Bamidbar: Travel

There is a travel log aspect to Torah. Adam and the Eve are expelled from the garden of Eden. Kain is exiled and wanders. The first thing that Abraham is told his travel. Jacob travels hither and Yon and ends up in Egypt.

Travel requires preparation. The victims of the Holocaust had to do a lot of traveling. I wonder if there are lessons in the parsha about how to prepare for such travel. This idea of concentric circles, protecting the innermost.

The census data gives us some insight into the size of the families in the midbar. There were 603,550 menover the age of 20. Ther were 22,273 first born males. Half of the families had first born females, but there were presumably an equal number of men and women. Thus: 603550/22300= 27 children per family. In 1860, 51.2% of the US population was under the age of 20. that would double the number of children per family to 54! Using either number, it would take 4 generations to make a poplulation of 600,00 at that rate. Go figure!

Bamidbar: Travel

There is a travel log aspect to Torah. Adam and the Eve are expelled from the garden of Eden. Kain is exiled and wanders. The first thing that Abraham is told his travel. Jacob travels hither and Yon and ends up in Egypt.

Travel requires preparation. The victims of the Holocaust had to do a lot of traveling. I wonder if there are lessons in the parsha about how to prepare for such travel. This idea of concentric circles, protecting the innermost.

The census data gives us some insight into the size of the families in the midbar. There were 603,550 menover the age of 20. Ther were 22,273 first born males. Half of the families had first born females, but there were presumably an equal number of men and women. Thus: 603550/22300= 27 children per family. In 1860, 51.2% of the US population was under the age of 20. that would double the number of children per family to 54! Using either number, it would take 4 generations to make a poplulation of 600,00 at that rate. Go figure!

Bamidbar: the ordered society

First there is the accounting, the census. Then there is the draft.

Each tribe is assigned a place, a set of neighbors ( woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbors [RAshi]). Gd is in charge here. No internal strife. No Sadr City. No Brooklyn. Everybody has his assigned place.

Bamidbar: the ordered society

Firsth there is the accounting, the census. Then there is the draft.

Each tribe is assigned a place, a set of neighbors ( woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbors [RAshi]). Gd is in charge here. No internal strife. No Sadr City. No Brooklyn. Everybody has his assigned place.

Bechukothai: us and them

The bulk of the chapter deals with the punishment for failing to observe the commandments. More specifically, the commandments that do not have a logical basis. These constitute the base of differentiation between us and then.

Rashi comments on 27:2 that he does not know the needing of the second chof. I think this comes in the context of the corresponding daf yomi.

Nazir 61 deals with a question of whether a goy has an evaluation. It would seem that this could easily be derived from the chof, using it as a restrictive identifier, i.e the evaluation process as stated is for Bnei Yisroel. Rashi's point thus becomes: why is this not the case? The answer from the Gemarra is that it is more complex than that.

The idea of Chok is a special commandment given to the Chosen People, separating them from other people (Thus bechuloseihem lo thelechu). This weeks parsha demonstrates another dimension to that separation. The dimension of enmity. The goy is Gd's instrument of torment for the Jew.

The context of the two last parshioth of Vayikra is the intrusion of chok into everyday day. Shmitah is avenged by the curses. A moment of religious fervor - the sanctification of a field and the failure to redeem it- leads to the permanent transfer of the field to the Priestly fiefdom.

Faith is rewarded with magical reward, lack of faith ... the Nazis.

Behar: Torah Economics

yes, closely related to vodoo economics, Reaganomics.

But notice the eco, as in ecology.

economy

c.1530, "household management," from L. oeconomia, from Gk. oikonomia "household management," from oikonomos "manager, steward," from oikos "house

The Torah economics is based more upon ecology, especially a return to nature, than the management of the household. The managent of the limited resources is based on the idea of returning to the the feral state. better save!

Thus we have an answer to Rashi's question: on Mount Sinai. What [special relevance] does the subject of Shemittah [the “release” of fields in the seventh year] have with Mount Sinai? The fundemental business laws, the laws of dealings among people are predicated upon an ideal of wilderness, return to nature, a return to the conditons at Mt Sinai.

thou shalt never buy retail

No one can continuously accumulate wealth; justice is a return to the original condition.

And the parsh even recognizes that the land was ( to be) apporptioned after the conquest.... those Jews!