After my first go-around with the Torah, last year, something became quite true and apparent to me - which is that the Torah forces us to confront very dark places. In its typical non-chalant, matter-of-fact way, the Torah repeatedly discusses things such as plagues, mass death, brutal and relentless war, famine, and drought, as well as equally personal issues like family schisms and power struggles. To be clear, the picture that the Torah paints - not in its prophesies but in its actual narratives - is of a very, very difficult life.
We see another example of this in yet another super-short aliyah, the second of Bechukotai, in VaYikra 26:6-7. Beginning in what might be perceived as a typically light, optimistic, prophetic tone, the Torah states that if the decrees and commandments are followed, there will be everlasting and pervasive peace through the Land. But that isn't all. How is such peace to be achieved? By pursuing enemies - five to a hundred and a hundred against ten thousand - and making them all fall by the sword "before you." Apparently, once that warring is taken care of, the people can truly live in peace, which is best exemplified by being fruitful and increasing.
I mean, the plain reading is clear: real peace, the kind of peace that motivates people to have large families, can only be achieved through aggressive war.
Nowadays, we don't want to confront this issue. Look at how recent conflicts have been held - utterly in fear of sacrificing lives, most national leaders (and I'm not saying that wanting to save lives is a baad thing), have turned to non-life threatening war, like sanctions, or providing weapons to someone else, or visits with other national leaders, or providing Internet. It has been quite some time since massive boots were put on the ground to totally annihilate an enemy. That makes us uncomfortable - and in part, this is true, since all life is sacred. But at the same time, that has only led to the development of massively more powerful weapons, which can take away lots of human life at the press of a button.
I think we may need to come a bit back around, and realize that peace may not come simply by protesting and writing to your congressman and being an activist on the Internet. Otherwise, we wouldn't have such a clear example otherwise.
Turning to a perhaps more palatable interpretation, there is definitely a sense of needing to be spiritually aggressive as well. It is not enough to find a sense of peace - there is also a need to actively pursue and hunt down all negative elements. I think I could use some of this in my own life - in addition to, say, internal activities like meditation, more external activities like confronting more of what makes me uncomfortable and dealing with it head-on. If a hundred can pursue ten thousand, surely I can do the same.
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