Speak to Aaron and say to him: "When you light the lamps, the

seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah."

(Bamidbar 8:2)

The seven lamps shall cast their light All seven will cast their light

and emanate supernal light upon Israel. The light from the lamps on the right

and the light of those on the left will face and be directed towards the center

branch, which is the essence of the Menorah. And such is the proper intention

of those on the right who engage in eternal life [Torah study] and those of the

left who engage in ephemeral life help those of the right, as they said:

"If not for the leaves, their would be no bunches of grapes. (Hullin 92a),

that they should perform the will of blessed God in such a way that all should

understand His intention and will exalt His Name together, as they did when

they took Him upon themselves, as is witnessed by the verse: And all the people

answered together and said, All that the Lord said, we shall perform"

– that is to say – Acting together, we shall realize His intention.

(Seforno

Bamidbar 8:20)

…While Israel's

chieftains gave the offerings for the altar's dedication – thus expressing the

nation's relation to the Sanctuary – the nature of the Priests' own relation to

the Sanctuary became clear to Aaron, and later to his tribe (see the

section beginning with verse 5)

within the nation. To set up the lamps so that, the

seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah,

that all the diversity of spiritual aspirations should be united in an

aspiration towards the Lord – that is the priest's function and the meaning of

the Levites' service. The Priests shall devote themselves on a daily basis to

that which the chieftains expressed during the great days of the dedication. They

will see to it that this spirit shall be found in the people on a daily basis

and that the life of the nation will always be maturing towards its spiritual

and moral perfection.

(Rabbi

S.R. Hirsch ad loc)

If you go to war in your land…

Yoel Kretzmer-Raziel

And the 59^th commandment is

that He commanded us to blow the trumpets in the Temple with the offering of

any of the festival sacrifices… and so we are commanded to blow the trumpets

in times of need and troubles when we cry out before the Lord, may He be

exalted…

RaMBaM

uses these words in his Sefer HaMitzvot to formulate the commandment of

the trumpets which appears in our parasha. The expression, "in times of

need and troubles" seems to have a much broader scope than does the

Torah's formulation: If you go to war in your land against an adversary that

oppresses you. This gap becomes all the more salient in the context of

current Israeli discourse, in which "war" is sharply distinguished

from other kinds of troubles. The degree of internal mobilization, the magnitude

of the budgetary measures taken, the compass of media coverage, and even the

level of religious energy in times of war completely outstrip those related to

other crises and challenges.

The

source for the passage from RaMBaM is found in the midrash Sifrei Zutta

on Bamidbar: " If you go to war – That is on the hour of war; where

do we learn about the time of blast [a crop disease] and mildew, and locusts,

and every communal woe? It says: against an adversary that oppresses you."

Rabbi Akiva expresses this view in Sifrei Bamidbar, the parallel

midrash. The unattributed narrating voice of Sifrei, which belongs to

school of R. Yishmael, expounds the verse differently: "If you go to

war in your land… against an adversary that oppresses you – Scripture is

speaking of the war of Gog and Magog." While the plain meaning of the

verse refers to a war against an oppressor, one midrash expands the compass of

the commandment to include other disasters affecting society, while the other

limits the commandment to an apocalyptic war.

A

broader view of the agendas of these two Tannaitic midrashim on the trumpet

passage may reveal something of the significance of their disagreement.

When

reading the drashot on the passage cited in the Sifrei, we discover the

laws of the Shofar blowing of Rosh HaShanah laid out before us, woven into the

explication of the verses. These include not only the laws regarding the actual

blowing of the shofar, but also the laws pertaining to its accompanying

blessings – malkhiyot, zikhronot, and shofarot. Sifrei

Zutta, in contrast, does not mention the laws of Rosh HaShanah. Furthermore,

everywhere the parasha mentions trumpets – hatzotzrot – Sifrei Zutta

takes pains to point out: "and not shofarot."1 The Jerusalem Talmud (Rosh HaShanah

3:5; 58d) insists

that R. Akiva's school learns the laws of the shofar of Rosh HaShanah from the

passage about the Jubilee year, while the school of R. Yishmael learns them

from the passage about the trumpets.

