SO MOSES, AT THE LORD'S BIDDING, INSTRUCTED THE ISRAELITES,

SAYING: "THE PLEA OF THE JOSEPHITE TRIBE IS JUST. THIS

IS WHAT THE LORD HAS COMMANDED CONCERNING THE DAUGHTERS OF ZELAFHAD: THEY

MAY MARRY ANYONE THEY WISH, PROVIDED THAT THEY MARRY INTO A CLAN OF THEIR

FATHER'S TRIBE."

(Bamidbar 36:5-6)

Anyone they

wish – This

means to say: they shall chose those who seem good and upright to them from

among [the men of] their father's tribe, as it is written,

provided

that they marry into a clan of their father's tribe. The end of the verse commanded

them to marry specifically into their father's clan. It may have been the case

that those men of the sons of Gilead who brought up the issue with Moses very

much wanted to marry Zelafhad's daughters themselves,

either because of their good qualities that were mentioned by the Sages, or in

order to gain their portion of land – that is why they made such a fuss about

the matter. However, the daughters did not want to marry them in particular,

and so Moses told them: I am not going to force you to marry these men. Rather,

I will permit you to chose whom you please, only marry into your father's clan.

(Rabbi Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio on Bamidbar 36:5-6)

There were no days

better for Israel

than the fifteenth of Av…

(Mishnah Ta'anit 4:8)

What is the

fifteenth of Av?

R. Yehudah said in the name of Shemuel:

It is the day when the tribes were allowed to intermarry. How is this derived from

Scripture? This is what the Lord has commanded concerning the Daughters of Zelafhad (Bamidbar 36) – this will only be observed in

the present generation.

(Ta'anit 30b)

Their

marches, by starting points, were as follows

Haim Rubenstein

When

you start on your journey to Ithaca,

then pray that the road is long,

… ..

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.

To arrive there is your ultimate goal.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.

It is better to let it last for long years;

and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,

rich with all that you have gained on the way,

not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.

Without her you would never have taken the road.

But she has nothing more to give you.

… .

(From "Ithaca" by Constatine

P. Cavafy, transl. Rae Dalven)

These were the marches of the Israelites who started out

from the land of Egypt,

troop by troop, in the charge of Moses and Aaron. Moses recorded the starting

points of their various marches as directed by the Lord. Their marches, by

starting points, were as follows. (Bamidbar 33:1-2)

The

exegetes debated a question: what is this list for? Who cares about the

forty-two stations through which the Israelites passed on their way to the

Promised Land? The Torah is not an historical tract; neither is it concerned

with teaching geography. Furthermore, the identities of Mara, Ilah and Dafka are long

forgotten. The location of the stations is without significance. They belong

neither to reality nor to memory. No tradition regarding them has been

preserved, mainly because such a tradition would be of no significance. As far

as we are concerned – and as far as the ancients were concerned – whether or

not the stations once existed, they are nothing more than a list of place

names.

Rashi

(on the phrase these were the marches) points out that fourteen

of the stations were passed through in the first year and eight in the fortieth

year. The descriptions appearing from the beginning of the book of Bamidbar until the parashat Korah all take place in the first two years following the

Exodus from Egypt.

The material from parashat Hukat

until the end of Bamidbar covers the events of the

fortieth year, including Miriam and Aaron's deaths and the wars against Edom

and Moav. Thirty-eight years disappeared in the gap

between the two parashiyot. It seems that the

principle part of the wanderings in the wilderness were unimportant. The events

of most of the great sojourn through the wasteland were unimportant.

The basic meaning of march

is movement from place to place. One leaves A and reaches B – from starting

point to destination. However, the term march [masa]

bears a graver significance than does a trip

or a walk. It suggests a major

operation requiring organization and a certain degree of physical and mental

effort. What is the essence of the march, what is its role, what function does

it serve?

The central claim

of this article is that the point of a march is the march itself. The

experience of the march, its content – that is the goal of the march through

the wilderness.

It is usually estimated that it takes eleven days to

travel on foot from Egypt

to the Land of Israel.

From Ramses, along the Via Maris,

one passes through Polsium and El Arish,

and arrives at Rafah at the entrance to the land. One

may get off track a bit, one may lose one's way and double or triple the time

involved. Forty years of wandering is an entirely different matter.

In order to properly understand this, we must consider

the turning point – the Scouts' affair and the premature attempt to conquer the

land.

The Israelites, who had just left Egypt,

receive the Torah at Mount Sinai and arrive at Kadesh Barnea on the periphery of

the Land of Israel,

in order to enter the land. The turning point in their route occurs at the very

gates of the land. Scouts are sent from Kadesh to

investigate the land. They see what they see, but their report reflects their

own lack of confidence in themselves as leaders, in their own abilities, and in

the abilities of the people.

Thus

we must have looked to them. (Bamidbar 13:

32-33)

This

appears to be the key phrase for understanding the entire affair – and

we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves. The scouts, who constituted the people's middle level

leadership – all of them leaders of the Israelites (Bamidbar 13:1) –

are unsure of their ability to lead the people in the settlement of the land. They

display a lack of authority. Perhaps they do not feel that the nation is a

permanently unified body. They fear challenges, and their report causes people

to retreat, to turn back. Their report inspires panic.

The

whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. All the

Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. "If only we had died in the land of Egypt," the whole community shouted

at them, "or if only we might die in this wilderness! Why is the Lord

taking us into that land to fall by the sword? Our wives ad children will be

carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Egypt! And they said to one another, "Let

us appoint a leader and return to Egypt." (Bamidbar 14:1-4)

The

people are not yet ready to take on the great mission of independence. It is a people that has been enslaved for generations, a group of

people led around by task-masters, persons whose lives were determined by

others. Such a people cannot transform itself into an independent and

self-confident nation that can hold its own among the family of nations – not

in the short time it takes to leave Egypt and reach the entrance to the

land. Two main failures that occurred on the way to the Promised Land best

express their unprepared ness: the sin of the calf and the sin of the scouts. The

first demonstrates their unbroken connection to Egypt, the latter shows them unready

to take the initiative and become independent.

