Parashat Bamidbar

In the 6th century BCE, Greek theater was created as part of the worship of the Greek god, Dionysus. The tragedies written for the Dionysian festivals enabled audiences to have a cathartic experience, which drained them and perhaps led to emotional healing. The horror of Oedipus’ fate, the violence and deaths in Medea, and Antigone’s rebellion against state law, brought morality to the fore. Actors wore masks which projected various emotions, as well revealing a character’s age or gender; masks also allowed the actors to project their voices over the outdoor theaters where 16,000 men might be assembled to watch a dramatic performance. Color and drama added to the religious experience.

The Torah will reveal something quite similar in Parashat Bemidbar:  “On the first day of the second month, in the second year after the exodus from the land of Egypt, God spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, saying: Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms. Associated with you shall be a representative from every tribe, each one the head of his ancestral house.” 

All of the tribes would be represented; God has told Moses where each group must be placed in the Tabernacle. In The Steinsaltz Humash with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, he has placed a diagram which shows exactly where these thousands of people will be. The camps of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad will be in the south; those of Dan, Asher, and Naphtali will be in the north; Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun’s camps will be in the east, and the camps of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin will be in the west. The Levites: Merari, Kehat, and Gershon were tasked with handling the transporting of the Tabernacle. As one looks at the diagram in the chumash, one sees, in effect, a “theater in the round.”

Think about the golden cherubim on the ark. Think about the huge golden menorah with seven branches. Think about the silver used for hooks and connectors. Think about the curtains that were dyed blue, purple, and scarlet. And what about the Kohen Gadol’s vestments and breastpiece? The creation of the breastplate was to remind the people of the twelve tribes, but it did so in a way as to reinforce the beauty of the earth through gemstones: carnelian, topaz, red garnet, emerald, sapphire, diamond, lapis lazuli, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper. God’s covenant with the Jewish people after the flood in Genesis seemed to be sealed by a rainbow and a white dove. Does God wish to use the stones as a reminder that God will never again destroy the earth, a veritable rainbow on the Kohen Gadol’s breastplate? Each tribe will carry a banner emblazoned with color: Reuben’s banner will be red; Simeon’s will be green, Gad’s will be a mixture of black and white; Dan’s will be sapphire blue; Asher’s will be a pearlescent color; Naphtali’s will be a reddish wine color; Judah’s will be sky blue; Issachar’s will be dark blue; Zebulun’s will be white; Ephraim and Manasseh’s will be ebony, and Benjamin’s will be a combination of all of the colors of the tribes’ banners. Set against the background of the desert sand, with its scrub bushes and black snakes and scorpions, the Tabernacle with its reflective gold and silver, the Kohen Gadol’s lustrous breastplate, and the vibrancy of the banners carried by each tribe, demonstrate how God desires the Israelites to “lean into” the kaleidoscopic 603,550 who are chanting and marching as they wend their way to the promised Land.

Parashat Bemidbar is read before Shavuot. On the surface, a census would not seem to be the best way to engage those who are listening to the Torah. Who wants to listen as lists of names are read? Boring. Yet those named as leaders of the tribes are those who were with Moses and Aaron as they set up the Tabernacle for worship. In our mind’s eye, we must see the decorative features of this anomaly in the desert: a sanctuary for those on their way to becoming a holy nation. According to Steven and Sarah Levy in The JPS Rashi Discussion: Torah Commentary, “Rashi explains why God wanted to count the Jewish people at this time: ‘On the first day… [the Lord] spoke [to Moses] in the wilderness of Sinai: Because they were dear to Him, He counted them often.’” (Rashi, Num.1:1) “Rashi clarifies that God frequently counted the Jewish people as an expression of God’s love for them.” God has counted the Jewish people a number of times before this census: at the Exodus, after the Israelites were punished for the sin of the Golden Calf to count the number who survived, and at the initiation of the Kohen Gadol and the Tabernacle [to demonstrate God’s love for the Jewish people.]

God has freed the Israelites from bondage, yet they are not totally ready to be a free people; they are, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l has said, “in the middle of their journey.” In this holy theater-in-the-round in the middle of the desert, Sacks reveals how “bamidbar,” in the wilderness, might be the perfect place to create a nation: “What they heard was a unique challenge to take the pain and suffering in Egypt and redirect it into creating a society that would be the opposite of Egypt, not an empire built on power but a society of individuals of equal dignity under the sovereignty of God… In the silence of the desert, the Israelites heard the Word and became the people of the Word.”

The ancient Greeks might have had 16,000 in their audience facing the actors, but the Israelites had over 600,000 around the sanctuary they wrought with their own hands listening to the Kohen Gadol and his holy words. Those holy words were all the amplification the Israelites needed. There were no masks; however, the vestments and the beauty of the Tabernacle added to the holiness of the “room.”

Next week, as we metaphorically “Stand at Sinai” on Shavuot to receive the Torah, we must remember how the Egyptians and the Greeks are no longer empires. The Israelites never sought an empire; God simply wanted them and wants us to retain our love of Torah, our love of God and our fellow man, and our love of law and justice. If we can do that, we will have truly turned into a holy nation. 

Enjoy your cheesecake.

Shabbat Shalom.