Parasha Bamidmar
By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.
SAN DIEGO — The wilderness. The midbar, a place of uncertainty, fear, and danger. Daled-bais-reish lies at the root of the word. These letters also are found in the root of davar, word, to speak words that lead to spiritual healing.
This wasn’t just any midbar, nor was it just any davar we heard. No, we received Hashem’s davar, His Torah, in the vast wilderness, through which we embarked on a 40-year passage with a very specific goal, the Promised Land. We did not go directly to the Promised Land. No, we used the opportunity of the midbar to help us express our identity. We needed a site free of distraction, from which we could learn that even in a vast expanse of open land, a spiritual wilderness, a location in which we could be filled with hopelessness and anguish, God is with us, his davar can always be heard.
To help organize and provide focus to our people in the midst of the midbar, the parasha tells us of Hashem’s command to Moshe to take a census, not just to count the people, but perhaps more importantly to help assure us that we count, we matter, and for us to remember that every human being has an important contribution to make. When we place Hashem in the center of our lives, we count. Rashi tells us that His counting of us is an indication of His love for us. We weren’t just counted though. The Sfas Emes teaches that the root of the word, pekudim, the census numbers, also means assignments. We were given our sense of value, the role we were to play, and told of our place in this world, giving us a sense of order.
Our guidebook, our Torah, is our “GPS” system (“Gratitude, Positivity and Sensitivity”) to help us through the challenges of life – from pandemics, politics, and relationships, to finances, and health. We learn the value of faith, daring, modesty, appreciation, and not taking anything, especially our health, for granted. Certainly, a key requirement for understanding and carrying out Hashem’s word, is humility. After all, Moses is described as the humblest person on earth, we receive the Torah in a desert on the lowest of the mountains, and Hashem speaks to Moses from a lowly burning bush. It seems the message is that it is in the midst of a wilderness that we can more easily awaken to a life filled with Torah, and more easily disavow a life filled with greed for toys.
The Sfas Emes (Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, 1847-1905), tells us the same root of midbar, daled-bais-reish, can mean “to lead.” If midbar can mean this, to lead, it teaches us that as we followed, we trusted whom we were following in the wilderness. We entered the wilderness with the belief that we were free to put our trust fully in Hashem. The Sfas Emes also teaches us that just as the Torah was given to us in the lowly wilderness, a place of void, we too need to see ourselves similarly, egoless, in order to spread the light of Torah. The lesson inside is that the Torah is best acquired when we humble ourselves, when we are “ownerless,” as we are in the vast expanse of the wilderness. It is also, according to Reb Nosson’s teaching, that only when there is achdus, when we are all encamped together, all accounted for, that the Torah is complete. One letter missing means the Torah cannot be read. We are each a letter.
Perhaps we all need the uncertainty and adventure of an unending wilderness from time to time to create a strengthened appreciation for life, and to recognize the opportunities we have in tough times to learn, mature, grow spiritually and develop our inner strength and self-reliance – necessary for our survival, anchored in mutual dependence and respectful relationships, one to another. Is that what you took from COVID19? Medical science tells us how important it is to spend time in nature. The wilderness, nature, brings with it the opportunity to see, learn, try new things, write new stories, and strengthen our link to the awe we see in the handiwork of Hashem. In other words, ha’midbar m’daber, the wilderness speaks to us. It speaks to us and tells us to expand our gratitude, courage, humility, and tells us about a timeless wisdom…perhaps not as easily learned in our lovely homes throughout San Diego.
In a sense, we are all living in the danger of the wilderness, in a desert filled with obstacles, achievements and failures. We are surrounded with our bitachon, our trust in Hashem, and even if virtually, by our loving family, friends, fellow congregants, and esteemed teachers. And yet, we do our “hishtadlus,” our own self-help, whether it be for parnassa, shidduchim, health and/or sustenance. Says Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787-1859) that we ultimately make our way through our personal desert, our midbar, in life, existentially using our talents and resources to thrive.
After all, it is in the wilderness where our ancestors encountered Hashem and where our Torah is revealed. And we can do the same even now.
This Shavuot may our study of Torah and keeping it alive, together, as one family wearing a coat of many colors, be filled with love for one another, and may we experience the revelation at Sinai as a communal event of strength to strength.
Chag Shavuot Sameach…
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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly D’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family are members. They are also active members of Congregation Adat Yeshurun.
He may be contacted via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com