Masei 5771

After Hashem tells the Jews that they must kill all of the people living in the land He warns them saying (33:55-56) "But if you don't drive them out of the land, the ones that stay shall be pins in your eyes and a barrier of thorns in your sides, and they will harass you upon the land in which you live. And it will be that what I planned to do to them I will do to you."

The Ramban explains this to mean that the ones that stay in the land will eventually cause you to stray from Hashem and do avodah zara. Then because the Jews will do avodah zara it will eventually lead to the galut.

If we look at events later we will see that this is exactly what happened. The fact that the Jews did not rid the land completely of the people that lived there before caused their eventual exile. If we truly want to cling to Hashem and embrace the kedusha of the land of eretz yisrael, we must first rid it, and ourselves, of the avodah zara, otherwise no matter how much we try it will eventually lead to it taking us over.

You can compare it to an virus. When a person gets an virus he can feel it. So he goes to the doctor and gets medicine to take for a few days. After the first couple of the days the person begins to feel better, even though he is still supposed to take the medicine for 2 or 3 more days after that. If one stops taking the medicine at that point, since the virus was not completely gone, it is very likely that the virus will come back. It is only after finishing off the prescription that one can be sure that the virus is completely gone.

This is exactly what Hashem was telling the Jews here. Even if you think leaving just a couple of people over won't effect you, you should be careful because just a few people can lead to your exile.

Have a good shabbat!