Category Archives: Bamidbar

5782, Bamidbar, Chidushei HaRim, Numbers, Parsha

The Peace of all Sums (Bamidbar)

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The Peace of all Sums (Bamidbar)

The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny. -Blaise Pascal

The name of the fourth of Moses’ five books of the Torah is called Bamidbar in Hebrew, meaning “in the desert.” As with the four other books, it is also the name of the first Torah portion of its eponymous book. While one can’t argue with the fact or the appropriateness of calling the book which deals primarily with Israel’s sojourn in the desert, the Book of In the Desert, it is interesting that the translators chose to call it the Book of Numbers.

It is not entirely inappropriate, for there is a significant preoccupation with counting the numbers of the Children of Israel, both at the beginning of their desert journey as well as at the end of it, as well as some other counting and numbering going on.

One of the peculiarities that become clear in the counting of Israel is the hierarchy of different groups vis-à-vis access to and service in the Tabernacle. The Kohens have the preeminent role, followed by the Levites in a supporting role, and finally the rest of the tribes of Israel. The Chidushei HaRim on Numbers 1:1 discusses the importance and value of the different designations and separations. There are differences between individuals, families, groups and nations and it would be a mistake to look at or think of every individual as part of some universal, monolithic, amorphous whole. The identity, distinctions and roles serve a purpose.

However, when these disparate groups come together and unite while still retaining their distinctions and identities, that is when something truly special happens, that is when the elusive peace we are always seeking is possible. The Chidushei HaRim quotes a well-known Talmudic dictum that there is no vessel that can contain blessings for Israel except for peace. He adds that there is a hint in this dictum in the word “vessel” itself, which in Hebrew is “Kli.” He states that “KLI” is the acronym for Kohen, Levi, Israel. When Kohens, Levites and the rest of Israel are united, while still retaining their identities and their roles, that is when we create peace and that is when we can truly become vessels for bountiful blessing.

May we reach that unity, peace and blessings.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To Rabbi Daniel and Rebbitzen Ilana Epstein on their induction as the Rabbinic couple at the Western Marble Arch Synagogue of London.

5781, Bamidbar, Bechor Shor, Numbers, Parsha

Firstborn Conundrum (Bamidbar)

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Firstborn Conundrum (Bamidbar)

You can’t push anyone up the ladder unless he is ready to climb himself. -Andrew Carnegie

Already during the events of the Exodus, God demonstrates a special relationship with firstborn children. During the tenth plague to strike Egypt, the Plague of the Firstborns, God kills all of the Egyptian firstborns and spares all of the Jewish firstborns. God makes a point of repeating this fact and having us commemorate that event.

Furthermore, God’s saving of the Jewish firstborns creates an obligation on the part of those firstborns as well as all firstborns thereafter. The Jewish firstborn boys belong to God and have a higher obligation of servitude than those not born first.

It seems there was even a plan of their being a constant elite cadre of firstborns that would serve as priests in the Tabernacle and later on in the Temple, honored and eternal servants of God. However, the firstborns messed up. They proved unready for this special honor and distinction.

According to the Bechor Shor on Number 4:13, because of the sin of the Golden Calf, which included firstborns from most of the tribes of Israel, all of the firstborns then and thereafter were disqualified from the previously planned honorary role. In their place, God substituted the tribe of Levi, who had not participated in the sin of the Golden Calf. He elevated the Levites to take the role that had been previously assigned to the firstborns.

Additionally, to keep the Levites focused on their sacred ritual duties, the entire tribe of Levi did not inherit any land in Israel. They did not have the burden of owning land, of having to farm it or manage it. Their time was meant to be exclusively dedicated to the service of God and their brother tribes were directed to support the Levites with a tithe of their produce.

On the other hand, the firstborns, all of whom had been cast out from the Temple service were legislated as getting a double portion of their father’s inheritance compared to their non-firstborn brothers. The Bechor Shor implies that in a sense in the trade of the Levites for the firstborns in the Temple service, the firstborns received the Levites’ material possessions, hence the double portion.

May we all become worthy of divine service no matter our birth order or tribe.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the safety of all of Israel.

