Border Protection
כִּי חֶשְׁבּוֹן עִיר סִיחֹן מֶלֶךְ הָאֱמֹרִי הִוא וְהוּא נִלְחַם בְּמֶלֶךְ מוֹאָב הָרִאשׁוֹן וַיִּקַּח אֶת כָּל אַרְצוֹ מִיָּדוֹ עַד אַרְנֹן. עַל כֵּן יֹאמְרוּ הַמֹּשְׁלִים בֹּאוּ חֶשְׁבּוֹן
For Cheshbon, it was the city of Sichon, king of the Emori, and he aged war against the first king of Moav and took all of his land from his control, until Arnon. Therefore, the poets would say, “Come to Cheshbon.”[1]
Commenting on the words in the second verse, the Gemara[2] has the following exposition:
על כן יאמרו המושלים ביצרם בואו ונחשוב חשבונו של עולם, הפסד מצוה כנגד שכרה, ושכר עבירה כנגד הפסידה.
Therefore, those who rule over their inclinations say, “Come, let us make the reckoning of the world: the loss of [performing] a mitzvah against its reward and the benefit of [committing] an aveirah against its punishment.”
This is certainly a most striking drash exposition! Firstly, the word “מֹּשְׁלִים” which, on a pshat level, means “those who relate parables (mashal)” is rendered as “those who exert control (moshel) over their inclinations.” Additionally, Cheshbon, which is the name of city, is explained as a reckoning. Still, the differences between these approaches notwithstanding, we ask, where is there room in the verse for this drash, seeing as the pshat of the verse is simply about the cities in land of Moav? How does a verse dealing with geography lend itself to a lesson in morality?
R’ Yehonasan Eybeshutz explains.[3] One of the difficulties we have in overcoming the yetzer hara is that he doesn’t start with core or critical items, but rather with smaller matters, to which we may ascribe less significance and pay less attention. Once he has managed to gain inroads in these matters, he then moves on to slightly bigger things, until before we know it, we are overrun. Chazal see the crucial lesson in this regard in the story of Cheshbon, which was a small outlying city somewhere on the border, certainly nowhere near Moav’s capital; hence, he did not invest much in protecting or fortifying it. It was there that Sichon struck and before anyone knew what was happening, he had swept through the entire land of Moav and taken it over.
This is the basis of the drash exhortation. Learn the lesson from what happened to Cheshbon, so that when you make your own cheshbon about the importance of keeping mitzvos and avoiding aveiros, you will be sure to protect your borders.
May we be zoche to hear only besorot tovot from all our borders!
Shabbat Shalom
[3] Heard from Rabbi Isaac Bernstein zt”l.