The

nation needs to remain isolated from contact with other cultures. It must live

in a bubble, enwrapped in a placenta where internal changes can proceed without

outside interference – the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire. The moratorium

will be used to get rid of the golden calf, to crush it into a fine powder, and

to create the nation's social and psychological foundations – a foundation of

self-awareness, perseverance and independence; a psychology appropriate to free

people, liberated from the psychology of enslavement. It is an escape from the

cage to freedom – a process that requires that a new generation supplant the

old.

Here

begins the march's second chapter. It is a long march, thirty-eight years long.

It begins in Kadesh Barnea,

the failed point of entry into the land, and finishes at Arvot

Moav, the new point of entry into the land. These two

locations differ geographically but in terms of the process they are identical

– they are starting line.

The

second march is the march around itself – from point A back to point A. The

finish line for the generation that left Egypt is the starting line for the

next march – the march to the land. The third march already belongs to the next

generation.

Our

own stock of concepts includes many marches – the march from sea to sea, the

march after which one receives one's military beret, the march for becoming

accustomed to one's gear, the one hundred and ten kilometer march. For each of

these marches, the geographical destination is unimportant – it is the march

itself which is important: the content of the march, the experience of the

march, the effort, the aching muscles, the path passing under one's feet,

glimpses of the scenery, perseverance built upon effort, the changing relationships

between the participants. The burden. The march.

The

purpose of the Israelite's march was to refine the people, to take it through

the oven of the wilderness and free it from Egypt and her gods. To grind into

dust the golden calf that resides in the soul. To create an

independent, self-confident nation, galvanized by the experiences of the march

into a consolidated core. The content of the march is important, but the

locations of its stations are without significance – only their very mention is

important. The stations are not physical milestones, they are markers of

development, stages at which the people stopped long

enough until they were ready to ascend to the next, higher level of

independence and confidence.

The

march towards the building of the nation is a process internal to the nation's

soul. The physical events have no significance beyond serving a platform for

general psychological development. The uncertainty of the public soul, its

internal storms, the self-contradictions and insights; these are the

subconscious processes which knead and shape the people called Israel. They are unconscious

processes; unmentioned; hidden.

The

parasha presents Aaron's death as a symbol of the

circular march, as a marker for the end of an era:

They

set out from Kadesh and encamped at Mount Hor, on the edge of the land of Edom. Aaron the priest ascended Mount Hor at the command of the Lord and

died there, in the fortieth year after the Israelites had left the land of Egypt, on the first day of the fifth

month. Aaron was a hundred and twenty-three years when he died on Mount Hor. (Bamidbar 33:37-39)

Aaron's

death, and that of Miriam before him (Bamidbar 20:1) are expressions of the succession of generations. It took

thirty-eight years to get from Mount Hor to Kadesh,

years in which one generation completed its task and its children took up the

burden. There grew a nation unacquainted with the sound of the cracking whip. Its

upright back had not been weighed down with burnt bricks. A

nation of free individuals who had been shaped in the kiln of the great and

empty desert. From frightened slaves to a nation sure

of its way. The generation of the wilderness died and a new generation

leads the people to its future destination. From Egypt to the land of Israel. From being governed to

governing. The second march ends at Arvot Moav by Jordan across from Jericho, a moment before the third

march begins, the march in which the nation will climb

on to history's stage as a leading actor.

Now

it succeeds in contending with its inner demons, it consolidates into a

powerful being that can overcome its fears. Healthy of mind;

strong.

At

that time we captured all the towns… all those towns were fortified with high

walls, gates, and bars… Only King Og

of Bashan was left of the remaining Refaim. His bedstead, an iron bedstead, is now in Rabbah of the Ammonites; it is nine cubits long and four

cubits wide, by the standard cubit. (Devarim 3:

4-5, 11)

The

children of and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves defeated the Refaim. That which was missing at Kadesh is now complete. The march is a thing-unto-itself.

Haim Rubenstein, helekh [one who walks]

The

Is Dependent Upon Its Inhabitants' Aspiration to Holiness

The Haftara

of Massei is Chapter 2 of Jeremiah – Jeremiah, the

prophet of the destruction… Among the many subjects in Parashat

Massei is the major and severe admonition against the

shedding of blood. This warning, appearing after the passage stating that

spilled blood corrupts the land, reads: You are not to make tamei [unclean] the land in which you are settling,

in whose midst I dwell, for I am God, Dweller in the midst of Israel. God does not dwell in

the land, He dwells in the midst of the Children of Israel.

This is what

gives the land its significance when the Children of Israel dwell upon it. God

dwells in the midst of the Children of Israel only upon the condition that they

have Him dwell in their midst. His dwelling in their midst is not automatic…

About 700 years after Moses, the

prophet Jeremiah appears. He brings no warning of what to do and what not to

do, but speaks of what is and of what has been done. He says: You have come

and you turned my inheritance into an abomination. Moses said: You shall

not make the land tamei. Jeremiah, 700

years later, says, You have come and made My

land tamei. That very same land, called

the land of God, (My land) and the

inheritance of God, has no inherent virtue, and man's behavior can make the

land of God tamei, and

God's inheritance an abomination.

(From He'arot le'Parshiyot ha'Shavua by

Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz,

p. 108-109)

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