Parashat Bamidbar

WHEN THE TABERNACLE IS TO SET OUT, THE LEVITES SHALL TAKE IT DOWN, AND WHEN THE TABERNACLE IS TO BE PITCHED, THE LEVITES SHALL SET IT UP; ANY OUTSIDER WHO ENCROACHES SHAL BE PUT TO DEATH. THE ISRAELITES SHAL ENCAMP TROOP BY TROOP, EACH MAN WITH HIS DIVISION AND EACH UNDER HIS STANDARD. THE LEVITES, HOWEVER, SHALL CAMP AROUND THE TABERNACLE OF THE PACT, THAT WRATH MAY NOT STRIKE THE ISRAELITE COMMUNITY; THE LEVITES SHALL STAND GUARD AROUND THE TABERNACLE OF THE PACT…

 (Bamidbar 1:51-3)

 

On Correct Borders and Distances

You shall put the Levites in charge... (Bamidbar 1:50) Why? Because they are loyal to me - even in the hour of its dismantling and erection, I do not want others to dismantle or erect it [the Tabernacle], but only them, as is written, When the Tabernacle is to set out...

Could it be that while the Levites were commanded [to dismantle and erect the Tabernacle], the Israelites were allowed to do so? We learn the answer from the verse, any outsider who encroaches shall be put to death, and also from the verse, Perverse thoughts will be far from Me; I will know nothing of evil (Tehillim 101:4) - this refers to the Israelites who turned aside from God and made the [golden] calf, causing God to despise them that they not be his treasurers. Do not say that only while on the march did the Israelites had nothing to do with it [the Tabernacle]; even during periods of encampment they did not come near it. Only the Levites did, as is written: The Israelites shall encamp troop by troop...The Levites, however, shall camp around the Tabernacle of the Pact.

And why do I warn them? That the Israelites shall distance themselves from the Tabernacle, so that there will be no anger upon them, since they are not worthy of coming near it, as is written, that wrath may not strike the Israelite community, but the Levites will guard it, as is written, the Levites shall stand guard around the Tabernacle of the Pact.

The Israelites did accordingly; just as the Lord had commanded Moses, so they did (Bamidbar 1:54) - That is, they distanced themselves from the Tabernacle and made room for the Levites to encamp around the Tabernacle.

(Bamidbar Rabbah 1:12)

 

 

THE TORAH OF THE ONE AND THE MANY

Mordechai Beck

In the Bible, the festival of Shavuot marks the joy of the first harvesting of the summer crops, an agricultural celebration of Nature's bounty and God's perennial fecundity. Its primal names are the Harvest Festival, and the Feast of the First Fruits (Exodus 23;16). In ancient times, the period preceding Shavuot was spent by the farming community in the fields, garnering their produce day and night. Living away from their houses, the farmers used the days of sefirat haOmer (the counting of the Omer) to calculate the exact date of the Shavuot pilgrim festival, when they would dedicated a choice portion of their harvest at the Temple in Jerusalem.

The agrarian side of the festival is beautifully caught in the Book of Ruth, which isread on the morning of the festival and in which the harvest plays such a pivotalrole in the unfolding drama of Ruth and Boaz. Yet behind this idyllic picture, the sages saw fit to paint another scenario, a hidden agenda; not just a time to gather the mundane harvest, but a time torecall the season of the Giving of the Torah. This the sages fixed on the sixth ofSivan, corresponding to the sixth day of creation - which is unique in the openingchapter of Genesis for having the definite article, 'yom hashishi,' which also heraldsthe formation of the first human beings.

On this sixth day, the Torah was offered not only to complement the creation, but also to elevate it. The continuation of the world itself was contingent on Israel's acceptance of the Torah at Sinai. Otherwise, God was prepared to "return the works of creation back to chaos." (Talmud Shabbat 88a) There is thus a strange, even disturbing undercurrent in this negotiation. Freed from the bonds of slavery the people of Israel stand beneath Sinai ready to accept the burden and the glory of becoming a precious people. The Torah in all its splendor would be offered them, as a husband offers his beloved the choicest diamond beneath the bridal canopy.

Simultaneously, they are presented with a zero-sum equation: either you accept My offer of marriage or you will be crushed beneath this mountain and bring the world to dust. Needless to say, it's an offer they cannot refuse. This surrealistic image is echoed in the fact that the Torah is given in Sinai - a land free of ownership, yet also denuded of vegetation, of nature's bountiful harvest. This provides an eerie counterpoint to the harvest festival which fixes the date in the Biblical text.

