NAALEH.COM and YU TORAH PARSHAT BAMIDBAR 5774 Collectivity And Connectivity By: Mrs. Shira Smiles

With the Mishkan, the Tabernacle now complete, Hashem commands a new census be taken of Bnei Yisroel. The census is then followed by instructions on the pattern for the formation of the encampment around the Mishkan, a pattern that would carry through for all their travels and sojourn of forty years in the desert. With the Mishkan in the center, surrounded by the priests and the Levites, Bnei Yisroel were divided into four groups of three tribes each, each tribe under its own flag and banner under the leadership of one of the tribes of the group, and each group encamped on a designated side of the Mishkan. This order was very specific, but it behooves us to trace its origins, first to investigate the idea of traveling under flags, and second to understand the specific order of encampment around the Tabernacle. click here for Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein.