Parshat Matot tells of the war our people waged against Midian, while Parshat Masei recounts the journeys of the Jewish people from their exile in Egypt until they reached the banks of the Jordan preparing to enter Israel.
Midian stands for the spiritual counterpart of friction and strife, a person who is focused on himself. He is selfishly obsessed to the extent that he loses all proportion of the situation in which he is found.
Before entering Israel, there has to be a war with Midian. Israel is a place where G-d's presence is openly revealed. And when a person is focused on his own self, there is no way in which he can appreciate G-d. He certainly cannot sense the G-dliness which resides within other people and which exists in every element of the world around him. Before the Jews can enter Israel, the holy land, where G-dliness is to be the focus of their lives, they must rid themselves first of this type of self-concern.
How appropriate that this is read now in the Three Weeks which focus on the mourning for the destruction of the Temple. The goal of this period of mourning is not merely to shed tears over the past, but to focus on the future, to realize the spiritual faults that led to the exile, and to correct them so that the Redemption will come.
Our Sages teach that the Temple was destroyed because of unfounded hatred, the kind of bickering and strife that is associated with Midian. It follows that by ridding ourselves of this friction and conflict through self-sacrificing love, we can eradicate the cause of the exile.
The emphasis on love and unity during these three weeks should not focus merely on undoing the wrongs of the past. On the contrary, we should be future-oriented.
The Era of the Redemption will be characterized by peace and love and by expressing these emotions at the present time, we anticipate and precipitate that future era.
Shabbat Shalom!
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