The experience of Sinai carries with it both fear and desire. On the one hand, the people cry to Moses: "You talk to us and we shall hear, and let not God speak with us, lest we die." (Ex. 20:30). Yet a few verses earlier the people are warned to stay where they are: "lest they break through to gaze at God, and many will perish" (Exodus 19: 21) - to which Rashi adds - "that, out of their passion for God, they destroy themselves, by drawing too close to the mountain." The Sinai event thus includes the possibility of both self-destruction and transcendent ecstacy. Sinai is rooted in the anonymous desert, but remains tantalizingly extra-terrestrial. It should thus be no surprise that Sinai is the occasion when time itself loses its pedantic meaning. To the phrase "And Jethro heard" (Exodus 18:1), the Talmud asks what did he hear that drew him to leave fertile Midian for the wastes of the desert "Rabbi Eleazar Modai said: 'He heard the giving of the Torah. For when it was given, it could be heard from one end of the world to the other." (Zevahim 116a). This version has Moses' father-in-law arrive after the Sinai experience, though the verse order states that he heard about it beforehand.beforehand.

One answer to this riddle is that 'there is no chronological order in the Torah,' a rabbinical gloss which is applied here for the first time in the book of Exodus. Yet, prior to this incident, the Torah does contain an apparent order (the obvious examples being the creation saga and the history of the patriarchs). The Sinai event changes this notion forever. If the Exodus liberated us from space, Sinai liberated us from time.

The sense of timelessness is echoed in the very quality of the Torah itself. In an exquisite anthology by Agnon, (translated by Michael Swirsky in 1994 for JPS as "Present at Sinai"), Judah Goldin observes:

"The fact that Agnon does not organize his citations chronologically is indeed his deliberate design. It is not historical or critical literary development he is after... The spell he is under is the unanimity of assent to the exuberance at the foot of the Mount Sinai. From the top of the mountain the Voice came down, audible to ancestors and descendants. Therefore they can collaborate..."

Another notion of liberation is suggested by the 40-day long fast that Moses undergoes to complete the Torah-giving. In order to really receive the Torah, he has to empty himself completely of any terrestrial needs. When he finally returns to the Israelite's desert camp, after the second receiving of the Ten Commandments, he leaves both his wife and the people and sets up a tent outside the camp (Exodus 33.7). He can never again be the Moses who ascended the mountain.

For Moses, the ascent to the peak of Sinai is the end of a long trail that begins with the first forty years of his life in the palace of the Egyptian pharoah. It is precisely when he kills an Egyptian taskmaster, and is discovered by his fellow Israelites (Exodus 2.12), that he realizes that the time has come to flee Egypt - not only physically but also spiritually. For the next 40 years he undergoes a gradual metamorphosis. Only when he has shed his princely image, and reached the bedrock of who he is can he meet the people and set them free. Only when himself is free of this psychological burden can he lead his people to the foot of Sinai and offer them the Torah.

When Moses receives the Torah on his own, high on the cloudy mountain top, he somehow 'represents' the Children of Israel gathered below. Rashi makes this point clear regarding the state of the people, of whom it is written: vayihan sham yisrael neged hahar. "And Israel encamped opposite the mountain." The reason the verb 'encamped' is written in the singular according to Rashi is because at this unique time and place they were 'like one person, with one heart.'

What may be garnered from this comment is a hint of the importance of the one person, as personified both in the individual figure of Moses and also in the people as a totality. In another quote from the Agnon anthology - which might carry more than a passing relevance for our own day - the Pekudat HaLevi observes: "Our Rabbis, the author of the Agagda, said: Had only one of them [the people] been absent the Torah would not have been given. Rabbi Aharon HaLevi wrote:

"It is for this reason that the Torah was given to six thousand people. It was the will of the Holy One, blessed Be He, that the Torah be accepted by all factions, and the six hundred thousand included all factions and opinions."

Mordechai Beck is an artist and a writer.

 

 

Take a census of the whole Israelite community by clans of its ancestral homes, listing the names, every male, head by head.

(Bamidbar 1:2)

 

The king said to Yoav, his army commander, "Make the rounds of all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beer-Sheva, and take a census of the people, so that I may know the size of the population.

(II Samuel, 24:2)

 

Did David Sin?

...In my opinion, David's sin demonstrates that he depended upon mortals and the large size of the nation was the source of his confidence. However, it was improper for him to trust in anything save in God alone. In addition, (as we explained in the parasha of Ki Tissah) the Torah commanded us to count people indirectly, by having each man give a certain amount of money, and then counting the total sum collected, so that no plague may come upon them through their being counted (Shemot 30:12).

(RaLBaG on II Samuel 24:1)

 

...It would seem from the chapter's (II Samuel 24) details that this census has a military purpose, since Yoav, his army commander and the other officers were placed in charge of it, and only soldiers ready to draw the sword (24:9) were counted.

