This week's portion continues the description of the service in the Tabernacle. It goes on to describe the cloud that covered the Tabernacle, and how it signaled to the Israelites whether to stay in one particular place or to pack up and travel.
Moses begs his father-in-law to stay, and to join them en route to the Promised Land, but he leaves and returns to his own home. The people cry out for meat, and God sends them an excess of it, such that they regret ever having asked.
At the end, there is a famous episode in which Miriam is punished with the skin affliction called tzara'at -- often mistranslated as "leprosy" -- for gossiping about Moses's wife. She meant no harm, but it is dangerous to speak about others.
What stands out for me in this portion is the question of coming and going -- when to stay, when to go; when to join a group or a conversation, and when to leave it. Moses would later be barred from the Promised Land; perhaps his father-in-law's strength in resisting an invitation to join the Israelites on their journey will give Moses strength, later on, to absorb the pain of not being able to join the Israelites as they cross the Jordan River and complete their journey.
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
