Imu Shalev: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha … diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself.

Hi, I’m Imu Shalev. Have you ever faced a really tough negotiation? A time when you needed to ask for something big, and you knew the other person might not be prepared to listen? If you have, you’ve probably asked yourself: How can I win this person over? What’s the magic key that will get us to an agreement?

Well, that’s one way we could describe the question Rabbi Fohrman addresses in Parshat Matot-Masei. There’s a negotiation between the tribes of Gad and Reuben, on the one hand, and Moses on the other hand. And it’s a fraught moment. After the years of wandering in the wilderness, after all the hardships and all the mistakes that B’nei Yisrael made, they’re finally at the end of their journey. They’re ready to take possession of the land of Canaan, but in order to do that, they have to fight and conquer. It’s a time that calls for them to act with unity and resolve. 

And what happens, just at this crucial moment? Two of the tribes decide they don’t want to cross the Jordan and accept their inheritance in that part of the land. They want to stay on the near side, which means they need to approach Moses with this very tricky request. Spoiler alert: Their negotiation is successful! But how exactly did they do it? That’s what Rabbi Fohrman explores in this week’s episode. 

Rabbi David Fohrman: This week's parsha teaches us a great deal about the art of effective negotiation. When you find yourself at loggerheads with the other side, what do you do to make the deal work? Our parsha deals with this issue, I think, and provides a surprising answer.

The Tribes That Didn’t Want to Cross the Jordan

The story I'm referencing here is the negotiation between Moses and the children of Gad and the children of Reuben over their future homeland. Here's what happens. It's the last year of Israel's sojourn in the desert. They have successfully conquered, so far, land on the eastern side of the Jordan River, but the people have not yet crossed the river to enter the land of Canaan. At that juncture, members of the tribe of Reuben and Gad approach Moses with a request. The land that's been conquered, they said, it's grassland, it's great for grazing cattle and livestock, and we, the children of Gad, the children of Reuben – we have lots of cattle and livestock.

אִם-מָצָאנוּ חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ יֻתַּן אֶת-הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת לַעֲבָדֶיךָ לַאֲחֻזָּה אַל-תַּעֲבִרֵנוּ אֶת-הַיַּרְדֵּן

If we found favor in your eyes, Moses, please give us this land as an inheritance. Don't force us to cross the Jordan River into the land of Canaan (Numbers 32:5).

Before we go any further here, I want to ask you to put yourself into the shoes of Moses. How would you have responded to this? As the next few verses indicate, Moses has some real fears here, legitimate fears, about granting this request.

One thing you could do as a leader is simply say no. I don't even have to tell you why; I'm just not doing this. Moses actually takes the risk of sharing his fears with the people that have asked him to do this. In so doing, he's opening up all sorts of risky possibilities. They could discount his fears, argue against them, try to convince Moses that those fears are ridiculous. But Moses does it anyway, and here's what he says:

וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה לִבְנֵי-גָד וְלִבְנֵי רְאוּבֵן הַאַחֵיכֶם יָבֹאוּ לַמִּלְחָמָה וְאַתֶּם תֵּשְׁבוּ פֹה

And Moses says to the children of Gad and the children of Reuben: Do you really think that it's right that your brothers should go out to war against the people of Canaan while you sit in comfort here on the east side of the Jordan (verse 6)?

Then Moses goes further. He says: By doing so, you would actually be swaying the hearts of the people and giving them reason to resist crossing the Jordan, just like you. That would be a disaster, because we've seen that story before. It all happened forty years ago. Why do you think we've been in the desert for forty years?

כֹּה עָשׂוּ אֲבֹתֵיכֶם – He says: This is what your fathers did, when they sent the spies to scout out the land, and the spies came back with a bad report and the spies swayed the people from wanting to go into the land to conquer it.

וַיִּחַר-אַף יְקוָה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא – And God was angry at them at that time and decreed that that entire generation would have to die out in the desert. And their children – you guys – you would be the one to inherit the land. And now you're doing it again!

וְהִנֵּה קַמְתֶּם תַּחַת אֲבֹתֵיכֶם – You're doing the same thing as your fathers did, and who knows what will happen this time? If the people rebel against going into the land of Canaan, God may keep us in this desert indefinitely.

וְשִׁחַתֶּם לְכָל-הָעָם הַזֶּה – You are going to destroy everything by doing this (verses 8-15).

Moses lays his fears right out there on the table. Now, if you were representing the tribes of Gad and Reuben at this moment, how would you respond to Moses' words? You still want this deal, you still want this land on the east side of the Jordan. This is the best place for you. What are you going to say to Moses? 

A Convincing Approach

At this point, I think, you face a choice: Either argue against Moses' fears, or, alternatively, try to craft a proposal that might work for Moses. What if you said something like: Moses, we can offer you certain assurances. How about a contract that would look like this? If we go into the land and we fight alongside our brothers, then you'll give us the east side of the Jordan. And if we don't go into the land and we don't fight alongside our brothers, then we won't get that land. Would that work, Moses?

Now, if you look carefully at what happens next, the children of Gad and Reuben do something that seems similar to that option I just described, but is a very little bit different and maybe a great deal more convincing. Here's what in fact happens.