One might ask: The Torah never prohibited people from taking active steps in the fight for survival - quite to the contrary, it demands of people work, activity, assiduousness, and devotion of strength, energy and spirit to the preservation of life and settlement of the world. The army which defends its people and land from enemies are part of all this. In that case, what was the RaLBaG's (and Abravanel)'s point...?

The root of the matter is this: The army cannot serve as an instrument of self-aggrandizement or as a value in itself. Rather, it is a means that is needed only when the necessity arises.

(Prof. Nehamah Leibowits, z"l, Iyyunim be-Sefer Bamidbar, pg. 22)

 

In that day, I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; I will also banish bow, sword, and war from the land. Thus I will let them lie down in safety. And I will espouse you forever: I will espouse you with righteousness and justice, and with goodness and mercy, and I will espouse you with faithfulness; then you shall be devoted to the Lord.

(Hosea 2:20-21, from the haftorah for parashat Bamidbar)

 

With righteousness and justice - Which should guide your behavior.

And with goodness and mercy - Which you shall receive from me in recognition of them [i.e., in recognition of your righteousness and justice]. It is written of our father Abraham: For I have singled him out, that he may instruct...to do what is just and right (Bereishit 18:19). In return, his sons were given goodness and mercy from God, as it says, and [He] will show you compassion (Devarim 13:18) and the Lord your God will maintain for you the covenant and the goodness (Devarim 7:12).

Desist from the just and the right, as it says, you who turn justice into wormwood and hurl righteousness to the ground (Amos 5), and God will withdraw his goodness and mercy, as it says, for I have withdrawn my favor from that people, the goodness and the mercy (Jeremiah 16:5). And when you resume doing the just and the right, as it says, Zion shall be saved by justice (Yeshayahu 1:27) God will add goodness and mercy to them, making a crown of the four of them [i.e., justice, righteousness, goodness, and mercy] which He will place upon your head.

(Rashi Hosea 2:21)

 

The Torah is Offered Freely to All

The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai (Bamidbar 1:1) - Why in the wilderness of Sinai? From here the Sages learned: The Torah was given by way of three things; fire, water, and wilderness.

From whence do we know fire? Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke (Shemot19:18).

And water? The heavens dripped, yea, the clouds dripped water (Judges 5:4).

And wilderness? The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai.

And why was it given by way of these three things?

Because all of them are free to be taken by everyone in the world. So too, the words of the Torah are free to be taken, as it is said, Ho, all that are thirsty come for water (Yeshayahu 55:1).

(Bamidbar Rabbah, 1)

 

Acceptance of the Torah is a Personal Decision, Made "Not in Order to Receive a Reward"

...That is why Israel was not given the Torah immediately after the splitting of the Red Sea, because if they had received it after the splitting of the Red Sea, it would have looked as if they accepted the Torah in order to receive a reward, as a result of the great miracles that had just been performed for them. That is why God waited a bit - meanwhile they could partially forget the miracles performed for them, as it says, there was no water for the community, and they complained. Afterwards, they received the Torah, saying that they would "do it and hear it," which proves that they accepted the Torah solely out of love for he Torah.

(From Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev's Kedushat Levi)

 

 

 

 

If you enjoy Shabbat Shalom, please consider contributing towards its publication and distribution.

• Hebrew edition distributed in Israel $1000
• 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.

Tax exempt contributions to Oz VeShalom may be made through the New Israel Fund or PEF.

Contributions should be marked as donor-advised to OzVeShalom/Netivot Shalom, Shabbat Shalom project.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE NEW ISRAEL FUND IS NO LONGER ACCEPTING DONATIONS UNDER $50. FOR DONATIONS BETWEEN $50 AND $999 THEY ARE CHARGING A $50 SERVICE CHARGE. DONATIONS ABOVE $1000 ARE CHARGED A 5% FEE.

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

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

PEF will also channel donations and provide a tax-exemptions. Donations should be sent to P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc., 317 Madison Ave., Suite 607, New York, New York 10017 USA

 

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 which 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.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's programs include both educational and protest activities. Seminars, lectures, workshops, conferences and weekend programs are held for students, educators and families, as well as joint seminars for Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Protest activities focus on issues of human rights, co-existence between Jews and Arabs, and responses to issues of particular religious relevance.

9,000 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

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's educational forums draw people of different backgrounds, secular and religious, who are keen to deepen their Jewish knowledge and to hear an alternative religious standpoint on the subjects of peace and social issues.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom fills an ideological vacuum in Israel's society. Committed both to Jewish tradition and observance, and to the furthering of peace and coexistence, the movement is in a unique position to engage in dialogue with the secular left and the religious right, with Israeli Arabs and with Palestinians.