5780, Bamidbar, Meshech Chochma, Numbers, Parsha

Biblical Military Organization (Bamidbar)

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Biblical Military Organization (Bamidbar)

Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. Like beams in a house or bones to a body, so is order to all things. -Robert Southey

God knows how to count. Moses knows how to count. We have numerous examples in the Torah. The Torah gives specific numbers as to the children of Jacob that each of his wives gave birth to. It gives us specific years that the descendants of Adam lived. It tells us at what age they gave birth to their children. Moses himself gives a precise count of the number of firstborns. The Torah seems to understand numbers in the same way that we do.

Nonetheless, some numbers might appear unusual to our modern minds based on our understanding of statistics, probability, and randomness. For example, the Torah has a love affair with the number seven, which plays a central role in a multiplicity of narratives. Ten is also a fairly important number. Others have investigated the primacy of these numbers and it makes for fascinating insights.

The numerological issue that I’ve had for a long time is in this week’s Torah reading and it has to do with the count of the troops of the newborn nation of Israel. Men over the age of 20 (and probably until the age of 60) were divided and counted according to each of the 12 tribes (the tribe of Levi was excluded, being tasked with the service of the Tabernacle, were exempt from direct military duty – they were the chaplains if you will).

The issue with the count of the troops is that the total of every single tribe results in a beautiful round number. Below are the census numbers:

Reuven: 46,500 Judah: 74,600 Ephraim: 40,500 Dan: 62,700
Shimon: 59,300 Issachar: 54,400 Menashe: 32,200 Asher: 41,500
Gad: 45,650 Zebulun: 57,400 Benjamin: 35,400 Naphtali: 53,400
Total 603,550

What are the odds that in the count of over 600,000 individuals, that the results of each tribe would come out exactly to a multiple of 50 and in almost all cases 100? The odds are extremely unlikely. There must be some other explanation.

The Meshech Chochma on Numbers 3:16 explains that it’s not that Moses or the Torah don’t know how to count. The issue is what was the methodology and purpose of the count.

The purpose of the count was to know relative strength and numbers — they didn’t require an exact count. The methodology was that each tribal leader polled their officers. The lowest degree officer was a “captain of ten.” The level above them were the “captains of fifty.” Any grouping of less than ten did not have an officer. So in essence, they counted the officers, calculated the number of soldiers based on that, and hence we get the rounded numbers.

May we indeed remember the strength we have in numbers.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To our children going back to school.

5779, Bamidbar, Berdichever, Numbers, The Times of Israel

Patrilineal Descent (Bamidbar)

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Patrilineal Descent (Bamidbar)

One of life’s greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn’t good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world. -Yiddish Proverb

In antiquity, it seems that the nations of the world would determine a person’s lineage through their mother. Perhaps because promiscuity was so pervasive, one could never be sure of the father’s identity. Likewise, there are echoes of the female connection to one’s ancestry in the term “motherland” (though one can make a converse argument based on the word “fatherland”).

The Berdichever explores this theme, when in the beginning of the Book of Numbers, in the Torah reading of Bamidbar, God instructs Moses to count the army-age men of Israel. A phrase that keeps getting used in the request for the count, is to do so “according to their families, to their father’s house.”

The Berdichever explains that the word “nation” in Hebrew (Umah) has the same root as the word for “mother” (Imah) and that it was well known at the time that all the nations gave their lineage through their mother’s side.

However, the nation of Israel, after God’s revelation to them, after receiving the Torah, merited a new level of lineage determination. They were asked and commanded to henceforth present their ancestry based on who their fathers were.

In requesting the count, the literal translation of the command is “raise the head of all the children of Israel, according to their families, to their father’s house.”

The term “raise the head” comes to highlight how this new way (three millennia ago), this different criteria of showing and determining one’s ancestry through their father was a new higher level. Perhaps because it showed the strength and commitment of the bonds of marriage, where the children of Israel could feel with confidence that the child was indeed the father’s child and not of any other man. The Egyptian and Canaanite cultures at the time were highly promiscuous and the Torah strongly condemned such behavior and legislated for the Jewish people matrimonial fidelity.

