Is The Torah Obsessed With Violence ? - The Parshah On Fire- Matos/Masay

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Hillel Eisenberg’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

If you were to look at the Tyra with a bird's eyee view, you would find that it seems to contain an unexpectedly strange attachment to violence. In the very second para of the Torah, humanity at large was acting below Hashem's standards and it prompted him to exterminate the entire human race with a model. Men, women, and children dead. Just a few paras later, the city of Sedome was acting in ways not approved of by heaven and the city was completely burnt in a sulfur firestorm. Again, men, burnt in a sulfur firestorm. Again, men, women, and children dead. Next, we read about how Kamar, the prince of Shrem, went ahead and violated Dena. The men of the city were cunningly told to circumcise themselves. And then, while recovering in bed, they were all slaughtered, every single one of them. Then we read about how the sons of Yakov plotted and nearly executed the murder of their own brother, Yis. Not exactly a book of butterflies and cupcakes. And the violence doesn't stop cupcakes. And the violence doesn't stop there. We were given the mitzvah to hunt down descendants of a Malik and annihilate them. We were charged with eradicating the seven Kanani nations inhabiting inhabiting Israel in effective ethnic cleansing of the previous dwellers of the land. And finally in Paris Matus Mati we were instructed to wage a vengeful war on the medyanim and kill all men, women and children. Now here's the question. Aren't the Jewish people supposed to be merciful? Don't we pride ourselves in

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1. 0:07If you were to look at the Tyra with a bird's eyee view, you would find…
2. 2:12to determine which female children were able to physically cohabitate. They would march a girl in…
3. 4:45eliminated. Not because Hashem was trying to be cruel to the people of Saddam, but rather…
4. 6:50war. We would always leave a side open for the enemy to retreat and change their…
5. 9:24promulgating them as well as weeding out those that don't. Not out of love of violence,…
6. 11:25ceremonies in which a young girl was kidnapped, placed on an elaborate scaffold, and when the…
7. 13:58absolute insistence that we lead merciful lives is what created a nation that is completely fueled…
8. 16:03legislative ban on arguing that it was cruel and insensitive to the animal. The Swiss were…
9. 18:39electrical shocks and nitrogen inhalation which were both found to be unsatisfactory by the leading journum…
10. 20:42and for all. There were people who got together in Italy and performed a test referred…

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