וַיִּגְּשׁוּ אֵלָיו וַיֹּאמְרוּ – They approached him and they said… Now stop right here! Why does it even have to say "they approached him"? Who cares whether they "approached him and said" or whether they just "said"? 

It turns out that the words וַיִּגְּשׁוּ or וַיִּגַּשׁ in Biblical Hebrew seems to be a kind of code word for something.  Imagine that you and I are standing far apart and we're involved in negotiation, but then I take a step towards you and then I speak. What does that body language suggest? When I approach you, I close the distance between two possible rivals in negotiation, and I speak to you as one human being to another human being. 

And listen to what the children of Gad and Reuben say after they approach Moses.

וַיִּגְּשׁוּ אֵלָיו וַיֹּאמְרוּ גִּדְרֹת צֹאן נִבְנֶה לְמִקְנֵנוּ פֹּה וְעָרִים לְטַפֵּנוּ: וַאֲנַחְנוּ נֵחָלֵץ חֻשִׁים

They approached him and they said: We'll leave our flocks behind, as well as our children. Not only will we go out to fight alongside our brethren, we will be the vanguard, we'll be the frontline troops, we will not rest until every last one of the tribes finds its inheritance in the land (verses 16-17). 

What had they done here?

An Offer of Trust

In negotiation, you have two possible ways to create reassurances for the other side. The standard way of doing it is through conditions and consequences. What sort of conditions can I put into place, and what sorts of consequences can I put into place for violation of those conditions, that will inspire some sense of safety on the part of the other party? That's one way of structuring a deal.

But there's another way that can work even better. It's the approach taken by the children of Gad and the children of Reuben. They listen to Moses' fear, they understand it, and they respond directly to it – not with conditions and consequences, but with something deeper.

וַיִּגְּשׁוּ אֵלָיו – They approached him and they offered the most basic currency that any human being can offer another: trust. We understand your fear; here is what we will do to allay it. Not only will we fight side by side, we'll be on the vanguard, we will be on the frontlines. Not only we will neutralize your fear, we will help you, we will make it even better for you than you might have imagined it could be. 

And you notice something else? They just say that they'll do it. There's no conditions in their language. We hear your fear. This is what we will do. You have our word.

Now listen to Moses' response.

וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵיהֶם מֹשֶׁה אִם-תַּעֲשׂוּן אֶת-הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה אִם-תֵּחָלְצוּ לִפְנֵי יְקוָה לַמִּלְחָמָה: וְעָבַר לָכֶם כָּל-חָלוּץ אֶת-הַיַּרְדֵּן לִפְנֵי יְקוָה עַד הוֹרִישׁוֹ אֶת-אֹיְבָיו מִפָּנָיו

And this is what Moses said in reply: If you in fact do what you say you do, if you in fact go in the frontlines along with your brethren and you cross the Jordan in the vanguard, until all of the enemies of the people of Israel are vanquished (verses 20-21)…

Then... then what?

You might have expected Moses to say: Then I will give you the east side of the Jordan, what you want. But he doesn't say that. 

וִהְיִיתֶם נְקִיִּם מֵיְקוָה וּמִיִּשְׂרָאֵל… וְאִם-לֹא תַעֲשׂוּן כֵּן הִנֵּה חֲטָאתֶם לַיקוָה וּדְעוּ חַטַּאתְכֶם

Then you will be held guiltless before God and before Israel. You will have done your duty, he tells them. But if you fail to live up to what you've promised me, you will have sinned before God, and you will know that you have sinned (verses 22-23).

Moses replies to them in kind, not with the language of consequences and conditions but with the language of trust. If you look me in the eye and say, Trust me, here is what I will do, what do I need to understand in order to trust you? I need to know you're serious, and I need to know that you understand the consequences of what you just said. If you fail me, you will have sinned against God, you'll have sinned against your brethren, the people, and you will have failed to live up to what you told me. That's all I need you to understand. If you understand that, I'm prepared to make the deal. 

The Language of Consequences

Fascinatingly, the next thing that Moses does is, he convenes all of the elders of all of the tribes and publicly makes this deal with the children of Gad and the children of Reuben, but all of a sudden he uses different language. In his public recitation of the deal, Moses says: אִם-יַעַבְרוּ בְנֵי-גָד וּבְנֵי-רְאוּבֵן – if these tribes go before us and become the vanguard, then they will get the east side of Jordan. And if they don't become the vanguard, then they won't get the east side of the Jordan. They'll have to find a place to settle along with you on the west side of the Jordan (verses 29-30).

What happened? All the language is different. Now we have lawyer language. We're back to consequences and conditions. What happened to the language of trust?

The answer is: This time he's not talking to the children of Reuben; he's talking to the children of Israel. The deal that he has made is between Moses and the children of Gad and the children of Reuben. That deal was sealed on trust; that's why Moses went for it. But that's not really something he can present to everyone else. Everyone else did not seal a compact with them based on trust, and therefore the only thing Moses can say is the language of consequences and the language of conditions. Had he made the argument from trust, the people of Israel would have come back and said: Look, you may trust them, but who says we trust them? What do you have to offer us?

