It was one of the highest-profile crime stories of the early 1990s. Gregg Smart, an insurance agent, was found dead in his New Hampshire condo on May 1, 1990. The 24-year-old man had been murdered.
The police investigation soon zeroed in on his wife, Pamela. She was a 22-year-old media coordinator at a nearby school, and she had been having an affair with a student, William "Billy" Flynn.
Flynn ultimately admitted that he committed the crime but maintained that the crime was committed at the direction of Mrs. Smart. He said that she had told him, that she would completely end the affair if he did not kill her husband. Billy was caught up in his desire for Mrs. Smart and did the unthinkable.
There would appear to be a parallel to be found in this week’s Parsha. In this week’s parsha, Moshe Rabbeinu warns Bnei Yisrael not to be blinded to the potentially devastating consequences that can come with rationalizations and faulty thinking. He says, “Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of Hashem which I command you. Your eyes have seen what Hashem did with Ba’al Peor, for every man who went after Ba’al Peor, Hashem has exterminated from your midst.” (Devarim 4:2-3).
Ba’al Peor was an idol that the Moabites worshiped. The Moabite women enticed Jewish men to worship the idol by seducing them, and right before they were to have marital relations, the women would say, “If you want to continue, you just need to serve this idol.”
The Seforno says that the Torah testifies that Bnei Yisrael’s first sin was to engage in promiscuous behavior with the Moabite women. (BaMidbar 25:1) Once they were filled with desire, that led to idol worship. When referring to the idolatrous women of the nations that populated Israel prior to being conquered by Bnei Yisrael, the Torah states that marriage with these women will lead to idol worship (Shemos 34:16).
However, every Israelite who indulged his lust for a Moabite girl likely rationalized to himself that he was immune to the Torah’s warning. This had devastating consequences as there were 24,000 people who ended up serving Ba’al Peor and Hashem wiped out every single one of them.
