The Runaway Banim

Where does one start? This week’s parashah, Beha’alotecha, is packed with more narrative episodes demanding our careful attention than any parashah since perhaps way back deep in Bereshit. Independent stories, each, or at least seemingly, at first blush. It opens with yet another account of the lighting of the menorah, and continues with the dedication and investiture of the Levites, the event occasioning the law of Pesach Sheni, the description of the CPS (Cloud Positioning System) of guidance through the desert, the commandment to craft two silver trumpets to disperse the encampment or assemble the people (see last years pshat on the inner meaning of the trumpets), an account of first setting forth from Mt. Sinai as the people stretched out into marching order, the appeal to Chovav (Moshe’s father-in-law? Brother-in-law? Dispute between Ibn Ezra and Ramban) to guide them through the desert (what, divine clouds aren’t good enough?) ….

STOP! All of a sudden, the stories are interrupted by curious figures in the Torah text, setting off two verses:

ויהי בנסוע הארון ויאמר משה קומה ה' ויפוצו אויביך וינוסו משנאיך מפניך

ובנוחה יאמר שובה ה' רבבות אלפי ישראל

And it was, as the ark traveled forth, that Moshe said, “Rise up, Hashem, and your enemies will scatter, and your adversaries will scatter from before You”; and when it came to rest, he said, “Return, Hashem, myriads of thousands of Israel”.

Then the narrative resumes. The people are murmuring bad things, Hashem lashes out and burns at the edges of the camp (social edges – low or high? An interpretive dispute in the midrash); The people (starting with the fellow travelers who latched on in Egypt) loathing the manna which lacks all substance, demand meat and Hashem gives it to them, alright – for a month until it’s coming out of their noses (literally, that’s what it says!), then zaps the craven cravers at a place subsequently called “Graves of Desire”. At the same time, Moshe complains that he can no longer lead the uncontrollable mob and how can Hashem possible meet their seemingly endless complaints and needs, whereupon Hashem reprimands Moshe, but has him set up a tribunal of elders who will be installed via and experience of prophecy. Two of those chosen, Eldad and Meidad, remain behind yet prophecy. This is interpreted by Yehoshua as a challenge to Moshe’s leadership, whereas he expresses the wish, if only the all the people resembled these two!. To round out the chorus of complaints, Miriam and Aharon complain about the seeming arrogation of prophetic privilege by Moshe. Hashem sets them right with a little bout of leprosy, and the people wait for Miriam to be restored before setting off on their way.

Whew! What a parashah. A lot to keep together. But amidst the non-stop flood of details, you surely noticed how the mood soured immediately after the two verses triumphantly proclaiming Hashem’s travel plans. Up until that point, everything seems to be going well. As soon as we intone, “”Vayi Bin’soa”, everything comes unraveled. What went wrong? Perhaps it’s the fault of those intrusive two verses?

Pum Ferkert, as we say in Yiddish (“just the opposite”). Let’s take a closer look. Indeed, up until that point, everything IS going well. In fact, Rav Ovadia Seforno comments that the connection of the apparently disconnected episodes in the first part of the parashah is to link together a whole bunch of events in which Yisrael gains merit and is described meritoriously – sort of a making deposits in a merit bank for a rainy day (which comes all too soon and suddenly). We install the Levites to replace the firstborn and insure proper awe of the Mishkan, we argue for a second chance to bring the Pesach offering, we merit the gift of divine response to our call, throughout generation at times of need, on the silver trumpets, we follow the clouds no matter how much their inconstancy confounds us (see Ramban on that passage), we march neatly in formation around the aron, and we implore a close associate to join us and share the goodness.

Look carefully at those few verses Moshe speaks to Chovav: “We are traveling to the place which Hashem said, “I give it to you”; go with us and we will be good to you, for Hashem has spoken good (really “well” in good English, but it loose the Hebrew associations!) regarding Israel” and again “If you go with us, then that good which Hashem will do good with us, we will do good to you”.

Notice the five-time repeated term? Good! So good is everything from the beginning of B’midbar, that the word “bad” does not appear even once in the first ten chapters of B’midbar. Not until we file for chapter 11:

“And the people were like mourning complainers, bad in the ears of Hashem; and Hashem heard and He grew angry and fire burned amongst them, devouring at the edge of camp”. The people cried out to Moshe, he prayed, and the fire died down.

Yet immediately afterward: “The rabble amongst them craved a craving, and the masses of the people started crying again…” MORE MEAT. We know what happens as a result of this, as described above.

Hey, that’s two strikes. Three strikes, you’re out! Three consecutive events creates a hazakah according to Halachah, a legal presumption of the way things are, and a basis to adjudicate cases even in the absence of evidence. Israel, had it sinned three times in a row immediately upon setting off toward the good land . . . WOULD NEVER HAVE GOTTEN THERE!!

Good thing we got our act together and didn’t do that, isn’t it?

But we DID sin three times in a row! Two verses before the “Vayhi bin’soa”, we read, “And it was, as they traveled away from the Mountain of Hashem”. The midrash reads, “fast” maher in place of mehar, “from the mountain”, and interprets: it’s like children running from schools at the end of a session. The people fled from Mt. Sinai, called here Mountain of Hashem, relieved to be away from the unbearable demands, the agony and the ecstasy of the Presence. Not that they violated anything tangible, mind you. No, but they ran away from Hashem. That’s a sin. That precede the two which kick off chapter 11. That’s three strikes, right?

Wrong. Because interposed between this first transgression and the fires of Tav’erah and the graves of flesh which follow stand our two verses: Vayehi bin’soa…. That’s what the Talmud says. These verse don’t belong here, actually. They belong fifty parashiyot - textual sections - (not parashot in the sense the weekly parashah, but much shorted divisions in the physical Torah scroll) earlier, in chapter two of B’midbar, in the midst of the description of the array of the people when marching. It was placed here to divide between the transgressions, to make each one stand on its own, incidental, accidental, not indicative of a deeper tendancy, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES THEY MIGHT REPEAT! The real character of the people is deep, deep goodness, as Moshe rehearsed to Chovav over and over, as Seforno explained was the meaning of all the disparate incidents grouped together. Scattered goodness IS indicative of a deeper, essential goodness, but not evil. For, THIS IS THE WORLD CREATED BY HASHEM, and He looks at His creation, ever so deep into the heart of His ultimate creation and behold it is SO GOOD!

So He moves His very Torah, interceding so that evil will be dispersed, badness scattered before the ever entering Presence. You can run from me, Am Yisrael, but I’ll always come after you, seeking your goodness.

It’s said in the Talmud that the 85 letters of these two verses constitute a separate book, a complete book which divides B’midbar into three books. We can call them the Book of Good (first ten chapters) and the Book of Bad (all the rest of B’midbar), but what shall we call the two-verse encapsulation of the dynamic of all existence – the dynamic entry of Hashem into our dimensionality, and His settling in amongst us. The Kli Yakar understands this dynamic to be a call to engage in the first mitzvah, to reproduce the Divine Image as we become the multitudes and myriads of hosts accompanying Hashem. This powerfully profound understanding points clearly to the what must become the name of our two-verse tour de force volume: The Book of Life!