The Reading
The Summary
Shemuel Alef Chapter 6
After seven months of attempting to hold onto the Ark of the Covenant, the Pelishtim seek advice from their magicians as to how to properly return it. The sorcerers tell them to fashion five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice, corresponding to the five leaders of the Pelishtim and their respective regions, and to send it with the Ark as a gift of tribute. They further instruct the people to place the Ark on a brand new wagon pulled by two nursing cows whose young are confined at home; if the terrible punishments that have come upon the Pelishtim were of divine origin, then the cows will proceed toward Bet Shemesh despite their natural instinct to be reunited with their babies.
The Pelishtim comply with the instructions and watch as the cows pull the wagon and carry the Ark all the way to Bet Shemesh, where it is discovered by a group of Jews working in the field. The men of Bet Shemesh are ecstatic when they see the Ark. They chop the boards of the wagon up into firewood and offer two nursing cows as thanksgiving sacrifices to Hashem.
However, their joy is short-lived, because their behavior is judged by Hashem to be disrespectful to the holiness of the Ark and a plague strikes the men of Bet Shemesh, claiming the lives of “seventy men, and fifty thousand men”. Stricken with fear by this turn of events, no one among the citizens of Bet Shemesh is willing to accept the responsibility of receiving and guarding the Ark. They summon the people of Qiryat Yearim to retrieve the Ark from them immediately.
At first glance, there is no clear explanation for the calamity that befalls the Jews in Bet Shemesh. What exactly did they do wrong? Our chapter is an excellent illustration of the two extremes of relationship to ritual objects and institutions, both of which are unhealthy. Venerating the Ark and attributing magical powers to it borders on idolatry and is a symptom of profound distortion in our relationship to Torah and Hashem. On the other hand, discounting the significance and holiness of the Ark undermines its purpose, which is to inspire us with reverence and love for Hashem.
The Jewish people had moved beyond their superstitious attitude toward the Ark (a good thing) but had replaced that with a casual and irreverent attitude. And as we read in the Torah in several places, access to the Mishkan and the holy objects within it was severely restricted in order to prevent people from becoming too comfortable or blasé about them.
One who treats the Mishkan or its implements with disrespect is punished very harshly, because these entities are concrete symbols of the Divine presence. The devastation at Bet Shemesh was a reminder from Hashem that while avoiding superstitious and magical thinking is imperative, it should not lead us to disregard the significance of the sacred tools Hashem has given us with which to serve Him.
We must guard ourselves from thinking that a Sefer Torah, Mezuzah, Tefillin or any other holy item has its own independent supernatural effects on the world; only Hashem governs His creation and no other forces operate besides Him. At the same time, we should not allow ourselves to shift to the opposite extreme and to denigrate these objects or treat them as mundane, since this will prevent the commandments of Hashem from achieving their purpose of drawing us closer to Him. They should not be seen as ends in themselves but as means to an end. But we must venerate and cherish them because of the holy end that they serve.
One last point that is worthy of mention is the number of casualties recorded in connection with the incident at Bet Shemesh – was it seventy men, fifty thousand men or both? It is also difficult to imagine that there were fifty thousand people living in Bet Shemesh! The Rabbis suggest that one or the other of these numbers is not literal but metaphoric: either seventy righteous men died, each of whom was the equivalent of fifty-thousand because of his greatness, or fifty-thousand died, each of whom was equivalent to the seventy members of the Sanhedrin in greatness. Targum Yehonatan states that both numbers are literal; according to him, seventy leaders and fifty-thousand commoners perished.
If the fifty thousand is to be taken literally, perhaps it refers to deaths throughout Israel as a result of this sin, and is not limited to citizens of Bet Shemesh. Or perhaps it refers to all those who died on account of the Ark, including both Jews and Pelishtim. Another possibility is that this represents the cumulative number of Jewish casualties over the entire conflict with the Pelishtim and its battles. Previously, fifty thousand had died; the seventy men lost at Bet Shemesh brought the total number to 50,070.