Friends - this week we start the book of Bamidbar - literally, "In the desert", also knows as "Numbers."
One can only be struck by the magnitude of the formation that Israel was commanded to assume in the desert. All 603,550 men, with their families in tow, were to be arranged by tribe and by family around the traveling Temple in four different camps, each camp consisting of three tribes and called after the name of the primary tribe of each camp. As each person would take his position in that formation, I imagine he would feel two emotions simultaneously: as 1/603,550 of this amazing conglomerate, he would say, "Wow. This thing is huge!" And -- as he stood among 603,549 of his brothers out there in the vast desert -- he would say, "Wow. I feel small."
It is written that the formation of Israel in the desert parallels the Divine Chariot in its structure. What little I know about the Divine Chariot I will share with you. The Malbim writes in several places that the Chariot is, essentially, the way that Hashem's will is carried out in the world. It is the beginning of the mechanism of Hashem's action in the world. Thus Israel, with the Torah in hand, was to assume the formation which would allow them also to be the mechanism for Hashem's action in the world.
As a nation, this is an amazing and unprecedented privilege: to be given the choreography of the dance of the angels, which allows them to be conduits for the Divine Will. This is the apex of human aspiration! At the same time, each individual's perception of his own role as a conduit for the Divine will is cast into serious question. Especially if you say, like the Netziv, that the reason the counting of Israel always ends up at the same number, 603,550, is because that's the number Hashem needs - there were actually more people, waiting in the wings, lest something happen to one of the first 603,550. It seems, then, that each individual as individual does not matter per se. Only his role in filling the spot among the greater formation matters.
Truth be told, this may be a more accurate formulation of the individual's relationship to Hashem and, therefore, to the fate of the world, than are the myths many of us walk around with. This parasha is telling us that Hashem's mechanism for action in the world is LARGE. It goes way way way way beyond you as an individual. And though you may really want such-and-such to happen, and you may pray for it and do everything in your power to make it happen, the considerations involved are so vast, are so far beyond your grasp as an individual, that you should not feel rejected, or feel that Hashem is not listening to your prayers, or whatever dramatization you tend toward. Rather, you - and we -- should know that Hashem's considerations are indeed vast, and that He has a lot of people to take care of.
This is of course not to say that our prayers are not important. And not even to say that they cannot be completely decisive; indeed, our prayers may be the only voice that matters in a certain situation. Because, as the gemara says, each person must say, "The world was created only for me." And, as Rebbe Nachman explains this idea in a Torah he said on Shavuot, therefore a person is responsible to pray for the fixing of the entire world. But a person must know that, sometimes, it has nothing to do with him. Let a man not be deluded as to how much power he actually has to determine the fate of the world. Though Hashem may grant him, at certain moments, that very power, He also may not. So we are caught in a bit of a trap - we need to simultaneously live and pray like it is all up to us, and at the same time we need to understand that Hashem's decisions go far beyond us. And we cannot take this as a rejection.
(But, of course, Moshe's prayers seem to go pretty far. He seems able to change Hashem's mind fairly frequently. According to Rebbe Nachman, this is directly related to how pure a person is in terms of purity of relationship [tikkun ha'brit], sexually and otherwise. But that is another topic for another day.)
The juxtaposition of the formation in the desert and the Chariot of myriad angels who came down with Hashem when He gave the Torah, is not incidental. Especially now, being that we always read this parasha before Shavuot. But we must know, as we have said previously, the receiving of the Torah is a communal moment. We each take our positions within the larger Nation to receive the Torah together. And from that Torah we receive as a nation, we each receive our proper portion.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |