Bamidbar: Into The Wilderness
This week, we start the fourth book of the Torah: Bamidbar. The name means: in the wilderness. The book describes the travels and travails of the Israelites after the Exodus, their Odyssey to the Promised Land. The people are going into the unknown. They have escaped from servitude, but they have also left civilization. They have gone from a world of oppression to a place without rules, a place that might not be able to sustain human life.
This journey into the insecure is everyone's life story. A person does not clearly know where the path she chooses will lead. The model-story, Bamidbar, says that may lead to the Promised Land- and then tells us that the hero cannot enter. The path leads a new set of opportunities - for the next generation. This is the song that never ends.
In the parsha, there is a preparation for the wandering/journey. The people are divided into tribes and the tribes are grouped to the four directions of the compass. There is security in numbers and separating into groups increases the chance that at least some of the Israelites will survive an attack. These are the four parties of the proletariat. They surround the Levites who, in turn surround the Tabernacle and the secretariat of Kohanim. Direction comes from the cloud and fire that hover over the Tabernacle.
The parsha contains a significant political act: the firstborn are replaced by the Levites. The prominence of the first born seems to have been a pre-Abrahamic edict, a custom born with creation that needs no justification. The first book of Torah, Genesis, is devoted to undoing the seemingly natural prominence of the firstborn. None of the patriarchs are first born. Now, within Israel the firstborn pay a ransom for that accident of birth, and their political role is replaced by the designated Levite tribe.
The firstborn is special to the family. But All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way (Tolstoy). The natural firstborn system is subject to the heterogenity of families. Creating a tribe to perform the tasks can help steer the people in the desired directions.
And the directions are always leading to the Promised Land. And the directions are always changing.
This journey into the insecure is everyone's life story. A person does not clearly know where the path she chooses will lead. The model-story, Bamidbar, says that may lead to the Promised Land- and then tells us that the hero cannot enter. The path leads a new set of opportunities - for the next generation. This is the song that never ends.
In the parsha, there is a preparation for the wandering/journey. The people are divided into tribes and the tribes are grouped to the four directions of the compass. There is security in numbers and separating into groups increases the chance that at least some of the Israelites will survive an attack. These are the four parties of the proletariat. They surround the Levites who, in turn surround the Tabernacle and the secretariat of Kohanim. Direction comes from the cloud and fire that hover over the Tabernacle.
The parsha contains a significant political act: the firstborn are replaced by the Levites. The prominence of the first born seems to have been a pre-Abrahamic edict, a custom born with creation that needs no justification. The first book of Torah, Genesis, is devoted to undoing the seemingly natural prominence of the firstborn. None of the patriarchs are first born. Now, within Israel the firstborn pay a ransom for that accident of birth, and their political role is replaced by the designated Levite tribe.
The firstborn is special to the family. But All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way (Tolstoy). The natural firstborn system is subject to the heterogenity of families. Creating a tribe to perform the tasks can help steer the people in the desired directions.
And the directions are always leading to the Promised Land. And the directions are always changing.
posted by Sheldon Goldberg at 8:59 AM
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