Bamidbar: assignment

This parsha has one theme. It is the assignment of hereditary roles. Everyone was assigned to a tribe,  Each tribe had  a specified location for camping and travel.  The Levites are assigned to the ancillary temple service. Each subtribe had specific duties based upon family. Every one had his place and the associated status. 

When the parsha begins, the pattern of tribes around the travelling temple was not intended to last long. In a few weeks, they would arrive at the Promised land and conquer it. A temporary structuring of the nation for a limited time is quite different from a structure that lasts for forty years. Would the tribes have agreed to such a long contract initially? Circumstances and inertia are strong forces. 

There was a defensive aspect to the tribal array. There were 600,000 soldiers, relatively evenly dispersed around the  tabernacle in a square  formation.   The number of slavery hardened fighters borders on the incredible. Publicizing the number may have been a strong aspect of the  defense.  Who would confront an army of that size surrounding an entity capable of plagues and splitting the sea?  Even if the trepidation failed as a deterrent, the attacking soldier must have been compromised by fear. The current Israeli army has an active force of 176,500 and 565,000 reserves.  Not much change in 4000 years. ( The US Army, including reserves, is 1,006,000. )

The nation needed the structure. Tasks needed to be performed, and performed well. Youth needed to be trained.  When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, each would be assigned a parcel of land. The structured society would continue. Equality would  take precedence over opportunity. It is hard for me, the beneficiary of opportunity, to condone assignment from birth.

 Escape from the structured society seems to a benefit of the dreaded exile. During the Jewish sojourn, they came to places where the land was claimed; where they usually  could not obtain a share in the land, and never enter the real estate inheritance structure.  From their position, outside of the generations bound to the land, they became traders and advisers. They were outside the feudal system and ready to capitalize on  its collapse. 

In the industrialized (wage slave) society, hereditary assignment persists, but the relevant issues are different.  I can still hear, "Blood and Soil;  Jews will not replace us ." There is a strange mixture of  fear and comfort in hearing the expected.  Exile has its problems. 

We all remain the children of our parents