In Parshas Bamidbar, the Torah not only specifies the census of Bnei Yisrael when they came into Eretz Yisrael, it also specifies the “seder hadegalim” – the configuration in which they would travel. The twelve shevatim (tribes) were divided up into four “machanos” (camps), which were all positioned around the Mishkan.
Each machaneh (camp) included three shevatim. Machaneh Don (the camp of Don) included the shevet (tribe) of Don and also the shevet of Asher, led by Pagiel ben Achran and the shevet of Naftali, led by Achira ben Einan. These two princes, from the shevatim of Asher and Naftali, had rather strange names. We have never come across anyone named either Pagiel, Achira, Achran, or Einan! None less a personage than Rabbeinu Ephraim (one of the Ba’alei Tosefos) comments that these four rather strange names were not the names given to either of these princes or their fathers at their respective brissim. He says that they were all adopted names.
Why did they adopt these names? Rabbeinu Ephraim explains that Machaneh Don was situated at the north side of the travel configuration. It is known that Shevet Don brought along an idol, known as Pesel Michah, from the time they left Mitzrayim, until they entered Eretz Yisrael( and even after they enteredEretz Yisrael). Thus, there was an Avodah Zarah in Machaneh Don! The unfortunate neighbors of Shevet Don were Shevet Asher and Shevet Naftali. These two shevatim were none too pleased that they had a neighbor who was travelling with an idol!
Consider a situation where you know that your next-door neighbor is a drug dealer. How will that make you feel? It is not like they had the option to pick up and move because Hashem put them there! The princes of Shevet Naftali and Shevet Asher were very afraid that this proclivity for idols would rub off on them and their shevatim. Therefore, they changed their names to remind themselves of the fact that they were living in a very hostile spiritual environment.
The prince of Asher called himself Pagi-el, which is a short form of the statement “Pagah bi El” (G-d put me in a bad situation). Son of Achran – Achran means a person who corrupts Bnai Yisroel. He wished to announce “I am Pagi-el ben Achran: Hashem put me in this situation where I am in proximity to the people of Shevet Don, who are ocher es Yisrael – they corrupt the rest of Klal Yisrael. He gave himself this name to constantly remind himself and others “I have very bad neighbors and if I don’t watch myself, I am going to wind up like that.” The prince of Naftali called himself Achi-Rah, literally “My Bad Brother,” as if to say “I am next to my bad brother.” Son of Einan – etymologically related to the anan (cloud), which expelled sinners.
In other words, in order to make sure that their defenses would not slip, they changed their names. This is how they called themselves and had other people call them – to remind them all that they had to be on their toes and be constantly aware of their spiritually corrosive environment, so as not to be influenced by their neighbors.
Three Lessons from Rabbeinu Ephraim
The first lesson is that a person is affected by his neighbors and his neighborhood. A person can live in the best of cities but if his particular neighbors or neighborhood is not up to snuff, it eventually affects him.
The second lesson is that a person should take action when he realizes that he finds himself in a challenging spiritual position. A person should not have the attitude “Okay. Too bad. I am in a bad neighborhood.” These two princes changed their names as a constant reminder. Time will tell whether such action will be effective or not. But at least they were not passive about it. They made an attempt to build up their spiritual defenses.
The third very important and powerful lesson is brought out by a famous schmooze from Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, zt”l:
The Gemara [Sanhedrin 19b] notes that a certain person in Tanach is called both Palti and Paltiel. Rabbi Yochanan says that his real name was Palti but he was also called Paltiel because G-d removed him from doing an aveira (Palto Kel min ha’aveira). What did Palti do? He implanted a sword between himself and his wife (who was really previously given as a wife to Dovid) in their bedroom and said ‘Whoever will engage in this matter shall be pierced with this sword.”
Without going into the halachic lomdus here, King Shaul had previously promised his daughter Michal to Dovid, but Shaul held that she was not really Dovid’s halachic wife. He felt free to give her in marriage to Palti. Palti was in no position to reject the king’s offer to marry his daughter, but he felt that he was now living with a married woman! He recognized that this was a nisayon (temptation) that would be hard to withstand over the course of time. Thus, on the night of his marriage he dramatically stuck a sword between their two beds as if to say “If I touch this woman, I deserve to be killed”. Therefore, the entire time he remained with her, he never touched her.
Rav Chaim Shmulevitz asks: What did sticking the sword in the ground accomplish for him? Just as he stuck it in the ground, he could pull it out of the ground next week or next month! Rav Chaim Shmulevitz explains that Palti was a very smart man. He knew that on this first night, he was fully conscious that he was in a bedroom with an eishes ish (a married woman) and someone who commits adultery with a married woman is deserving of death by the sword. But he also knew that with the passage of time, a person can easily start rationalizing: Maybe Shaul is in fact correct! Maybe halachically she is not married to Dovid. Therefore, maybe I am just torturing myself for nothing. That is human nature. After a while, we begin to rationalize. So Palti ben Layish placed a permanent symbolic reminder in his bedroom of how he felt the first night when he knew what was right and what was wrong. The sword represented how he felt when he was not overcome with temptation by any ulterior motives to rationalize and reason. Palti knew that without such a symbol, his Yetzer HaRah, after many days and weeks and years, could very well wear him down. The sword was his reminder: “This is how I felt THEN and that is the TRUTH.”
We can say the same thing regarding Pagiel ben Achran or Achira ben Einan. They called themselves these names as a reminder: We are next to Shevet Don. Shevet Don has this Pesel Micha. I don’t really want to be in their neighborhood. They were afraid that after a while, they would succumb to the bad influence of Pesel Michah. So as soon as they moved into the neighborhood, they changed their names: We knew the emes when we entered the situation, and we want to have a perpetual reminder for the rest of our time in that situation!