It

seems that these two schools are fundamentally divided over the interpretation

of our parasha. Sifrei views the trumpets as being part of the language

of religious ritual, thus creating a chain: the trumpets > the shofar of

Rosh HaShanah > the shofar of redemption: "There is no shofar but that

of freedom, for it is said, And on that day he will blow a great shofar.

But I do not know who will blow it. The verse teaches us: And the Lord God

will blow a shofar… " (Sifrei ad loc). The reference

to the blowing of the trumpets relates, then, not only to the here and now, but

is also entirely concerned with meta-historical and the future redemption. The

opening of his midash emphasizes the ceremonial aspect of the trumpets:

"Since it says, according to the Lord's utterance they shall camp, and

in accordance with the Lord's utterance they shall travel I understand that

since they travel in accordance with the [divine] utterance and encamp in

accordance with the [divine] utterance they needed trumpets." That is to

say, these were not functional instruments but rather ceremonial instruments.

Sifrei

Zutta, in

contrast, restricts the trumpets to the roles of prayer and assemblage. It

makes no connection between the shofar of Rosh HaSahanah and the future

redemption.²

From

here we can understand the differences between the interpretations of the word war

in our parasha. Sifrei sees the trumpet-blast as a religious-ceremonial

action, reserving it for a war of religious value, i.e., the war of Gog and

Magog. Sifrei Zutta views the trumpets as devices for assembling the

people and engaging in prayer and does not differentiate between wars and other

troubles.

Two

insights of the Tannaitic darshanim now come to light. It seems that Sifrei does

not consider regular warfare to be an act bearing religious value. There is one

future war which will bear religious value, and it alone will be accompanied by

the trumpet ceremony. Other wars do not belong to the same category as the

marches of the camps through the wilderness that took place by God's command

and the festival offerings made before God. Sifrei Zutta also undermines

the special status of regular wars: as far as the need for assembly and prayer

go, war has no more importance than any of the other dangers which face human

society. The same human energy mobilized in time of war should also be mobilized

to prevent other catastrophic scenarios.

1. There is one drasha in Sifrei Zutta that

seems to disrupt this division: And at the beginnings of your months – these

are Rosh Hodesh; And the beginnings of your months – to include Rosh

HaShanah." However, a geniza fragment of the midrash has: "When it

says, And at the beginnings of your months [as well as] And the

beginnings of your months – [this comes] to include each and every

month." It seems that in this version the midrash tries to avoid granting

any special status to Rosh HaShanah in connection with this commandment.

2. This might have been the hidden intention of the

following midrash from Sifrei Zutta: "Make – make to

assemble." That is to say, Sifrei Zutta presents a functional, as

opposed to a ceremonial view, of the trumpets.

Yoel

Kretzmer is a member of Kibbutz Ein tzurim. He teaches in the beit Midrash

founded by graduates of Yeshivat HaKibbutz HaDati and Kehillat Yedidya in

Jerusalem

On the day the Tabernacle was erected, the

remained] until morning... So it was always, the cloud covered it and there was

an appearance of fire at night and according to the cloud's departure from over the

where the cloud settled, there the children of Israel would encamp.

(Bamidbar 9:15-17)

Patience, Waiting, and Contending with Uncertainty as Expressions of

Faith

But the cloud was the Shepherd's crook by means of which God, the

Shepherd of Israel, announced His will to the People He was leading, where and

when they were to encamp, where and when to break camp. And, as is here

described, the will and the intention of this direction were absolutely

unpredictable. Sometimes a long rest, sometimes just a few days. Sometimes only

a night or a day and a night, or two days, a month, a year… it is not so much

the strain of lengthy wanderings as the patient endurance of the lengthy stops

which seem to be stressed as the real task of the tests. Nothing is mentioned

of the wanderings and their duration, but very definitely and repeatedly we are

told of standing fast in long rests… Clearly then their exercising enduring

patience is specially stressed. This is the more understandable when one thinks

of the inhospitality of the desert, and remembers that the people knew quite

well that the wilderness was not the end of their wanderings, but that their

goal lay beyond, and that every tarrying anywhere in the wilderness only held

them back from the Promised Land. These were the exercises in that virtue of

quiet and cheerful devoted and confident enduring patience which the

"People of God's guidance" require more than any other in their

Galut-wanderings through the "wilderness of the nations," as the

prophet calls it, during so many centuries of the future, and which the word of

the prophet so significantly renders as, Even if it tarries, wait for it

still (Habakkuk 2:3).

