Last night I took my eldest daughter to see a newly-discovered comet, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), just after sunset. I would not have known about it except I happened to catch a random news bulletin on the radio (random because my car radio is malfunctioning -- a story for another time).
The timing was perfect, since we were coming back from her band practice. According to the news report, one had to look west about 45 minutes after sunset. We chose the Pacific Palisades bluffs, which have a clear view over the ocean from about 200 feet above the beach and Pacific Coast Highway.
We could not have anticipated the beauty of the setting -- nor what happened next. My daughter exclaimed: "There's neon in the water!" And sure enough, when the waves crashed, they were bioluminescent. That's rare enough -- the last time we saw that here was almost five years ago -- but with a comet!
The images I managed to capture on my iPhone were incredible. Interestingly, the comet was discovered by astronomers in China and South Africa, and I've actually been to the telescope in South Africa. It's near a remote town in the Karoo desert called Sutherland, a place spectacular in its stark beauty.
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
