How could this be? Were they not the Dor De’ah - the greatest generation that ever lived? How could they have fallen so deeply into this abyss? They fell the way they did, because they were caught up in desire, and once that happened, even idolatry was possible.
And this is what Moshe is warning Bnei Yisrael about when he warns them as referenced above, to remember what happened with Ba’al Peor. His warning to them, and by extension to us is, “Do not rationalize and say to yourself that it won’t happen to you. Stay away from indulging your desire, because once it takes hold, virtually anything is possible.”
Indeed, the Seforno says that even Shlomo HaMelech thought that he would not sin by marrying many wives, even though the Torah specifically forbade it. At the end of it all, he did come to sin as his many idolatrous wives continued to serve their idols, which introduced idol worship back into Israel which had devastating repercussions.
The Torah and Shulchan Aruch have given us boundaries and protective fences to ensure that we remain on the straight and narrow. There is the directive in the Shema not to be led astray by following the desires of our eyes and hearts. There is a prohibition of Yichud (the requirement for a man and woman who are not married to each other, to not seclude themselves with each other). But all this is not enough. We also need to see a vivid example of what can and indeed did happen, to those who thought that it would not happen to them. That is why Moshe warns Bnei Yisrael and by extension us, to remember what happened with Ba’al Peor.
(It would be remiss of us to not mention the ready applicability of this lesson to internet access. Some of us may think that we will not fall prey to the dangers of the internet. However, human frailty being what it is, some of us have succumbed, Heaven forbid.)
