This week's Torah reading deals with the laws of ritual purity, as well as the deaths of both Miriam and Aaron, and Moses's sin in striking the rock. All weighty topics, revealing the heavy moral burden of leadership.
The additional reading, from the book of Judges (11:1-33), is the story of Yiftach (or Jephthah), one of the most tragic stories in the Bible. It is the story of how a leader is trapped by his own vow -- forced, in effect, to sacrifice his daughter.
The two readings mirror one another, because they show that even the smallest words and gestures by leaders can have dire consequences.
But the story of Yiftach also has another curious element: that of the redeemed outcast.
Yiftach is an outlaw before he becomes a leader. He is cast out by his brothers because he is the son of a concubine and therefore illegitimate. He lives on his own, gathering a band of fellow misfits around him as a personal army.
Under threat of invasion, the leaders of Israel finally turn to Yiftach for aid. He makes them a deal: he will defend them, if they make him their leader. They agree to those terms, and Yiftach and his band of outlaws are vindicated.
There's a lesson there about leadership, too: just as leaders bear a moral burden, so, too, do the rest of us bear a responsibility to care for every member of society and treat each other with dignity -- not to cast anyone aside.
This week'd portion begins the book of Numbers. Interestingly, the Hebrew name for the book is "In the Desert," not "Numbers." The portion, which happens to be my bar mitzvah portion, focuses almost as much on the names of the princes of each tribe as the number of soldiers it fielded. It also focuses on the configuration of the tribal camps around the central Tabernacle and the Levites.
So why "Numbers" instead of "Names" or "Places"? The numbers are, to be sure, a unique feature of the opening of this Biblical book -- but they are not the focus of the rest of the narrative. The Hebrew focuses on the place where the events in the book take place, because essentially this is the narrative of the Israelites' wanderings from Egypt to Israel, across 40 years. We move from the giving of the Torah and the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus and Leviticus, to the final valediction of Moses in Deuteronomy -- Bamidbar is the story of wandering that happened in between.
The question of ...
This week's portion begins with the laws of the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year that restores all land to its original (tribal) owners. It also explores laws of property and labor that will apply in the Land of Israel, and the laws of vows and inheritance.
The Israelites are presented -- not for the last time -- with the essential moral choice that they must face, and the rewards for choosing well, along with the consequences for choosing poorly.
We learn that doing good things will earn God's protection from enemies. That does not mean that victims of terror, God forbid, were sinful. But it does mean that we can respond to evil by committing ourselves to a higher path.
This week's portion describes the major sacrifices that are to be offered by the Jewish people, including those that are offered only by the priestly Kohen class, and physical requirements of the people (men) who serve in that role.
Inter alia, there are interesting commandments -- such as an injection to treat animals with respect and care, first, by letting a mother animal nurse her offspring for a week before being offered in any sacrifice; and second, by refraining from slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day.
The commandments regarding animals remind us of the purpose of those regarding human beings: to uphold a divine connection, through ritual.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111878/jewish/Rabbi-Isaac-Luria-The-Ari-Hakodosh.htm
