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Bamidbar
Numbers 1:1-4:20
Hosea 2:1-22

As we begin to study the fourth of the five books of the Torah, it would be useful to examine its essence as well as that of the other four books.

The Ramban (Nachmanides) suggests that the Book of Genesis is essentially a narrative of the lives of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, ending with Jacob and his sons going down to Egypt. The purpose of Genesis is to highlight the selection of our forefathers by our Creator, and thus establish justification for their descendants to acquire the land of Israel.

The Ramban describes the Book of Exodus as the story of the enslavement of our people in Egypt and their ultimate redemption from servitude. It culminates with the greatest redemption of all — the residing of the Shechinah (G-d's spirit) in their midst.

Leviticus is the book of sacrificial law. Its essence is the attainment of kedushah (sanctity), resulting in a closeness to G-d.

The last book, Deuteronomy, is a review of the Torah and a preparation for the death of Moses and entry into the Promised Land.

The core of the Book of Bamidbar (Numbers) is harder to define. The Netziv (19th century Rosh Yeshivah of Volozhin) refers to Numbers as a transitional book. He explains that Bamidbar marks the transition from the supernatural and openly manifested Divine Providence in the desert wilderness to the apparently more natural and concealed Divine Providence of life in Israel.

An analysis, however, of some of the mitzvot introduced in this book offers a different perspective. The word midbar means a wilderness, a place that is savage, untamed and dominated by primitive and wild impulses. In this desert we find the nascent Jewish nation about a year after their Exodus from Egypt and almost a year after receiving the Torah, the greatest event in human history. Now the Jews would be subjected to a census and would have to be molded from a horde of ex-slaves into a community whose nucleus is the holy Mishkan (the portable precursor of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem).

Here in this wasteland we observe the Jewish people succumbing to their worst and wildest impulses — cowardice, insecurity, lust, jealousy and distrust of their leaders and even of G-d Himself. Bamidbar runs from disaster to disaster, from the tragedy of the spies to the revolt of Korach to the debauchery at Baal Peor.

After that catastrophe we find a second command to count the Jewish people, and in this second census may lie the essence of the Book of Bamidbar: In the wilderness of life there is always a second chance for a new beginning even after a great and tragic decline.

Bamidbar, it seems, is the book that deals with life at its worst moments, and here in this book (in next week's parashah of Naso) the mitzvah of vidui (repentance with confession) appears. When even the holy and disciplined environment of the Torah society is not enough to suppress the impulses of our evil inclination, when life breaks down into the "wilderness existence," when we have surrendered to the most base and demeaning of human impulses, then the strategies and insights of the Book of Bamidbar must be employed.

Bamidbar basically involves two themes: how to recover from human failure and how to then reach greater spiritual heights. Therefore, immediately after the mitzvah of repentance we have the mitzvah of nazir, which affords the opportunity for an ordinary person to attain new levels of spirituality by refraining from certain actions (cutting hair, drinking wine, etc.). In addition, in this book of second chances we come across the mitzvah of Pesach Sheini, which affords a person who was impure or far away during Pesach a second opportunity to offer the Korban Pesach (Paschal lamb).

This week's parashah is always read before the holiday of Shavuot (which begins at sundown Tuesday, May 25), when we celebrate our receiving of the Torah. It is followed next week by the parashah of Naso, with its message of repentance. Perhaps the reason is that with the receiving of the Torah we must grasp the concept that though we may on occasion — or even often — fail horribly, the Torah always offers us the opportunity not only to be forgiven but also to reach greater spiritual heights.

Shabbat shalom.




Rabbi Pinchas Lipner is dean of the Hebrew Academy in San Francisco.

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