In order to explain this incident, let us explore and try to understand why the Torah objects to taking revenge. If a person is wronged, why shouldn’t he retaliate?
I am going to paraphrase and modernize the sages’ explanation for the prohibition against revenge found in Leviticus: “What is the classic case of revenge? If I approach my neighbor and ask to borrow his lawn mower and he turns me down, and on the following day my neighbor approaches me and asks to borrow my drill and I refuse saying, ‘I am not lending it to you, just as you didn’t lend me your mower yesterday,’ that is the classic case of the prohibition of revenge.”
It seems clear that a key component of revenge is turning another person’s action into a personal affront. In the case of my neighbor who refused to loan me an object, he may have many reasons for his decision; it may be due to his own innate insecurity to part with a possession, he may require the object for his own use, or there may be some other factor at play and, in truth, he doesn’t owe me any explanation.
The fact that I decide to take revenge for my neighbor’s refusal means that I have taken the matter personally and interpreted it as a personal rejection. The Torah teaches us through this prohibition that we are forbidden to interpret the actions of others in such a way. In other words, I am prohibited from making another person’s actions about me.
Unfortunately, we do this all the time. If we see a person whom we know well on the street, and he ignores us or we think that he looked at us in a funny way, the first thought that generally springs to mind is something like, “What’s his problem?” or “What did I ever do to him?” In truth, he may be so distracted by some major issues in his life that he didn’t see us, or his preoccupied mind is reflected on his face and, either way, it had nothing to do with us. We are thus prohibited from starting a personal feud.
The Hebrew word for revenge – nekama – is derived from the root kam meaning “to stand” or “to rise up.” There is a human tendency to interpret other people’s actions on a personal level, even when the evidence does not necessarily justify that interpretation. This is almost always a reflection of our inner insecurities, and because of them we misinterpret the actions of others and (wrongly) feel diminished. We then take “revenge” to restore how we feel about ourselves – we “stand up” for ourselves. However, this is a tendency that the Torah commands us to suppress.
The prohibition against taking revenge means that a person should not lift himself up by unjustly putting another person down. The reason for the prohibition is that a person should not feel the need to lift himself up in the first place, for he should never have taken the other person’s actions – or inactions – as a personal attack.
By contrast, if we examine the way the sages translate the word nekama in this week’s Torah portion we see that it’s translated in this instance as “recompense” – as in paying back a debt. There had been a purposeful attack on the Jewish nation, for no other reason than to cause them to sin and to stray from the Almighty. It was absolutely a personal attack, and the Almighty commands Moses to balance the ledgers as it were, and to pay back the Midianites for causing intentional harm.
We can now understand why the Midianites were treated differently than the Moabites. The Torah testifies that the Moabites acted out of mortal fear; they trembled before the power of the Israelites. Regarding the Midianites, the Torah states that they became involved in a “quarrel that was not theirs” and they sent their daughters to seduce the Jewish men solely for the purpose of harming the Israelites.
This is why the sages always translate nekama as recompense when it is in the context of the acts of the Almighty; it’s never about revenge for the sake of being vindictive. God acts solely out of justice, and His acts are in strict accordance with a balancing of the ledgers. But God is the only one who can dispassionately mete out justice.
Of course, there are times when we do get personally attacked, and regarding these situations the sages of the Talmud teach the proper behavior (Shabbat 88b); “Those who suffer insult but do not insult back, those who are shamed but do not retort, those who act out of a love for God and freely accept their suffering – regarding them the verse states, ‘But those who love the Almighty are like the sun bursting forth with all its might’” (Judges 5:31).
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