(R. Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on Bamidbar 9:16-22,

Levy translation)

And

You Shall Purify Them – The Holy Service can be One's Downfall

It repeats the warning about

ritual purity, for just as the Holy Service can raise up one's heart in God's

paths, so too it can trip one up through pride over other people and through

desecration of the Holy Name via even a minor transgression – against these we

must be warned. Also, the greater someone is compared to his fellows, the

greater is his inclination to sin in unusual ways. So we find that proximity to

holiness causes impurity, as the prophet Haggai said, whatever they bring

near is defiled (2:14)…

Later this actually happened to Korah and his followers from among the Levites

– their greatness was their downfall – that is why they are warned after

serving in the Tent of Meeting, so that they will be careful about purity in

accordance with their rank.

(Ha-Amek Davar Bamidbar 8:15)

But the multitude among them began to have

they said, "Who will feed us meat?… The meat was still between their teeth; it was not yet

struck the people with a very mighty blow. He named that place Kivrot Hata'avah [Graves of

Craving], for there they buried the people who craved.

(Bamidbar

11)

Who

were the Asafsuf?

Who were the asafsuf ["multitude"]?

Rabbi Shimon bar Abba and Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya [spoke of this]. One said:

They were the converts who rose up with them from Egypt, for it is said, Moreover,

a mixed multitude went up with them (Shemot

12:8).

And one said: The asafsuf

are the Sanhedrin, for it is said, collect [esfa] for me

seventy men (Bamidbar 11:16). What is [also] written there? A

the camp (11:1) – the kotzim [thorns,

i.e. riff-raff] of the camp. And how do we know that those elders who ascended

Mount Sinai were burned? For it is said, a fire blazed in their party [edah]

(Psalms 106:18), and edah can only mean

the Sanhedrin, for it is said, if this was done through the inadvertence of

the edah [elders] (Bamidbar 15:24).

(Bamidbar Rabbah 15:24)

And

Miriam and Aaron spoke of Moses: the Motives for Evil Speech

If there is one among your

friends whose obedience to God is greater than yours, whose actions for

His sake are purer, and his efforts to draw near to Him stronger, the

instinct will make you hate him, saying, "All the effort this man shows in

obedience to God constitutes a clear failure on your part! Were it not for him,

God, as well as man, would think you the most pious of your generation.

Therefore you should offend him, be jealous of him and angry with him! Look for

his faults and failures! Watch for his stumblings! Observe where he is

negligent, publicize it as much as you can, and revile him for it. If it is

possible to slander him for nothing, just to dishonor him in people's eyes, go

ahead and do it!" Your answer should be the following: "How can I scorn

somebody God loves and revile somebody he favors?"

(R. Bahya Ibn Pakuda's Hovot Ha-Levavot, Sha'ar Yihud Ha-Ma'aseh 8. Pp. 300-1 in Mansoor's translation)

Moses

was a very humble man

Moses

approached the fog – this resulted from his humility, as is said, Moses

was a very humble man. Scripture tells us that whoever is humble, will

eventually spread the Shekhina – the Divine Presence – among men on earth, as

is written, For thus said He who high aloft forever dwells, whose name

is holy, and it says, The spirit of God is upon me. And it says all

spirit. Whoever is prideful causes the earth to become impure, and removes

the Shekhina, as is said I cannot endure the haughty and proud man. All

the prideful are termed an abomination, as is written, Every haughty

person is a abomination before God. Idolatry is called an abomination

as is written, You shall not bring abomination into your house. Just as

idolatry contaminates the Land and dispels the Shekhina. Moses approached the

fog which was within three partitions – darkness, cloud, and fog – darkness

on the outside, cloud on the inside, fog yet further inside, as is written, and

Moses approached the fog.

