Warfare a la Machiavelli
Machiavelli, in "The Prince," espoused a military doctrine surprisingly similar to the one advocated by Moshe in this past week's Parsha. Pinchas, Israel's Chief of Staff, had returned from a retaliatory war against Midian, who had sent their princesses to seduce the Jewish people so that they would engage in idol worship. In an exchange that is hard to understand; Pinchas, upon returning from his hugely successful exploits, is lambasted by Moshe, in front of Elazar, the Cohen Gadol, and all of the Jewish princes for failing on two fronts: one, not smiting all of the women sexually mature enough to have had relations (presumably, the age of three according to biblical thought), and secondly, not killing all males, regardless of age. The first is peripheral to the point I'd like to address; indeed, the midrash states that all young women were passed before Elazar to see if their faces would change color, the gold crown on Elazar's head mysteriously causing the...