Session 29: Parashat Matot

"Annexation," John O'Sullivan, 1845

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The early verses of Parashat Matot depict the violent conquest and subjugation of the Midianites by the Israelites, who have acted in accordance with God’s command. The simplistic us vs. them morality, the barbarous practices of ancient warfare, and the casual descriptions of violence are challenging for contemporary Jews. When the Israelites go to war, the Jewish ethics or enlightenment values that shape a contemporary liberal Jewish worldview in America are nowhere to be found.

America has also relied on theological justifications for wars of conquest, particularly the 19th-century doctrine of “Manifest Destiny,” which asserted that the United States had a divine right, and even an obligation, to spread across the continent, whatever the cost. Writer John L. O’Sullivan is widely credited with originating this term in an 1845 essay about the annexation of Texas.

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