Moses understands that intuitively, and therefore he offers them the only thing he can offer them: Here are the consequences that will accrue to the children of B’nei Gad and B’nei Reuven if they don't live up to what they say. But that's not the reason Moses sealed the deal. What sealed the deal was a וַיִּגְּשׁוּ אֵלָיו – their approach to him as one human being to the other, speaking the language of trust. It is, in the last analysis, the most effective, direct way of sealing a deal.

The Strongest Contract

Lawyers are great, but even the lawyers will tell you – or my lawyer friends will tell you – that the strongest of deals sometimes comes when the two litigants banish the lawyers from the room, approach one another, look each other in the eye and talk this kind of language: Here is what I am prepared to do for you. I put my reputation on the line, and I am making a commitment of one human being to the other. I understand your fear, I'm addressing your fear, I will not let you down.

The other side needs to understand you're serious. The other side needs to understand that you get the real consequences of what you're saying. If you don't live up to this, you will have sinned against them. But if you can look them in the eye and assure them that you do understand, the deal is the strongest compact you can imagine. Your contract is one page long instead of twenty. But if you can really establish the bond of trust, if you can really approach the other, that one page sometimes can be all that you need.

Imu: So here’s some of my reflections this week. I think it's a pretty cool paradigm shift, especially for all of us in business, where we think the way to get to “yes”, as it were, is to organize a business transaction where my needs are being met and your needs are being met. It's a very tit-for-tat way of doing business. But what if I need something and I can’t really guarantee you anything in return? There’s something romantic about this extra possibility to be vulnerable and authentic with the person you’re making a deal with. And to say “trust me,” to put your name on the line, to put your character on the line. To get the other party to make a bet on you. 

So I don't know about you, but this piece really hit home to me. Many of you at hom may not know about this, but at one point in my life, I had considered a career other than CEO at a fledgling Torah company. I actually graduated law school. And in law school, in my contracts class, the major problem that a contract is trying to solve is: How do you protect the parties? How do you ensure that I get paid or that the conditions of my satisfaction are fully met? That's what a contract is. It's enforceable. That word enforceable means that I can take it to some outside body and force you to do the thing that the contract says you were supposed to do. Otherwise there are damages. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Contracts are great. I think society would fall apart without contracts. Contracts are thousands of years old, one of the most ancient things about human civilization. 

But this has me muse about contracts as a floor, not a ceiling.  I was about to say that I don't have any contracts with my wife, but the truth is, I do. We signed a ketubah, an arrangement of the obligations that a spouse has towards their other spouse. But I think it’s true there too. A ketubah is a floor, not a ceiling. It doesn't describe what a good marriage really looks like, and it would be a pretty pathetic marriage if I needed to enforce our agreements, go to some outside body to force my wife to keep her end of the various bargains we make. So I do think it is pretty interesting to muse about that, about what we’re afraid of when we enter into a business negotiation, and how we avail ourselves of contracts and lawyers to protect ourselves from all the things that make us insecure – but to also play with the other side of the coin, how rich does your interaction become with a business partner if you can earn their trust, or if they earn yours. 

Another thing I’m taking away is just the notion of Gad and Reuben to offer Moses not a contract, not consequences, not something that is enforceable. What they really offered is, they listened. They actually heard Moses and Moses’ fears, and they address those fears. Can you imagine getting into a business negotiation where you share the fears that would cause you to build in all kinds of damages to protect you, and instead the other person says “I hear your fear and I’m going to address them in this and this way.” When you feel listened to, when you feel heard, you don't need to resort to enforcement. What you’ve really built is a relationship. I think in business there are major limitations to a transactional partnership as opposed to a relational one. Listening and empathy go a lot farther than conditions and consequences. Thanks for listening.   

That’s our show, but I have an announcement. Tisha B’Av morning, Aleph Beta will be hosting “Kinot Unlocked,” a live Zoom event featuring Rabbi Fohrman and some of the other scholars you’ve met on this show. 

If you’re looking for a really soulful, meditative recital of kinot… this is not for you. This is going to be completely soulless! No soul at all. No, I’m joking. But it is going to be different. Because for some of us, to experience what kinot is supposed to be, we have to slow down. We have to ask questions. And, hopefully, answer them. 

Instead of simply reciting kinot together, Rabbi Fohrman and the scholars go deep into a few select kinot, Aleph Beta style. They mine these haunting poems for midrashic and Biblical resonances. I don’t think there are any texts in the Jewish canon so in need of attention and analysis, and yet so overlooked, as kinot. Kinot aren’t just sad poems; they’re profound, layered masterpieces. They weave together voices from every stage of Jewish history, every text we hold dear, and by doing that, they capture our eternal, collective cry for God. 

Credits

This episode was written and recorded by our lead scholar, Rabbi David Fohrman. 

When this episode originally aired on Aleph Beta, it was edited by Rivky Stern. 

Into the Verse editing was done by Sarah Penso.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Additional audio editing was done by Veekalp Sharma.

Our editorial director is me, Imu Shalev. 

Thank you so much for listening.