Weekly Torah Reading, June 4, 2016

In Israel: BeMidbar

This week’s Torah reading begins with a detailed census of Israel’s tribes. However, the Levites are not included in the census; they are listed separately afterwards.

 

The Torah says that there were three main clans of Levites: the Gershonites, the Kohathites, and the Merarites. (These are referred to by the word mishpaḥah in this week’s reading, a word that came to mean “family” in later Hebrew; but in biblical Hebrew mishpaḥah generally refers to a larger unit, a clan or sub-tribe.) Each of these clans was assigned specific duties with regard to the moveable sanctuary (mishkan) that accompanied the Israelites on their wanderings in the wilderness. The Gershonites were charged with taking care of the lower coverings of the mishkan, the tent and its coverings, and much more. The Kohathites had charge of the ark, the table, the menorah, the altars, etc. The Merarites were given authority over the planks of the mishkan and various other appurtenances.

 

The three clans’ duties were not exactly equal. The things entrusted to the Kohathites’ care were by far the holiest of all. The ark contained the Ten Commandments, written “by the finger of God” (Deut 9:10, 10:5). The table, the menorah, and the altars were of similar holiness. In fact, these things were so sacred that the Kohathites themselves were not permitted to fetch them out of their places whenever the mishkan had to be disassembled and moved to a new locale. Instead, the kohanim (priests) first had to cover these sacred objects with special coverings. Only then could the Kohathites “come and lift them” (Num 4:15).

 

In next week’s Torah reading, we are given one additional detail about the process of taking down the mishkan to transport it to a new location. Moses gave the Levites six wagons in which to put the various parts of the mishkan when it had to be moved. Since, as we have seen, there were three main clans of Levites, each clan ought to have gotten two wagons to transport the various parts of the mishkan that they had been assigned.

 

But that isn’t what happened. The Gershonites got two wagons, the Merarites got four, and the Kohathites, who were charged with transporting the holiest objects, got…none! “Let them carry [them, that is, the sacred objects] on their shoulders,” the Torah says (Num 7:9).

 

This seems completely counter-intuitive. If the objects assigned to the Kohathites were so sacred that the kohanim had to cover them lest the Kohathites themselves should catch a glimpse of them, how on earth were these objects now going to be carried by hand, “on the shoulders” of the Kohathites? After all, when the mishkan was moved, it was not to some place a few yards away: these were long-distance moves, as the Torah later enumerates. Would it not make sense to give the wagons first and foremost to the Kohathites, so as to make sure that nothing violated the objects’ sanctity?

 

And just think of those poor Kohathites trooping through the wilderness with the ark, the table, and the altars on their shoulders, mile after mile. Yet the Torah says, as if everyone would understand why, that “To the Kohathites he [Moses] did not give any wagons; since the job of [transporting] the holiest objects was entrusted to them, let them carry them on their shoulders.”

 

What apparently was easily understood in biblical times has largely been lost in our own. The things that are holiest must be accorded special treatment, whatever the cost in time and effort, precisely because they are the holiest. I can’t think of any other way of understanding this passage. Indeed, the Rabbis connected this phenomenon with a certain verse from the book of Proverbs (reading it quite out of context): “If you merely glance at it, it disappears” (Prov 23:5). That is the risk with whatever is holy, and why it demands our greatest respect: “Let them carry them on their shoulders.”

 

Shabbat shalom!

 (Outside Israel): BeHukkotai

 

“I Will Walk About in Your Midst”

 

This week’s reading is known in Hebrew as the tokhaḥah (“warning”), because it contains a detailed list of all the evils that will strike Israel if it fails to keep God’s laws and statutes. The list of ills is indeed frightening—diseases and famine, war and desolation and yet more will be Israel’s lot if it fails to heed God’s words.

 

This list of punishments is preceded by a somewhat shorter list of blessings that will be Israel’s if it keeps God’s commandments. I suppose some people regard this section as a kind of opening sop, the little carrot that comes before the big stick. And indeed, that is how things start out, mentioning various worldly blessings: agricultural plenty, peace and the ability to fight off attackers, fertility and increase. But this section ends on a somewhat different note:

 

And I will put my dwelling in your midst, and I will not shrink from you. And I will walk about in your midst, and I will be for you as a God, and you will be to Me as a people. I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt… (Lev 26:11-13)

 

In these verses, the biblical text switches from material to spiritual blessings. “I will put my dwelling (mishkan) in your midst” seems to refer to the tabernacle (that is, the moveable sanctuary that is indeed called the mishkan in Hebrew), which the Israelites constructed during their wanderings.

 

The wording of this passage apparently struck our Rabbis as a bit strange. To begin with, God’s promise to put the mishkan in Israel’s midst had already been made in the book of Exodus: “Let them build me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst” (Exod 25:8), and this mishkan was indeed about to be put into service. Perhaps for this reason, an ancient midrashist explained these verses differently.

 

 On the words “I will walk about in your midst,” the midrashic commentary Sifra notes: “A parable was used to explain this matter. A king went out to stroll with his tenant farmer in a garden, but the tenant farmer hid himself from him. The king said to the tenant farmer: ‘Why are you hiding from me? I’m just like you!’ So will the Holy One stroll about with the righteous in the Garden of Eden in the world to come, and the righteous, when they see Him, will be terrified before Him; [He will say] ‘But I’m just like you!’”

 

In other words, the midrashist understands the biblical passage as referring to what will happen in the eschatological future, when the righteous will be in the Garden of Eden. It is only there, the midrashist seems to be saying, that God will truly be able to “walk about in your midst.”

 

One would think that this would be an occasion of humanity’s greatest intimacy with divine, when God Himself will walk shoulder to shoulder with the righteous. Yet that is not so: the righteous, like the tenant farmer in the parable, are terrified of being so close to God. The words that God then uses to reassure them are altogether strange. Hareni kayyotze bakh is hard to translate: “I am similar to you,” “You and I are of the same substance/class,” “We are in the same situation”—any of these is possible. “I’m just like you” may be a bit strong, but I think it best captures the strangeness of the parable.

 

What does it mean? Humans are in some ways “just like” God: they are created in His image and likeness (Gen 1:26), and they have been given the highest capacity of cognition among God’s creatures. Once before, God was said to walk about in the midst of the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:8), and that time, too, the human beings involved (Adam and Eve) were terrified and hid themselves. But that was in the past. Here, in the future, God will reassure the righteous with the strangest affirmation: “Don’t be afraid! You and I are really not so different.” What could that mean? Any answers will be appreciated.

 

Shabbat shalom!