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 they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, "The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size; we saw the Nefilim there - the Anakites are part of the Nefilim - and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so 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 Holiness of Eretz Yisrael 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 made My land tamei, 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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