Numbers 21:2 describes the vow the Israelites made to God regarding the Canaanite king of Arad who had attacked them: "If You deliver this people into our hand, we will proscribe their towns." This is understood by commentators to mean that all the inhabitants of the town are to be killed and the property dedicated to God by being given to the priests or the Sanctuary. What is being described in our parashah and elsewhere in the Torah by "proscription" is a religious concept underlying the modern understanding of extermination. The Israelites exterminate their human enemies and appropriate the booty, which is then dedicated to God. Such a punishment goes well beyond the more typical biblical (and ancient Near Eastern) punishment of enemies through enslavement, and (or) killing the males and taking the females and property. The Hebrew root of the verb "to proscribe" is chet, reish, mem, and its noun form is used in Rabbinic literature to designate a form of excommunication. Two other verses, Leviticus 27:28-29, state the principle of proscription clearly:
But of all that anyone owns, be it human or beast or land-holding, nothing that has been proscribed for the Eternal may be sold or redeemed; every proscribed thing is totally consecrated to the Eternal. No human being who has been proscribed can be ransomed: that person shall be put to death.
For the modern nonfundamentalist reader, for Reform Jews, what do we do with biblical passages whose original meaning are rooted in magic and superstition or religiously based extermination? First, we have to remind ourselves constantly of the human origin of the biblical text. That principle allows us to accept the multiple contradictions found in the long history of our biblical ancestors, who, over more than one thousand years, could have not just differing opinions, but also mind-sets embedded in the primitive and the sublime, in brutality and in higher visions of universal justice and peace. Second, immersion in both biblical and later Rabbinic literature not only confronts us with ideas and values from antiquity, but also challenges us to reflect on and assess what speaks to us from the treasures of our people and what does not! At a time when sacred Scripture is again used to justify the most inhuman treatment of others, Reform Jews have an obligation to speak-out of our regard for human life, science, and good sense-to share our vision for a better world informed by what we regard as the best values of our tradition.
