Matot | Moabite Daughters, a Midianite Princess and Pinchas

Matot | Moabite Daughters, a Midianite Princess and Pinchas, by Rav Yitzchak Etshalom Balak-Pinchas-Matot. Why is the "war of vengeance" carried out against Midian, if the instigators and participants in the BaalPeor episode were Moabites?  The story of Pinchas's zealotry is famous, yet his action along with the subsequent Divine command to launch a war of נקמה against Midian is surprising, considering that Ba'al Pe'or was (evidently) one of the local Moabite gods and that the seduction began with the daughters of Moab - and that only one Midianite girl was explicitly involved. A discussion of the "sitz im leben", with an eye towards geographic and cultural distinctions between these two nations helps to decipher some of the more cryptic components of this story. This shiur was given in memory of my father, הרב אשר אהרן בן אברהם בנימין and in memory of הרב משה רפאל ב"ר אברהם יצחק הכהן whose yahrzeits coincide on 21 Tamuz. יהי זכרם ברוך Source sheet >>