Parashat B’midbar
This week we began reading Parashat B’midbar, which owes its name to The Book of The Torah that we began reading this week: Sefer B’midbar. B’midbar is an incredible turning point in The Torah because it takes us to a completely different level of understanding of what our relationship with God should be as Jews. Parashat B’midbar is always read on The Shabbat that precedes The Holy Day of Shavuot. This in and by itself tells us much about the nature of revelation. Shavuot commemorates the gift of Torah by God to The Children of Israel. Why did God choose The Wilderness to give us The Torah? The context of B’midbar is one of wilderness and wandering.
The years that we spent in The Midbar (The Wilderness) were years of tremendous growth — both physical and spiritual. It was a time of wandering and yearning. Some of the most precious things in life are not automatic. Sometimes to understand what a gift or a blessing really means, we have to detach ourselves from all extraneous influences and thoughts.
It was a widespread belief of our sages that in order to understand and appreciate the purity of The Torah, we had to receive it in the wilderness so that we concentrated only on its radiance and on nothing else. When we read and study the story of The Children of Israel wandering in The Wilderness, when we read about the census that God ordered Moses to perform, when we read about what seemed to be an endless journey of 40 years, we understand what it means to sacrifice your individuality for the sake of people hood. When you really think about what 40 years represent in the life of a human being, you can begin to understand the tremendous sacrifice of the generation of The Midbar! Yes, they were indeed rewarded with The Promised Land. Yes they were the generation that received The Torah, but still if you or I would have been there, would we have survived? We live in a world of instant gratification; we live in a society in which everything is expected to be not only automatic but also instantaneous! Imagine, waiting 40 years for something that you were promised!
One of the most admirable qualities of our people is our resilience and courage under affliction. The ideal of Torah, the vision of self-determination, these are the things that have always sustained us! Sometimes it takes the experience of the wilderness to understand that the things and ideals that are important to us can take some time to be revealed to us. How many times in life have we asked God; Why me? Why now? If we ever find ourselves asking those important questions, it becomes important to take a step back and jump into the wilderness of our soul so that from its depths we can better examine that which seems to imprison us.
As hard as it may be to believe, the experience of the wilderness for The Children of Israel was more of liberation than it was a punishment. The generation of the wilderness carries the stigma of the punishment received for not having faith, for doubting God and for doubting themselves. If you think about it, those 40 years of wandering prepared us to become a great nation. Those years in The Midbar served as a bridge that transported us from slavery to freedom, both in body and in mind. It is important that in our daily life, we draw constant parallelisms between the experience of our People in The Torah and our every day life. In this case, there is no more sobering lesson than to realize that the clarity of mind that comes from the blessing of inner search and retrospection — even when it takes months and years to achieve — is a unique antidote to ambivalence and confusion.
Shabbat Shalom.
– Rabbi Felipe Goodman
© Rabbi Felipe Goodman, all rights reserved.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Your weekly commentaries are WONDERFUL. I just wish I had you as my rabbi when I was in Hebrew & Post-Hebrew school. I continue to learn from you and miss coming in the mornings. Thank you for your inspiration.