Summarized by Yair Oster. Translated by David Strauss
Our parasha describes an ideal situation: the camp of Israel is organized around the ark of the covenant, destined to go forth at the command of God, with the future looking brighter than ever. This feeling continues into the next two parashot as well. Parashat Naso continues preparations for the journey of the Mishkan and of the people of Israel around it. While it also speaks of declines and difficulties, such as the case of a sota (a woman suspected of adultery) and that of gezel ha-ger (one who steals from a convert),[1] even those sections have remedies and solutions connected to Israel's organization around holiness and the Sanctuary. For instance, the response to the problem of a sota is the section dealing with a Nazirite, an ordinary Jew drawing closer to holiness.
Parashat Beha'alotekha also opens with the continuation of these processes: the consecration of the Levites "to serve the service of the Lord" (Bamidbar 8:11) and the travel plan – as stated, without problems and difficulties – on a direct route to fulfillment of the fifth term of redemption of "and I will bring you to the land" (Shemot 6:8), to be followed by the building of God's Temple. We can see this, among other ways, in the concluding verses of the section of commandments in this part of the Torah, the Priestly Blessing, which ends with the words "May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace" (Bamidbar 6:26). A beautiful, welcome, and ideal description of peace between man and God.
But from there, it is all downhill. From the murmurers and Kivrot ha-Ta'ava, through the sins of Miryam and Korach's rebellion, to the fateful sin of the spies. And the truth is that even after the sin of the spies, things are not so rosy. Rav Soloveitchik has suggested that the reason the Torah placed the section dealing with the red heifer in Parashat Chukat, somewhere between the second and the fortieth year in the wilderness, is that during that entire period, the people of Israel were constantly dealing with "when a man dies in a tent" (Bamidbar 19:14). It was a generation in which death was always in the air.
This deterioration manifests itself not only in the number of problematic stories, but also in their gravity. The various complaints that appear in the book of Bamidbar are far more serious than the complaints in the book of Shemot, and as such they elicit far more severe reactions, both from God and from Moshe. In the book of Shemot, the complaints are understandable – a nation of slaves heading out into the wilderness was apprehensive about their own future and the future of their children, not knowing what they would eat and fearing "the great and terrible wilderness" (Devarim 1:19). In contrast, the complaints in the book of Bamidbar are not motivated by concern and anxiety about the desert conditions, to which the people of Israel had already become accustomed; rather, they are complaints rooted in desire and greed, reflecting ingratitude for God's kindnesses and favors and a desire for better and easier lives.
This radical and wrenching change teaches us several things. First, we must internalize the fact that there is no guarantee that a good situation will continue indefinitely. Things change, and before we know it, we find ourselves mired in a chain of sins: murmurers, coveters, spies.
But there is something else we can learn from this shift, if we try to get to the root of the reason it took place. The Gemara says:
Our Rabbis taught: "And it came to pass when the ark set forward that Moshe said" (Bamidbar 10:33)… Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel said: This section is destined to be removed from here and written in its [right] place. And why is it written here? In order to provide a break between the first [account of sin and] pur'anut (retribution) and the second [account of] pur'anut. What is the second [account of] pur'anut? "And the people were as murmurers" (Bamidbar 11:1). The first [account of] pur'anut? "And they moved away from the mount of the Lord" (Bamidbar 10:33), which Rabbi Chama bar Rabbi Chanina expounded [as meaning] that they turned away from the Lord. (Shabbat 116a).
The Rishonim disagree about the first instance of pur'anut here: What is the meaning of "they turned away from the Lord"? Rashi (ad loc., s.v. mei-acharei) explains that the sin was the people's lust for meat: "The rabble craved, complaining about the meat, in order to rebel against the Holy One, blessed be He." The Tosafot (ad loc., s.v. pur'anut rishona) disagree and explain that the first pur'anut was due to Israel's very departure from Mount Sinai, which was "like a child leaving school who runs away and goes off."
These are two models of spiritual deterioration that we must recognize and guard against. The high spiritual level and intense sense of Divine nearness that were present at Sinai and in the giving of the Torah may give rise to a contrary impulse – whether in a search for physical, rather than spiritual, pleasure, or in the very feeling of rejection and the desire to run away from God's word.
Let us try to understand why this is so, by way of the punishment that God inflicted upon the people of Israel. God says that before the people of Israel can enter the Promised Land, the generation of the wilderness must be replaced by a new generation, and that this will take a period of "for every day a year" (Bamidbar 14:34), forty years of delay corresponding to the forty days of the spies' reconnaissance. But we might ask: Why this ratio of "a year for a day"? Why is this fair?
It seems that the extended period of waiting imposed on the people of Israel was not merely punishment for negative behavior, but rather an opportunity to transition to an alternative model of spiritual development. In this model, a single event of "thunder and lightning and a thick cloud on the mountain" (Shemot 19:16) does not suffice to carry the Israelites forward to the Promised Land. Such a display works well in the short term, but in the long run, its impact dissipates and it might even lead to a regression. The new model reverses the direction, requiring a deep, long-term, gradual and ongoing process of education in order to reach the desired level.
We find a good example of these different models in the characters of Kalev and Yehoshua and their reactions to the arguments raised by the spies. Kalev responds forcefully and decisively, and sets an alternative to the spies:
And Kalev stilled the people toward Moshe, and said: Let us certainly go up at once, and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. (Bamidbar 13:30)
Yehoshua bin Nun, on the other hand, does not react with such vehemence, nor does he silence anyone. Instead, he speaks to the people gently and makes a greater effort to persuade them. Our initial impression is that the more important and necessary response was that of Kalev, and indeed God singles him out to his credit:
But My servant Kalev, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land into which he went; and his seed shall possess it. (Bamidbar 14:24)
But this is not the way to lead a people. Kalev continues to play an important part in the conquest of the land and is given the city of Chevron as a personal inheritance, but it is Yehoshua, whose leadership style was less forceful, who is appointed as Moshe's successor and leader of all of Israel.
Yehoshua is remembered as one of our greatest leaders, not only for his conquest of the land but also for the way he led the people in the path of God: "And Israel served the Lord all the days of Yehoshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Yehoshua" (Yehoshua 24:31).
This is important in itself, but it is also connected to current events. We just celebrated Yom Yerushalayim, on which we commemorate the liberation of the city and large parts of the Land of Israel. On that day, we spoke at length about the great miracle and the great thanksgiving that we owe in its wake, but today we will deal with the issue from a different angle.
At the time, many thought that if Israel's Declaration of Independence marked the beginning of the redemption, then the Six-Day War was already in the middle, perhaps even nearing the end of the process. My father z"l disagreed, saying that he was far from seeing the victory in the Six-Day War as the end of the redemption process. At the time, this was an exceptional statement, but in retrospect it is clear that he was very right. Since then and to this day we have seen that the religious situation in the nation continues to deteriorate, that there are serious problems of violence, modesty, and Shabbat desecration.
We must remember that as we hope to achieve spiritual redemption, it will have to involve long-term processes and not instantaneous ones. Moreover, when we come to address the people and attempt to draw them closer to the service of God – for redemption can only come to the entire nation of Israel – we must come in the spirit of Yehoshua: not to silence the people and command them imperiously, but to try to speak gently and inclusively, and to connect with them by finding a common language and a common denominator.
[This sicha was delivered by Harav Mosheh Lichtenstein on Shabbat Parashat Bamidbar 5777.]
(Edited by Sarah Rudolph)
[1] Editor's note: Bamidbar 5:5-8; see Rashi ad loc., from Bava Kama 109a.
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