe's successor, Yehoshua bin Nun, blessed them and even wished them economic success before giving them an "honorable discharge" (Yehoshua 22:6). However, on their way home, as they approached the Jordan River, a strange thing happened. "And when they came to the region about the Jordan, that is in the land of Cana'an, the Children of Reuven, and the Children of Gad and the half-tribe of Menashe built there an altar by the Jordan, a great altar to look upon" (Yehoshua 22:10). Conscious of the vulnerability of their nation, both religiously and politically, the other tribes reacted sharply. "And when the Children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the Children of Israel gathered themselves to Shilo to go against them to war." We noted last week the source of the ban on Bamot - "private field altars" (Vayikra 17:3, 4) and why this prohibition was relaxed ata time when, for one reason or another, the Bama Gedola - the Mizbei'ach of the central sanctuary - and the Aron HaBrit were "separated". While the Mishkan was in Gilgal, Kohanim together with the Aron accompanied the Israelite armies in the field. When Yehoshua, in fulfillment of Moshe's command (D'varim 27:5,6), erected a Mizbei'ach on Har Eival (Yehoshua 8:30,31), he deliberately built his altar in such a way that it was inherently unfit to be used as a Bama Gedola. Yehoshua's altar was a Hora'at Sha'a (a "special case") and nothing more. The reason why Yehoshua built the Mizbei'ach on Har Eival and offered Korbanot thereon was to emphasize the extreme importance of the "ceremony of the blessings and curses". Originally ordained by Moshe (D'varim 27:11-26), this awesome ceremony, performed by all Am Yisrael in the presence of the Aron HaBrit, was conceived as a sort of a reenactment of Ma'amad Har Sinai. However, Yehoshua's altar and these "ad hoc" sacrifices were not meant to replace or undermine in any way the authenticity of the Mishkan, the nation's central sanctuary, then at Gilgal. After Eretz Yisrael was conquered and divided among the tribes, the Mishkan was relocated to Shilo and the Aron HaBrit was "reunited" with the newly built national altar. That condition fulfilled, the ban on private Bamot was renewed. When "the children of Israel heard say, 'Behold the children of Reuven, the children of Gad and the half tribe of Menashe have built an altar", the "children of Israel" could only view such behavior as rebellion. This was true even after they had witnessed the sterling performance of the "Transjordanians" on the battlefield. They demanded, "What treachery is this that you have committed against the G-d of Israel, to turn away this day from following the Lord, in that you have built an altar…?" Happily, this crisis also "blew over" and the Transjordanians were able to convince "the congregation of the Lord", that their altar was not for sacrifice and "treachery". Au contraire, the faithful tribes of the Gil'ad conceived of their altar as a memorial expressing their hope that even though they lived on the other side of the Jordan, they would continue to be thought of as an integral part of Am Yisrael. Maybe their choice of design was defective, but their hearts were certainly pure. Shilo would remain the only legitimate sanctuary of all Israel on both sides of the Jordan. From Reuven Brauner, Ra'anana: "When will we learn that holocaust-deniers, Temple-deniers etc. are all out to delegitimize us? They come from without and within. It is truly unnerving to realize that there are such small-minded Jew-haters out there and that they will do anything to deny us a place on this planet. Quite a few imaginative "archaeologists" with political agendas of their own have real problems when they are faced with something as real as Yehoshua's Mizbei'ach. I suppose that if a 'modern archaeologist' of that ilk excavated Ground Zero, the site the World Trade Center, he would have to come to the undeniable conclusion that it never actually existed. The documentary evidence? The photographs and films? They must have been digitally altered. The millions of eyewitnesses? Delusional. Brainwashed. They must have all been from some fanatic religious cult. The people who designed and built them? A solar myth…" Catriel's book in progress: The Temple of Jerusalem, A Pilgrim’s Perspective; A Guided Tour through the Temple and the Divine Service [The
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