Parashat Naso
June 8, 2022
Dorothy Weiss, Chair, High School Tanakh Department
The Torah does not waste words. We teach our students that each word of Torah is to be understood, investigated, mined for meaning, raised up. Yet in Parashat Naso, we hear repeated 12 times the exact same words detailing the exact same gifts brought by each nasi (prince) of each tribe — 89 almost identical verses! What stands out is that the Torah remembers each prince individually by name. Each deserves to be remembered for the gift they carried to the tabernacle — even if each gift is identical. The Akedat Yitzchak, a fifteenth-century commentary on the Torah, suggests that each prince “has an importance all his own, and for this reason, each is mentioned by name. They were all equal in station, but uniquely separate in their equality.”
Shabbat Shalom
It is fitting that we read Parashat Naso on the final week of school. As we end the school year and approach graduation, we see a reflection of our graduates in the princely procession — one that embodies sameness and difference. We like to think of our students in just this way — equal, but uniquely different. Different in the talents, challenges, and strengths that each one brings to their years at Leffell. It is the combination of sameness and difference that contributes to the wealth and well-being of our community. It is what lifts us.
The theme of uplift is in the fiber of our parashah. The Hebrew root נשא — naso — means to lift up. Like all Hebrew words, naso takes a variety of forms, meanings, and valances, many of which show up in our parashah. The opening phrase, נָשֹׂ֗א אֶת־רֹ֛אשׁ, means take a census, or literally lift up the heads of the tribes — everyone counts. Other forms of the verb tell us that each of the clans of the Levite tribes have a מַשָּֽׂא, a thing to lift or carry (does this mean that even our burdens lift us?). Finally, the use of the word that perhaps counts most in our parashah is the hope that God will lift His face to us יִשָּׂ֨א יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ — yisah Hashem panav eilecha . . .
As our students end this school year, may they be lifted by each word of Torah they have studied in depth, and may the sameness and differences among us give us comfort and inspiration.
Shabbat Shalom