Drasha
Generally speaking, if a series makes it to volume four, you can expect things to start to get weird. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was a disaster, Batman and Robin is universally agreed to be one of the worst movies of all time, and while I happen to like it, The Phantom Menace was where Star Wars really started to go off the rails. So maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised that Sefer Bamidbar, Torah Volume Four, starts to get unpredictable and out there, fast. Last week we read about the Jewish encampment in the desert– a seemingly logical followup to the previous build up, as we now have a Mishkan and the rules of temple service, and now all we need is to actually put into place the Jewish camp around the tabernacle. But, instead of following through with the logical continuation of the story, Bamidbar starts to go off the rails this week and lists random Mitzvot.
Parshat Naso tells us to kick the impure out of the camp– a law we already learned in Tzaria-Metzora– then transitions into Sotah and Nazir, before finishing off with the laws of restitution for one who stole from a convert. Then, next week, we’re right back to temple laws again with the laws of the Menorah. Why do we have this seemingly random tangent right at the beginning of Sefer BaMidbar? But more than that, our Parshah pushes us to ask– what even is the point of Sefer BaMidbar? The three books before Bamidbar all had clear identities and focuses, whether it be the history of the Jewish people, the core theological events of the Exodus and the giving of the Torah, or the heart of ritual law shared in VaYikra. But what is Bamidbar trying to accomplish in the grand biblical narrative?
Unsurprisingly, I think, as always, context is key here. We mentioned how, seemingly, the next logical step in the biblical narrative, following the temple laws of VaYikra, would be reading about their actual enactment, as the Jewish people create a holy encampment and travel through the desert to the land of Israel. Indeed, the latter half of the book of Bamidbar tells us about the Jewish people’s travels and travails in the desert, as they are punished to wander, and only after 40 years do they begin to prepare for military battle and entry into Israel. Far from a non sequitur in an otherwise cohesive book, I think our Parshah only makes sense when it is also understood in the context of the Jewish people’s preparations for traveling through the desert and entering Israel. ... continued
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