We are entering the final 2 parshiyot of Bamidbar (Numbers) with our double portion of Mattot-Masei!!! Crazy!!!
If you’ve been paying attention, the word we commonly use to refer to the 12 tribes of Israel is “shevet” (plural shvatim). Like Shevet Levi, Shevet Menashe, etc. But in the first of this week’s 2 parshiyot, the word used to refer to the tribes is “mateh” (plural Mattot - the name of the parsha). The parsha begins with Moshe speaking to the heads of the tribes (Rashei HaMattot) about the laws of making oaths or vows - nedarim.
Let’s look a bit deeper into the significance of these two words. Shevet or שֵׁבֶט can refer to tribe, yes, but can also also mean “branch,” as in the branch of a tree. Mateh, or מַטֶּה, can refer to tribe, yes, but it also can mean “stick,” or what an offshoot of a tree becomes when it dries out.
What’s the difference between a green offshoot (shevet) and a brown stick (mateh)? Well they’re both from the same source.
There is a nice idea that every soul that has ever and will ever exist was present at the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. That everyone who exists now is lit within by one of the 600,000 souls that heard G-d at Matan Torah. This inner spark is what we call the “Pintele Yid” or the essential point of Judaism. (When I first heard this, the image that came to mind a tiny Jew that, for some reason, looked like the Lucky Charms leprechaun, living within all of us). Ok so we all have this inner spark, lit by the source fire - G-d.
So a mateh and a shevet originated with the One Tree, but a shevet (branch) retains its vitality and flexibiliy while a mateh (stick) becomes dried out and brittle. Though a branch can be swayed by the wind, a stick stands strong through its trials.
The branch (shevet) still retains some of the lifeblood of the tree within it, and therefore represents a person who retains connection with G-d and recognizes G-d’s involvement in their lives. The stick (mateh), though, has been uprooted. The stick represents all of us in the diaspora, gallus / gallut — removed from G-d to an extent.
Both the branch and the stick have their points of strength, and both represent two different kinds of religious lives. A malleable branch will do just fine if in temperate weather, just as even the most tenuously connected Jew feels connection to G-d when in a place like Israel. And a stick, though in a Jewish desert such as [insert your city here] has learned to withstand the influences of those around us out of a sink-or-swim reality.
It’s no coincidence that we usually read Mattot during the saddest time of year for Jews - the Three Weeks (Bein HaMetzarim, between the straits). This is a period bookended by two fast days where we mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Our exile from Israel began with the destruction of the Temples, so we associate gallut / the diaspora with this time. We enter the most intense mourning this coming week with the beginning of the Hebrew month of Av this coming Saturday - the Nine Days.
Cont’d…
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