It is curious how millennia later, presenting one’s lineage, or at least the last name, based usually on the father’s last name, has become so predominant throughout the world.

It is interesting that in Judaism, while one’s tribal status, and nowadays whether one is considered a Kohen or a Levi, is still determined by the father, the underlying Jewishness is determined by the mother.

May we be worthy of our lineage from all sides, and may our ancestors be proud of us.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the dozens of families who lost their homes and all their belongings in the recent blazes in Israel. May God restore your homes and possessions quickly.

5778, Bamidbar, Numbers, Parsha, Rabbeinu Bechaye, The Times of Israel

Fire, Water, Desert (Bamidbar)

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Fire, Water, Desert (Bamidbar)

Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit of love into the desert? It is a frightening and sacred moment. There is no return. One’s life is charged forever. It is the fire that gives us our shape.  -Mary Caroline Richards

The fourth book of the Five Books of Moses, the book of Numbers, is called Bamidbar in Hebrew. It means “in the desert.” In the first sentence of the book, God orients us as to where and when we are in the story of our ancestors. We are in the Sinai Desert on the first day of the second month of the second year since the Exodus from Egypt.

The most important event after the Exodus was the receiving of the Torah in an historic divine revelation on Mount Sinai.

Rabbeinu Bechaye on that first sentence, Numbers 1:1 (Bamidbar) quotes the Midrash which states that the Torah was given via three things: fire, water and desert. Both blazing fire and a downpour of water accompanied the giving of the Torah to the nation of Israel in the desolation of the Sinai desert. There are pure, elemental forces at work here.

Rabbeinu Bechaye explains that just as all three of those elements: fire, water and the desert, are free to all that want it, so too the Torah is free and available to all those who wish to acquire it.

Additionally, the symbolism of the Torah being given in the desert is that just as the desert is “Hefker,” ownerless, so too a person who wishes to truly acquire the Torah must also make themselves “Hefker,” ownerless, without any other master but God, and the desire to acquire His Torah, His rulebook.

When one taps into the forces and elements around us, to free ourselves of extraneous masters, we are able to acquire the wisdom, the insight, the light, the wellbeing and the strength that the Torah can impart.

May we become free of the extraneous and focus on the basic, the essential and the divine.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the community of Aish Kodesh (literally “Holy Fire”) of Woodmere, NY.

5777, Bamidbar, Hirsch, Numbers, Parsha, The Times of Israel

Nation of Individuals

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Nation of Individuals

Never be afraid to tread the path alone. Know which is your path and follow it wherever it may lead you; do not feel you have to follow in someone else’s footsteps. -Gita Bellin

At the beginning of the Book of Numbers, God commands Moses to count the army-age men of Israel. They number around 600,000 men above the age of twenty. However, the Torah goes into much more detail than just the final tally of the census. It breaks down the count according to each tribe. It provides the name of each tribe prince. It goes as far as naming the different family clans within each tribe.

Rabbi Hirsch on Numbers 1:1-2 explains that the fact that the Torah describes that level of organizational detail demonstrates that it wasn’t merely an unorganized assembly. Each tribe, each family and each individual counted. Each individual had a unique contribution to the nation that only he could contribute as part of his sub-unit and as part of the whole. In Rabbi Hirsch’s words:

“The community cannot exist as an abstract idea but can have true being only in terms of the totality of it components. At the same time, each member of the community is made aware that he personally “counts” as an important constituent of this totality, and that the task to be performed by the nation as a whole requires every one of its members to remain true to his duty and purposefully devoted to the vocation he shares with all the others.”

Indeed, it is easy to let the burden of the community’s needs be carried by others. There are many who have organizational strengths, passion, time and resources to invest. However, don’t doubt that there is a special and unique purpose that is the domain and prerogative of every single individual. There is a strength, a capacity, a contribution that if we do not make, will be lacking and no one else can ever make it up. The whole will be incomplete. That voice, that hand, that smile will be missing.

May we understand what our individual mission and purpose are and bring our gifts, our talents and our unique capabilities to bear within the totality of the community of Israel.

