Wilderness and Torah

And God spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai …  

                                                           Numbers 1:1

Thus begins the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers. Ba’al haTurim notes that our verse is connected to the concluding verse of the previous book, Leviticus:

These are the commandments which God commanded to Moses on Mount Sinai.                         Leviticus 27:34

My father elucidated Ba’al haTurim’s comment thus: Torah was given in the wilderness to teach us that its observance is not place-dependent. Even in a wilderness, an ‘unplanted land’ [Jeremiah 2:2], observance of Torah and mitzvot is incumbent upon the Children of Israel.

My saintly teacher, Rabbi Mordechai Rogov, stressed that Israel as a nation began its spiritual life in the desert, before it had any basis for its physical existence as a nation. We received the Torah when we did not have any natural protection from the ‘snakes scorpions and thirst.’ [Deuteronomy 8:15] The lesson for all generations is that Torah must be observed even should the Jews’ lives be returned to the situation of the desert, with no natural protection. And indeed, throughout the generations, Jews survived the hostile conditions of the Diaspora through their devotion to Torah.