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.

Taking Nothing for Granted

          The Book of Numbers begins with God's instructions to Moses to count the Jewish people. Rashi notes that this is the third count of the Israelites since the Exodus. The first was at the time of the Exodus itself [Exodus 12:37]. The second was after the sin of the golden calf [Exodus 30:12, Rashi 30:16] to ascertain the number of survivors. The current census preceded God's resting His Shechina in the camp of Israel after the completion of the Tabernacle. Citing the Midrash, Rashi comments that it is out of His love for Israel that God counts them so frequently.

          The second counting is understandable. After those who had worshipped the golden calf were put to death, God counted the survivors as a demonstration of His continued love for the people. However, taking us out of Egypt and resting His Shechina on Israel were themselves expressions of God's love. Why then did God count the Israelites on these occasions?

          According to Rashi, the Torah is teaching us the important lesson that nothing should be taken for granted. Even when a parent demonstrates his love for his child with a hug and a kiss, he still verbalizes the words "I love you." So too, our Father in Heaven; even though taking the Israelites out of Egypt and resting His Shechina among them were clear demonstrations of God's love for Israel, He still wished to demonstrate His love by counting the people. Nothing should be taken for granted.

          Certainly, Eretz Yisrael should never be taken for granted. From the time of our wandering in the desert, Jewish history is full of suffering resulting from Israel's failure to appreciate its Land.

          Taking something for granted jeopardizes its continuity. The antidote to Israel's sorrows which originated with the sin of the spies is to achieve a true understanding and appreciation of the connection between the People of Israel and its Land.

Levites Counted From Infancy

And God spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, saying: Number the sons of Levi after the house of their fathers, after their families, every male from a month old and upwards shall you number them.            Numbers 3:14-15

            The census of the tribes other than Levi counted males from the age of twenty years [Numbers 1:3] while the Levites were counted from the age of one month [the time the Halacha considers a neonate to be viable].

            My father explained that the different census criterion for Levi versus the other tribes arose from and reflects the different tasks of each.

            The other tribes were counted in preparation for raising the army necessary to fight to liberate the Promised Land. As Rashi notes [1:3], the Torah here teaches that one younger than twenty does not serve in the army. That is, according to the Torah, draft age is twenty years old because one must have reached a sufficient level of physical [and emotional] maturity to serve in the army.

            The Levites, whose mission was to be the nations’ teachers and spiritual guides, did not serve in the army. In order to fulfill its mission, the Tribe of Levi had to acquire Torah themselves and be immersed in love of Torah and fear of heaven. The process of inculcating these values begins in infancy. As it were, a Levi’s mother imparts a love of Torah and fear of heaven as she nurses her baby. In this way, Levites are prepared to be the bearers of Torah within the Nation of Israel. Thus, unlike the remaining tribes, Levites are to be counted from infancy.

Living Fully

This is what you must do so that they live (v’ḥayu), and not die when they come into the Holy of Holies.                               Numbers 4:19

Ba’al haTurim connects our verse’s use of the word “v’ḥayu” with its use in Zachariah [10:9]:   

And I will sow them among the peoples, and they shall remember Me in far countries; and they shall live (v’ḥayu) with their children, and shall return.

          My father elucidated Ba’al haTurim’s comment thus: It is when “they live with their children,” without a generation gap and the children following the parents’ traditions, that the parents truly live.

          Perhaps, there is a reciprocal connection between the verses, and as our verse provides understanding of that of Zechariah, so too Zechariah’s prophecy elucidates our verse. When in exile, Israel can merely achieve the status of not dying, but its national life is incomplete.  Zechariah prophesied Israel’s return to its Land, which is the necessary condition for Israel to live fully.

Parashat Bamidbar and Yom Yerushalayim

This Dvar Torah is taken from my father’s writings

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: The Children of Israel shall encamp according to their father’s houses, every man by his flag, according to the ensigns, at a distance round about the Tent of Meeting.                                              Numbers 2:1-2

During the forty years of wandering in the desert, the Children of Israel encamped around the Tabernacle. As well, when the Israelites journeyed, it was with the Tabernacle at the center, as we read: “… as they encamp so shall they journey.” [2:17]

The Torah does not merely describe the historical fact of how Israel journeyed through the wilderness, but presents this format as the guideline and blueprint for all of the nation’s journeys throughout history: Jews must journey with Torah as our focal point. Just as Israel camped around the Ark, moved by it and with it, so must our journeys through the “wilderness of nations” be with Torah as our central point and as our guide. Throughout Israel’s long journey, Torah was the beacon which illuminated our darkness, and indeed that which allowed us to survive and ultimately overcome all our enemies.

Israel’s journey of destiny from Egypt lead first to Mount Sinai, to receive the national constitution, and with its constitution in hand, Israel entered the Promised Land. (Israel’s nationhood and peoplehood began at Mount Sinai, when we accepted God’s Torah, to teach that our nationhood does not depend upon our Land, rather upon Torah.) The journey was completed only 480 years later, when King Solomon dedicated the Temple, following the paradigm of the journey through Sinai.

Our Sages teach that Jerusalem is the center of the world, and the center of Jerusalem is the Holy of Holies, which held the Ark. Thus, Torah was placed at the center of Israel’s encampment in its own Land, following the paradigm of the journey through Sinai.

Once and Future Spelling

Jerusalem is by far the most frequently named city in the Bible (albeit never mentioned explicitly in the Pentateuch). Including the twenty-six (the gematriya of the Tetragrammaton – God’s holy four-letter name) times the name appears in its Aramaic form, the Holy City is mentioned 667 times. What many people fail to note is that a mere five times, the name Yerushalayim is spelled fully, with the letter yod between the lamed and final mem.

