Parshas Chukas - The Value of Kindness
At the end of this week’s portion, the Torah tells us of the battle with Og, king of Bashan: “The Israelites turned and ascended by way of Bashan. Og, king of Bashan, came out to meet them–he and all his people–to wage war at Edrei”.
Then G-d said to Moshe: “Do not fear him, for I will deliver him–and all his people and his land–into your hand; and you shall do to him as you did to Sichon, king of the Amorites who lives in Cheshbon. (Bamidbar 21:33-35.) The battle began! Og was a mighty giant. He lifted up a gigantic rock measuring as big as the entire Jewish camp. He wanted to throw this rock on top of the Israelites and kill them all, but before he had a chance to do so, Moses killed him instead.
The story is amazing, but there is more here than meets the eye. The first question I have is this: Why was Moshe afraid of Og? Even if Og was a giant and a fierce warrior, why would Moshe, the great man of faith, fear a human when he had G-d at his side.
The question becomes stronger when we stop to consider that it doesn’t say that the Jewish people were afraid of Og. It seems from the words that is was only Moshe who was so scared of him. The Jews all had faith in G-d. G-d had made many miracles on their behalf and destroyed all of the other nations who fought against them. They felt sure that Og would be no different.
But their leader, Moshe, he was afraid of the giant Og. Moshe was so afraid, that G-d had to assure him: “Do not fear him Moshe, for I will deliver him into your hands”. If the entire tribe of Israelites did not fear him, and had faith that G-d would make them victorious - why did Moshe fear him?
The answer is that Moshe did not fear the physical strength or enormous size of Og. Like all of Israel, he too knew G-d was with them and had faith that they would be victorious over any and all physical enemies, no matter how big or fierce they seemed.
However, Moshe also knew the spiritual side of things. And Moshe could sense something very special about Og from that perspective. You see, many years earlier, Og (or maybe it was the ancestor of Og with the same name), had done a mitzvah. It happened during the war of the 5 and 4 kings. Og had been taken captive in that war and another captive was Lot, the nephew of Avrohom. Og escaped, and came to Avrohom to tell him that Lot has been captured. Avrohom armed himself and his servants and waged war on Lots captors and successfully freed him. So Og had to his spiritual credit that he had saved the offspring of Avrohom.
Now the truth is, the medrash tells us, that Og had did this for a selfish reason. He had known that Sarah, Avrohom’s wife was very beautiful. He had hoped that Avrohom would be killed in battle and then, he, Og, could take Sarah for himself. So even though his intentions were not the best, the fact remained that he had done this mitzvah and because of this one single positive action, Moshe now feared him.
If the merit of doing a single good deed, many years earlier and not for the best of reasons, could cause Moshe to be fearful of Og, we can just imagine the awesome merit we get when we do an act of kindness out of love and caring.
Clearly, from a spiritual point of view, performing a single act of compassion or helping someone in need really does have the capacity to guard us and shelter us from harm. So when we do the mitzvah of helping others, we are actually benefitting ourselves as well.
But if this is the case, then we are left with a question. If indeed Og did the mitzvah and got its merit, how then was it possible then, for him to be hurt by Moshe? If mitzvos protect us, why did this mitzvah not protect Og from Moshe?
The answer is hinted in what G-d told Moshe, “Do not fear him, for I will deliver him into your hand”. In other words, G-d was telling Moshe, “I realize you fear him because you sense the merit that he got for his role is saving Lot. The truth is, you are right to think to realize that. But just wait and you will see, very soon Og will, by his own actions, lose the entire merit of that mitzvah and by doing so, he will be delivered into yours hands.
Just then, Og picked up that enormous stone with the desire to use it to kill all of the Israelites, the Children of Abraham. By trying to kill all the Jews, Og revealed the fact that he had never intended to save a descendant of Abraham at all. On the contrary, he cared nothing for Abraham and just wanted to take Sarah for himself. With that act of attempting to now kill all of the Jews, Og lost whatever merit may have been there previously and became just a gigantic warrior like any other physical enemy. As soon as that happened, Moshe killed him.
May understanding the reward and benefit of kindness inspire us to be more caring and considerate of others. May our acts of kindness bring us merit and may they protect us and our loved ones from harm, and let us say, Amain.
