Trumpeting the Tabernacle

He perceived no iniquity in Ya’akov, nor has he seen any trouble in Yisrael; and God, his God is with him and the shout (tru’at) of a king is in him.            Numbers 23:21

                                                          

Sforno suggests that our verse’s use of the word “tru’ah” refers to the fact that Israel’s travels through the desert were announced through the blowing of trumpets, which signaled movement, with the Tabernacle in the center of the Israelites’ journey and joyful faith in their King. [Numbers 10:5 ff.]

My saintly teacher, Rabbi Mordechai Rogov, explained Sforno’s comment: Balaam attempted to find a spot from which he could curse the Children of Israel, in essence, searching for a weak point within the nation which would expose them to his curse. Having failed in his quest, Balaam realized that the strength of Israel lay in the fact that wherever they journeyed (and in subsequent generations, when Israel was exiled from its homeland and forced to wander through the nations of the world), the nation continued to travel with the Tabernacle at its center. In whatever corner of the earth Jews found themselves, they maintained God’s word in the center of their lives, and this fact brought comfort and consolation to them, as they relied on His salvation.