The title of our sedra is Mattos, and it refers to the tribes of Klal Yisrael (the pasuk itself is dealing with the heads of the tribes, but the word ‘mattos’ means ‘tribes’). Why is a tribe called a matteh in lashon hakodesh? Rav Feiner pointed out that the letters of the word matteh also spell ‘mittah,’ a bed. If two words in lashon hakodesh are similar, they must have a common theme; what does a tribe have to do with a bed? Moreover, the word ‘matteh’ also means a branch or stick (as in Moshe’s matteh). So what do a tribe, a branch, and a bed have to do with each other? The main use of a bed, says the gemarra (Shabbos), is the bonding between husband and wife in creating the next generation. In other words, a mittah represents continuity in the forming of the next generation. Similarly, a branch denotes an outgrowth of the trunk of the tree; a continuation of the main body. What all these ideas seem to point at is that the Jewish idea of tribes is that they are an outgrowth of the previous generation. The tribes take everything they have learnt from their ancestors, internalise and develop it, and pass it on to their offspring. A tribe is an offshoot. If a member of a tribe departs from the way of their ancestors then they have removed their label of being an offshoot and have decided to be a branch on their own. A true tribe member is one who values what has been passed down to him from previous generations.
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