Our guest author this week is Rabbinic Intern Shawn Weiss, Ziegler Rabbinical School student and Alumni Fellow of the Flesh Family Sinai Temple Israel Center Rabbinical School Fellowship.

Gad and Reuben didn’t think of themselves as the first diaspora Jews. When we meet them in this week’s parshah, they have found suitable land for their people and livestock. The only problem: the land they want is across the River Jordan and not in the promised land itself. They tell Moses and plead: “Do not move us across the Jordan.”

Moses is not pleased. Gad and Reuben seem to be flagrantly rejecting God’s promise of the land, for which so many of their fellow Israelites have perished and suffered. They seem willing to give up the promise, as if it were nothing. “Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here?” Moses thunders. 

Instead of whimpering off into the distance, the Reubenites and Gadites “step up” (va-yiggeshu, meaning to beseech in a personal, intimate way) and they propose a counter-offer. We will be your shock-troops, they tell Moses, your front-line soldiers in the battle for Canaan. Only when the battle is won and “every one of the Israelites is in possession of their portion,” will we return to our new home.   

This is a significant offer. What this says to Moses is that even though we will not be living with you in the land of Israel, we will lay our lives on the line, shoulder-to-shoulder, soul-to-soul, with our Israelite brothers and sisters. Because that’s how strong out bond is, between those of us who live in the land and those of us who do not.  Moses accepts their compromise, a template for us today. The Jewish people may live outside the land so long as they remember that no matter where we live, no matter how far apart we may be geographically, we are one people, sharing a common fate, indivisible in the eyes of God. 

Moses accepts their compromise, a template for us today. The Jewish people may live outside the land so long as they remember that no matter where we live, no matter how far apart we may be geographically, we are one people, sharing a common fate, indivisible in the eyes of God.