Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Bamidbar 5776
A Leap of Love
All new beginnings are charged with hope;
the beginning of a new book of the Torah is no exception. As the book of
Bamidbar opens, there is hope that the journey upon which the Jews embarked as
they left Egypt would finally bring them to the Promised Land. The book of Vayikra
did not document any movement toward their destination: Throughout the entire
book, the nation seemed rooted to one spot; their location remained unchanged.
Now, we begin again. The journey resumes.
From this perspective, though, the name
of the book - “Bamidbar” – ‘in the desert’
- is ominous. The desert is a foreboding, even frightening place; might not the
name itself give us reason to suspect that the events this book describes will
be less than successful? Those of us who know how the book ends are aware that there
is progress, and a great deal of movement: At the book’s conclusion, we are
poised at the cusp of the Promised Land, yet the trip is far longer and more difficult
than we had anticipated. The path is circuitous, and the people stumble and
fall many times along the way. The Land of Israel, while much closer, remains
out of reach.
Is there something about the desert
itself that makes this so? The desert is mentioned many times in the early
books of the Torah, in many different contexts, but time and again, the desert
imparts a sense of fear, dread and danger. The desert is not a forgiving environment;
the basic resources required for human existence are severely limited. Certainly
in antiquity the desert was associated - if not synonymous with - death. An en
masse journey through the desert would have been considered an absurdity. Perhaps
the name of the book is a foreshadowing, a premonition that this endeavor will
not work out well.
Why, then, did God choose this route? Moshe
explained the plan and purpose of the journey through the desert:
Remember the entire
path along which God your Lord led you these forty years in the desert. He sent
hardships to test (or uplift) you, to determine what is in your heart,
whether you would keep His commandments or not…But your heart may then grow
haughty, and you may forget God your Lord, the One who brought you out of the
slave house that was Egypt. It was He who led you through the great, terrifying
desert, where there were snakes, vipers, scorpions and thirst. When there
was no water, it was He who provided you water from a solid rock. In the desert
He fed you Manna, which was something that your ancestors never knew. He may
have been sending hardships to test you, but it was so He would
eventually do [all the more] good for you. [When you later have prosperity, be careful
that you not] say to yourself, 'It was my own strength and personal power that
brought me all this prosperity.' You must remember that it is God your Lord who
gives you the power to become prosperous. He does this so as to keep the
covenant and the oath that He made with your fathers, even as [He is keeping
it] today. (Dvarim 8:2-18)
The difficulties of the desert are not
whitewashed, but a rationale is provided: The trek through the desert is a necessary
stage of development, designed to put the people’s commitment to the test, and,
as a result, to uplift them, to make them stronger and help them create a new
type of relationship with God, a relationship based on trust.
The prophet describes the desert experience
in the most romantic terms:
Go and cry in the ears
of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus said the Almighty: I remember you, the devotion of
your youth, your love like a bride, when you went after me in the wilderness,
in a land that was not sown. (Yirmiyahu 2:2)
The Midrash[1]
apparently picks up on this theme and explains the deeper significance of the opening
verse of the book of Bamidbar:
God spoke to Moshe in
the Sinai Desert, in the Communion Tent on the first [day] of the second month
in the second year of the Exodus, saying: (Bamidbar 1:1)
While this verse seems prosaic, it
should strike us as somewhat unusual in that it provides the precise date of an
event – the month, the day of the month, and the year. Precise dates such as
these were totally absent in the book of Vayikra; in fact, no such markers were
provided in the Torah as far back as the middle of the book of Shmot. The
Midrash takes note of this very this particular form, and draws a parallel with
the laws of writing a ketubah: Marriage contracts, more than any other
type of document, must specify the place and precise date on which they are written.
Thus, the opening sentences of the book of Bamidbar, according to the Midrash,
are an expression of the blossoming relationship between God and the Jewish
People. This relationship is precious to God; He values it, and by writing a “ketubah”
He expresses the seriousness of the relationship. This “ketubah” honors
the Children of Israel, by proclaiming that this is no passing infatuation. The
“groom,” God Himself, aware as He is of the “bride’s” lineage, cognizant that
she is the descendant of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, creates an eternal bond
of commitment.
This formalization of their mutual
commitment comes on the heels of a whirlwind romance: The Exodus is described
as eloping to the desert. The groom, a knight in shining armor, swooped in to save
the damsel in distress, who had been enslaved and abused. Would the bride take
the enormous leap – of faith, but more importantly, of love, and follow her
rescuer out into the unknown, to a place with no resources and no other
options? Yes, she responds: I will follow you to the ends of the earth, even to
the foreboding desert. God responds; he writes a formal ketubah between
Himself and His loving bride, the People of Israel.
Mystical tradition[2] teaches
that in the future, when all other merit is exhausted, it will be this “leap of
love” that God will recall. Our willingness to follow Him through the desert is
the foundation stone of our relationship, and it is what compels God to forgive
our lapses and to maintain our special relationship throughout history.
For a more in-depth analysis see:
