Welcome to the wilderness.  This is the name of the 4th book in the Torah that we started to read this week.  It is also the name of this weeks parsha (Torah portion).  In Hebrew, we would pronounce it b’meedbar.  The other name for this book is Numbers because this is the book where we count the number of people who heard the, “Word of god.”

Enough of the theatrics, let’s delve into the book and the parsha.  We start off with haShem (god) speaking to Moshe (Moses) in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting on the first day of the second month of the second year after leaving Egypt.  If I have my facts straight, this is about 3 weeks after the mishcan (tabernacle) was first erected, Aharon and his sons are initiated into the priesthood (with 2 of the sons dying), and we have had about 3 weeks of daily sacrifices and a couple of shabbats.  Everything is still new, but people are also beginning to get the hang of this new life.  Moshe goes into god’s new house/tent and god starts to talk to him there.

And this is what god tells Moshe:

Count the community of the children of Yisrael by families along the fathers’ line, a count of the names on the skulls of every male over twenty who can join the legions.  The counters are Moshe, Aharon, and one man from each of the tribes, whose names we are given, and they are the heads of thousands.

We then read how many of these, “Names on the skulls,” are in each tribe (excluding the tribe of Levi), and what the total count is.  The tribe of Levi, god says, is not to be counted because they are in charge of the holy house of god and all its things, including the setup, take down, and carrying.  The parsha tells us that the Levis camp around the mishcan to prevent anger and then goes into where each tribe will camp.  In the east is Yehuda (Judah), with Yissachar and Zevulum.  To the south is Reuvan with Shimon and Gad.  In the west is Yoseph (Joseph) split into his two sons, Ephraim and Manasah, and Rachel’s other son, Benyamim (Benjamin).  And in the north is Dan with Asher and Naphtali.  For those keeping count, we again are told the number of men in the legions of each tribe and how many of these men are camped in each direction. And of course that everybody does as god commands.

We then get a listing of Aharon’s offspring, after which we read that god tells Moshe to bring forward the tribe of Levi to minister to Aharon and his sons, because god took the Levis in place of the first born which belong to god in exchange for killing the first born in Egypt.  We now get a count of the males of the tribe of Levi who are at least 1 month old, according to their father’s houses.  We also read about which part of the mishcan each family is responsible to carry.  The Torah then tells us that there are more first born men then Levis, and the difference must be redeemed and how to do this.

And finally we read how the cohanim (priests: Aharon and his sons) are to wrap up all the parts of the mishcan so nobody in the K’hati family of the tribe of Levi will accidentally come in contact with one of the holy objects and die.

What we have here is the foundation for a new life:  life in the bmeedbar and life surrounding the home of god.  How interesting that we read about this during the week of foundation.

Ok, I already see a few of you scratching your heads, so let me explain.  Starting from the second day of Pesach (Passover), the Torah tells us to bring sheaves of grain to the house of god.  This is to happen every day for seven weeks.  The day after, the 50th day, is the holy day we call Shavuot (which means weeks in Hebrew).

Well, today, when we count the omer (the sheaves of grain), we are not really counting sheaves of grain; instead, we count the lower seven spherot (literally circles) of the tree of life:  the first week we count chesed (loving kindness), the second, gevorah (strength, restriction, discipline), all the way to this week which is yesod which means foundation.

Now, within each week is seven days and each day represents one of the spherot within the weekly spherot.  So, the first day is the chesed inside of chesed, the second day is the gevorah within chesed, etc. This shabbat will be the day of netzhak within yesod, or the eternal within foundation.

Actually, we don’t just count and say this day is chesed of chesed, of gevorah of chesed.  We also try to find that attribute deep within us, and activate it or bring it forth.  The idea being that if we can activate all these 49 attributes in a positive way, then we will be completely ripe and ready to fully receive the Torah, which happened/happens on the 50th day, on Shavuot.

So, coming back from this little digression, I found it very interesting that this week is the week of yesod or foundation, and this shabbat, the day of the eternal within foundation, is the shabbat that we read about the eternal foundation of the Jewish people.

Before I end this, I do want to talk a tiny bit about the parsha itself.  I will keep it short as this is already getting a little long.  The Torah tells us that for each direction we have three tribes:  a primary and two secondary tribes.

To the east, the primary tribe is Yehudah (Judah).  Interestingly enough, the Torah also says that the entrance to the mishcan is to the east, so Yehudah is at the mouth of the mishcan.

The root of the word Yehudah means gratitude, and his mother, Leah, gave him the name because she was grateful to god for giving her four sons.  I can already hear you mumbling the question, “So what?” under your breath.

The, “So what,” goes like this:  after the destruction the temple, the sages pointed out that, while we have no actual temple, each one of us is really a small temple, because each one of us houses a part of god:  our soul.  The sages proceed to go into detail saying what part of the body is the menorah, the incense alter, etc.  I am not going to do that here.  Instead I just want to point out that, just as Yehudah or gratitude was placed at the mouth of the mishcan (the precursor to the temple), so too should words of gratitude always be ready to come out of our mouths – the mouth of our personal temple.

May gratitude be the foundation all our lives

If you care to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.