(There may be a halachic application of the spelling of the city’s name: as a get [divorce document] must be written exactly, some halachic authorities require the common Biblical spelling, as opposed to the current norm of using the extra yod.)

Rabbenu Beḥayye [1255–1340], in his commentary on Numbers 19:13, offers a conceptual explanation of the meaning of the yod: as the suffix “ayim” in Hebrew is reserved for things which appear only in pairs (e.g. body parts: einayim [eyes], etc.), “Yerushalayim” refers to two Jerusalems: the earthly and the heavenly. The missing yod, Rabbenu Behayye asserts, refers to the heavenly Temple (which is above the earthly Temple, as our Sages taught). The missing yod signifies that since the destruction of the (earthly) Temple, Jerusalem is incomplete.

According to Rabbenu Beḥayye’s elucidation, the once and future spelling of the name Yerushalayim is with the additional yod. This was the original spelling, and when Jerusalem and the Temple are rebuilt (speedily in our days), the yod will be returned.

Given Rabbenu Beḥayye’s approach, it is fascinating that two of the times Yerushalayim is spelled fully are in connection with its destruction [Jeremiah 26:18; Esther 2:6], as if to hint that the destruction carries with it the promise of rebuilding.

May we assist Yerushalayim in returning its extra letter, through helping her reach her destiny of uniting the People of Israel.

Transcendent Jerusalem

This Dvar Torah is based largely on a shiur of Rabbi Uri Amos Sherki of Machon Meir,

Place is one of the most limiting factors, yet there is one location on our planet which transcends the constraints and limitations of place: the Land of Israel.

Daniel [11:16,41] refers to the Holy Land as ”eretz haẓvi” (literally “Land of the deer,” translated as “the beautiful Land”). In their homily, our Sages [Babylonian Talmud, Gittin, 57a] understood the word “ẓvi” to refer to the deer, and explain the comparison of the Land to the animal:

just as a the skin of a deer (if removed) does not hold its flesh, so too the Land of Israel, when (the Jews) dwell within her, she is spacious and when they do not dwell within her, she shrinks.

The Land, our Sages teach, has the ability to expand or contract to accommodate its rightful inhabitants. Maharal of Prague comments:

when the skin is removed from the deer and the life force has been removed, the skin can no longer be stretched to cover the animal’s flesh. With no life force, all that is left is the physical, and in such a state, the skin cannot hold the flesh. Similarly, with the Holy Land, while the Jews live in her, she has her vitality, and the Land has the highest level of sanctity. But when the Jews do not live in the Land, the high (spiritual) level (of the Land) departs and the Land shrinks.

       Thus, the unique ability of the Land to expand or contract is a function of its spiritual aspect.

What is true of the Holy Land is true as well of the Holy City (whose sanctity is on a higher level than that of the rest of the Land [Mishna Keilim 1:8]). Our Sages [Ethics of the Fathers 5:5; Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 21a] taught that one of the miracles of Jerusalem was that no one ever complained that there was insufficient space in the city.

What was true of the Holy Land and the Holy city was true as well for the higher level of sanctity of the Temple courtyards, as the Mishna [ibid.] teaches:

They stood crowded but had ample space in which to prostrate themselves.

                The ability to transcend space was equally true of the holiest spot in the world, the Holy of Holies of the Temple:

Rabbi Levi said: this matter is a tradition received from our ancestors: the place of the Ark (of the Covenant, i.e. the Holy of Holies) is not included within the measurements of the Holy of Holies (the Holy of Holies measured twenty cubits by twenty cubits and a  Talmudic source states that there were ten cubits of space on either side of the Ark, thus the Ark fit in the Holy of Holies only through a miracle).                          Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 21a

                Based upon the insight of Maharal, it is clear that as we ascend the levels of sanctity, from the Land to the Holy of Holies, the ultimate level of sanctity on earth, the spiritual aspect which is the source of transcending the limitations of space, becomes even more pronounced.

        We can add that the very name “Yerushalayim” implies this transcendence. In Hebrew, the word-ending “ayim” denotes double (as in einayim = eyes; raglayim = legs, etc). The form of the name Yerushalayim, therefore implies two Jerusalems. Indeed, the 13^th century Biblical commentator, Rabbenu Beḥayye, explains the name to refer to the heavenly and earthly Jerusalems.

Time, as well, is a limiting factor, since we necessarily live in the present, which is nothing more than a fleeting moment. As one of the great medieval Jewish poets wrote (some say the words were written by Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra [1089 – 1164], others [including Rabbi J.B. Soloveichik] are of the opinion that they were written by Yedaya haPnini [1270 – 1340]): 

The past is gone

The future yet to be

The present a mere eye blink

Jerusalem transcends the realm of time as well. Rabbi Akiva, one of our greatest sages commented: "eternity - this is Jerusalem." [Babylonian Talmud Berachot 58a] Rabbi J.B. Soloveichik explained that the definition of eternity is when all of time is present, when past, present and future converge.  Connecting all of time, the Holy City enables us to transcend the limits of time.

                Finally, one’s individuality establishes constraints. Here too, the Holy City offers transcendence. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi [Jerusalem Talmud, Bava Kama 7:6] understands the verse [Psalms 122:3] “Jerusalem, built up is as a united city” to mean that Jerusalem unites Israelites with each other, thus affording at least a measure of transcendence above the limitations of individuality.

                Thus, Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital transcends space time and individuality.