Shabbat Shalom & Chag Shavuot Sameach,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst and their outstanding Rabbinic and communal leadership.

5776, Bamidbar, Numbers, Parsha, Sfat Emet, The Times of Israel

Temporal Independence

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Temporal Independence

 Infinite-timeTo see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.  -William Blake

As finite time-dependent beings, we find ourselves chained to the inexorable march of time. There is no moving ahead, backward, to the sides or even pausing. The seconds tick by whether we like it or not. The Torah on the other hand has a much more complex and sophisticated relationship to time. In many accounts it is purposely ambiguous, providing little or no information as to when events take place.

However, in many places, the Torah makes sure to mark the year, month, day and location of specific occurrences, as it does at the beginning of the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar).

The Sfat Emet in 5631 (1871) argues that the Torah itself is above time and nature. However, by signaling specific times, by in a sense lowering itself to the human preoccupation with time, it is providing us with a signpost of where our own time-dependent efforts should be involved.

Namely, our job is to bring the infinite, divine, non-temporal Torah into our finite, mundane, temporal time stream. Though not of our world, nor of our dimensional frames of reference, the Torah was designed for our very physical world. That is why it presumably goes out of its way to make reference to dimensions we are familiar with, time and space. It is inviting us, asking us, demanding of us, to bring it, the Torah, into our world, our domain and our lives.

May we make that connection between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. It just takes time.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Shavuot Sameach,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the Bat Mitzvah girls of the Integral School on their outstanding performance. Your time has come.

 

 

5775, Baal Haturim, Bamidbar, Numbers, Parsha, The Times of Israel

Deathless Future

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First posted on The Times of Israel at: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bamidbar-deathless-future/

Baal Haturim Numbers: Bamidbar

Deathless Future

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying. -Woody Allen

immortal

 

Western man is allergic to death. We try to avoid it, escape it, ignore it. We don’t want it mentioned. If we close our eyes, perhaps it won’t notice us. The counterpoint to death-avoidance is the desire to want to live forever. To be forever young.

Interestingly, the Torah also has a death-avoidance culture, but one that translates into ritual “impurity” if one is in contact with death, and which subsequently can be “purified”. Within the Jewish people, there is a subgroup that is commanded as a whole to avoid death. They are the Kohanim, the priestly descendents of Aharon, the original High Priest (Kohen Gadol).

While death is a fact of life, there are some hints that it is not necessarily a permanent arrangement.

In describing the work that the sons of Aharon, the Kohanim, must do in the Tabernacle, the Torah ends the description with the warning, that if they follow the rules, “they will live and they will not die.”

Why the redundancy? It would seem obvious that if someone is going to live they will not die.

The Baal Haturim explains that this is a prophetic hint. On the verse in Numbers 4:19 he details that at some future date, in some eschatological reality, the very Angel of Death will be annulled. Death will have no more sway over humanity.

Humans, or whatever we will be in that future (disembodied souls?) will indeed somehow live forever.

May we be beings worthy of eternal life.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Shavuoth Sameach,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To our departed loved ones, who we believe we will be reunited with in some future reality.

5774, Aaron, Bamidbar, Elazar, Itamar, Netziv, Numbers, Parsha, The Times of Israel

Overqualified

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First posted on The Times of Israel at: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bamidbar-overqualified/

Netziv Numbers: Bamidbar

Overqualified

“Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.” -Richard E. Byrd

The beginning of the Book of Numbers reintroduces us to Aaron the High Priest and to his sons. His two eldest, Nadav and Avihu, we are reminded, died while bringing the unauthorized “strange” fire during the consecration of the Tabernacle, where they were immediately struck by divine fire.

Aaron’s two remaining sons, Elazar and Itamar, are introduced with an unusual phraseology, “and they served as priests, Elazar and Itamar, over the face of Aaron their father.”

The Netziv on the verse (Numbers 3:4) explains that by mentioning Elazar and Itamar in this fashion, the Torah is telling us that in fact, these two sons were already at a high enough level of sanctity and devotion that they were each worthy of serving as High Priest. However, Elazar needs to wait almost forty years to take over his father’s role and we have no account of Itamar, the youngest son, ever filling that prestigious position, even though he was qualified. Instead, we see Itamar having secondary managerial roles in the Tabernacle, always in the shadow of his illustrious father and his more honored older brother – though Itamar is not any less qualified for the important tasks.

