Do Jews Outside Israel Have a Say? The Bewitching End of Numbers

We begin with laws of the vows one makes to God with the limitation that a woman who lives in her husband's or father's house can have her vow unilaterally annulled by that man.

God commands Moshe and his final act of leadership to lead a war of vengeance against the Midianites who had sought Israel's destruction through the sorcerer Bil'am as well as concerted and successful effort by Midianite women to lure Israelite men into desertion.

Moses harangues his people for taking the Midianite women captive instead of outright slaughtering those who were adult.

The daughters of Zelophehad make a reappearance.

Their successful plea for an inheritance rights that we were all celebrating is now rolled back a bit by a counter plea that results in the limitation that they must marry within their tribe.

God issues a description of the future borders of the promised land that only a rabid West Bank settler could love.

The tribes of Reuben and Gad petitioned to settle outside of the land of Israel because the land is better for raising cattle, thus rejecting their inheritance, rejecting God's intentions, and at least partially repeating the offense of the spies.

a compromise is made whereby they will provide shock troops for the upcoming war.

I can only imagine that the divine intention behind this odd finale to the Torah story is that this material has been saved for the end because God knows, as I mentioned, that we need all the experience of reading Torah deeply for the past 10 months to sufficiently tackle it without merely recoiling and jumping to conclusions.