This week's Torah reading tells the incredible story of the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau. Jacob wrestles with an angel, and prevails; at the end, he receives his new name, Israel, which describes a struggle with God -- perhaps the best description of the ongoing Jewish philosophical orientation to the world.
Jacob and his family continue into the Land of Israel, and a disturbing incident takes place, in which his daughter Dinah is kidnapped and raped by Shechem.
Her brothers pretend to deal with the local residents to allow her to marry Shechem, the local prince. But they soon rescue her instead -- slaughtering the entire town along the way. Jacob is horrified by their behavior and worries that it will make him more vulnerable to attack by other inhabitants of the land.
Instead, however, the aggressive tactics of the brothers cause others to fear Jacob and his family, despite their small number -- a tale with resonance today.
Despite his family's overall success, Jacob loses his beloved wife, Rachel, who dies giving birth to Benjamin. It is a loss from which he will never recover -- but her legacy would live on through the early kingship of Israel and the Temple.
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