Each person has hidden strengths, talents and potential that their current circumstances don’t give them the freedom to develop or use. That does not diminish the individual, nor are they free to ignore such attributes. One must seek where they can best use their strengths for the tasks at hand.

May we have opportunities to use as much of our potential as possible.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the upcoming Hebrew Studies teachers of Integral whom I’ve had the great privilege of teaching. May they fulfill their teaching potential and pass on our heritage to many students.

 

 

 

Adventures of a Chief Rabbi, Bamidbar

Adventures of a Chief Rabbi, May 10, 2013

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Friday May 10, 2013

Rules of the Game

Rabbis are privy to a whole gamut of personal issues, domestic anguish, political intrigue and other sins and scandals that are just below the sensors of the general public. These are often dramatic stories, historical novellas and enough juicy material to make a tabloid blush.

Being the formal Rabbi of a country may brings these themes to a whole new level.

Inquiring minds however, will be disappointed. I will not be sharing much of the filth, dirt, backstabbing, idiocy, lunacy, pig-headedness and outright insanity that are the purview of successful newscasters. I will not divulge any story where there is the slightest possibility of either the innocent or the guilty being identified, or where a member of the community will find offense. It gives me very limited use of my material…

However, I am a writer. The need to write is in my blood. I look at the world with the eyes of a writer, noting setting, context, texture, story, details to populate the page. And there are wonderful stories here.

I want to write a story of the people of the Rambla, the miles-long boardwalk that to me represents the ease and tranquility of the city. Couples jogging, lovers walking, families strolling, fisherman casting their lines to the sea with faith and hope that their measly bait will entrap a scrumptious dinner. I noticed a number of people with their backs resting against the red-stone pillars that are spaced every few meters along the edge of the seawall. They were writing, drawing, sketching, listening to music. And some just sat there looking out to the sea. I don’t know what they sought there, or what they had lost. Perhaps just the soothing rhythm of the waves lapping the edge of the city gave them solace after a long day.

There must be an architectural school nearby, for there were a few people looking exactingly at seafront buildings over the top of their pencils.

But back to the Rabbi business. I had my first real halachic (Jewish law) question this week for which I did not have a ready answer. The mashgiach (Kosher overseer) of one of the Jewish schools which is under our supervision was asked if oil that was used to cook fish can thereafter be used to cook meat. We’re talking about industrial-sized cooking and a lot of oil. He had instructed the school not to, but was not sure. I suspected that he was right, but did not recall the source myself. Thanks to the support and responsiveness of other Rabbis that have agreed to be “on call” for me, I received a rapid answer. It turns out we were right. One cannot use oil that was used to cook fish for meat afterwards. For those halachically oriented some sources include Yoreh Deah 116:2, based on the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Pesachim 77B. Also, שות דברי שלום ב, קיב; קנין תורה ה, צא. (Special thanks to Rabbi Don Channen of Yeshivat Pirchei Shoshanim and Rabbi Michael Rubinstein, Rabbi of Yavne, Montevideo).

Part of my job, is the religious leadership of what some have termed a “non-observant Orthodox Jewish community”. For those that have grown up in a strictly Orthodox environment and even for those who choose to move from a secular life to one that is more in tune with an Orthodox lifestyle, the concept of a non-observant Orthodox community may seem perplexing. And indeed, there is a built-in dichotomy that can be maddeningly incomprehensible, illogical and even contradictory. However, it is the reality and it works to a certain extent. I believe that it requires a mental and existential balance that will only function via practice. It is probably a good thing that I have been a part of Yeshivat Har Etzion and been an avid consumer of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s writings where dichotomy, apparent contradiction, differing philosophies and viewpoints can find peaceful coexistence. Hopefully, I’ll write much more on this in a politically sensitive way in the future.

This just in. Have been invited to Yitzhak Perlman concert this Sunday night. Rank Hath Its Privileges!