Yehoshua Pereq #7

 This chapter opens with the ominous “foreshadowing” statement that the Jewish people had, in fact, violated the prohibition on taking any of the spoils of Yeriho. Specifically, Akhan, of the Tribe of Yehuda, was guilty of misappropriating items that were supposed to have been destroyed upon the city’s capture. 

In the meantime, Yehoshua leads the nation toward their next target of conquest, dispatching spies to assess “Ha-Ai” so that he can formulate a plan of attack. Ha-Ai should be familiar to students of the Torah, since it was “between Bet El and Ha-Ai” that Avraham, our forefather, originally camped when he arrived in the land of Israel. The spies report that the city does not appear difficult to conquer; only two or three thousand men should be necessary for the military operation and there is no reason to weary the rest of the soldiers with a battle for which their services are not needed. Heeding their advice, Yehoshua sends in three thousand soldiers; however, much to his chagrin, they are driven away and thirty six Jewish men are killed. Yehoshua, the elders and the people are devastated and cry out to God, fearing that this failure leaves them exposed to their enemies and also amounts to a desecration of Hashem’s name. They even begin to question whether crossing the Jordan River was a good idea after all. 

Hashem replies that the Jewish people have lost their claim to special providence and will not be able to defeat their enemies until they correct the sin that has been committed in their midst; namely, someone secretly took possession of some of the spoils of Yeriho, violating the ban. Through a process of lottery, Yehoshua identifies the perpetrator of the sin as Akhan. Akhan confesses to having stolen a garment, some silver and some gold. Messengers are sent to search his property and confirm his admission of guilt. He, his children, his livestock and all of his possessions are taken to a place that would later be named Emeq Akhor (Valley of Trouble) because of this incident.

There, Akhan and his animals are stoned and all of his material possessions are burned and Hashem’s positive relationship with the Jewish people is restored. (Rashi explains that his children, themselves not guilty of any trespass, merely accompanied him to watch and learn a moral lesson from his punishment. Radaq suggests that small children are considered extensions of their parents and can, indeed, be made to suffer for the sins of their parents even when they themselves are innocent. Others theorize that they too may have been complicit in the sin and therefore partially culpable.)

The obvious theological question that confronts us in this chapter is how a battle could be lost and thirty six innocent Jews could die simply because of the sin of one person – a sin nobody else even knew about, let alone participated in! One way to resolve this is to assume that although Akhan was the only person who actually committed a sin of misappropriation, it was the atmosphere and attitudes of his fellow Jews that allowed him to do it. His behavior reflected a sense of entitlement, victory and self-indulgence which was precisely what the miraculous triumph over Yeriho was supposed to NEGATE. He felt he deserved what he took, that he had somehow earned it, and we can assume that this attitude was not limited to him (although no one else acted on it). Consider how we are much more sympathetic when an ordinary citizen steals from a large, wealthy corporation than we would be if big business took advantage of the “little guy”. This attitude makes people feel comfortable stealing towels from hotels and committing other forms of petty theft they feel they are entitled to commit. 
We can see a hint of the national hubris felt by the people and translated into action by Akhan when we examine Yehoshua’s approach to the battle of Ha-Ai from the outset. It was going to be a “piece of cake”, he thought. No need to invest too much effort or deploy too many soldiers; the city will fall into our hands like it’s supposed to do, with minimal strain on our part, because we are invincible, Hashem loves us and we deserve it. The loss at Ha-Ai was a wakeup call, corrected the feeling of automatic self-entitlement that had reared its ugly head among the Jews, and drew attention to the sin of Akhan who, out of the same kind of feeling of entitlement, helped himself to the spoils of Yeriho. The execution of Akhan was the nation’s way of saying “we recognize that the attitude that motivated Akhan was wrong, and we reject it”, and it thereby brought them once again beneath the wings of the Divine Presence.