(Mekhilta, Yitro, Massekhet D'Bahodesh, 9)

In the case of some character

traits, a man is forbidden to accustom himself to the mean. Rather, he shall

move to the other extreme. One such [character trait ] is a haughty heart, for

the good way is not that a man be merely humble, but that he have a lowly

spirit, that his spirit be very submissive. Therefore it was said of Moses our

master that he was very humble and not merely humble. And

therefore the wise men commanded: "Have a very, very lowly spirit." Moreover,

they said that everyone who makes his heart haughty denies the existence of

God. As it is said: And your heart shall swell, and you shall forget the

Lord your God.

 (RaMBaM, Hilkhot

De'ot 2:3, Raymond L. Weiss translation)

…Human pride and arrogance

stems from their not recognizing their standing before God. That is why, unlike

any other prophet, Moses was uniquely called very humble (and not merely

humble).

(Prof. Y. Leibowitz, Sheva Shanim shel Sihot al Parashat ha'Shavu'a)

Awe

and Humility: Abraham, Moses, and Hillel as opposed to Isaac and Shamai

This was the convert's claim in

the chapter of Bameh Madlikin and the reason for Shammai's rejection of him.

Shammai had reached the level of yira – of awe – which is accompanied by

gevura – courage, and by kapdanut – strictness – which was the

level of our father Isaac, peace be upon him, from whom Israel evolved. Therefore,

he [Shammai] rebuffed converts, as related in the chapter Bameh Madlikin. Hillel's humility brought them near, like Moses

our teacher may peace be upon him, who was very humble, and who therefore

brought close the erev rav – the non-Israelites who joined the

Israelites in the Exodus. And

so our father Abraham, may peace be upon him, was humble, as is written in

Tractate Berakhot "Woe [upon the passing of] this humble person, disciple

of our father Abraham, may peace be upon him. Therefore he was the father of

converts, as we learned in Bikkurim. Humility includes the appreciation of

one's deficiency as compared with the greatness of The Holy One, Blessed Be He,

and therefore leaves no place for belittling the convert who has come

with his staff and pouch, for He who told oil to burn can tell vinegar to burn

and it will burn, and he can put fire into vinegar, as in [the verse] God, created

within me a pure heart, and creation is ex nihilo.

(Rabbi Tzadok HaCohen of Lublin, Or Zarua LaTzaddik)

If you enjoy Shabbat Shalom, please consider contributing towards

its publication and distribution.

• Hebrew edition distributed in Israel

  $700

• English edition distributed via email $

  100

Issues may be dedicated in honor of an event, person, simcha, etc.

Requests must be made 3-4 weeks in advance to appear in the Hebrew, 10 days in

advance to appear in the English email.

In Israel, checks payable to Oz VeShalom may be sent to Oz

VeShalom-P.O.B. 4433, Jerusalem 91043.

US and British tax-exempt contributions to Oz VeShalom may be made

through:

New Israel Fund, POB 91588, Washington, DC 20090-1588, USA

New Israel Fund of Great Britain, 26 Enford Street, London W1H 2DD,

Great Britain

Please note that the NIF is no longer accepting donations under $100

PEF will also channel donations and provide a tax-exemption. Donations

should be sent to P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc., 317 Madison Ave., Suite

607, New York, New York 10017 USA

All contributions to either the NIF or PEF should be marked as

donor-advised to Oz ve'Shalom, the Shabbat Shalom project. For Donations

to NIF, please mention that Oz veShalom is registered as no. 5708.

About us

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom is a movement dedicated to the advancement of

a civil society in Israel. It is committed to promoting the ideals of

tolerance, pluralism, and justice, concepts that have always been central to

Jewish tradition and law.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom shares a deep attachment to the land of

Israel and it no less views peace as a central religious value. It believes

that Jews have both the religious and the national obligation to support the

pursuit of peace. It maintains that Jewish law clearly requires us to create a

fair and just society, and that co-existence between Jews and Arabs is not an

option but an imperative.

5,000

copies of a 4-page peace oriented commentary on the weekly Torah reading are

written and published by Oz VeShalom/Netivot Shalom and they are distributed to

over 350 synagogues in Israel and are sent overseas via email. Our web site is

www.netivot-shalom.org.il.